Sunday, July 26, 2009

If It Doesn't Make Sense....

Last night we had supper with a friend who moved away about a year ago. She thought Daughter looked terrible. Her depression was obvious immediately, and her tremors interfered with her ability to hold and eat her sandwich. Tomorrow afternoon I take her to see Psychiatrist. It will be interesting to see what she thinks. I had called over a week ago and talked to a nurse about the tremors, and took her in last Saturday for lithium and depakote levels. This week I got a message from a different nurse telling me her blood levels were fine, and I shouldn't change anything. That wasn't helpful. I'm still wondering if the tremors are a result of her changing to generic Keppra for her seizures.
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Today after church Daughter lobbied had for a trip to Town for Mexican food, and since I was tired and wanted to get some hamburger and buns for tonight to go with the fresh picked corn one of the saints brought to church, I agreed. When she checked her blood sugar before lunch, I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. Her blood sugar had been a little high this morning, and it hadn't been that long since breakfast, so I was expecting a higher number.
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We came home and had a pleasant afternoon watching the Sound of Music together. Munchkin Mom had gotten the music stuck in my head, and I was singing the songs on the way home from the City last night. Daughter and I were having a friendly discussion about words and tunes. We decided we needed to watch the movie.
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After the movie, she fell asleep, and I finally pried myself out of the recliner and went downstairs to begin preparing supper. I was weighing out hamburgers for tonight and the freezer, preparing 4 ears of corn, starting water boiling and lighting the grill, when Daughter came downstairs. "Oh. I thought you'd have it ready by now."
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I asked her to clear off the table and get out the condiments. I put the hamburgers on the grill, and then came in and put the corn in the boiling water. Daughter critiqued what I was doing. I came in with the hamburgers and she was on the phone and hadn't gotten the condiments out like I asked her to. I asked again, and my frustration showed through. She informed me that after supper she was going to go to her room because she didn't have to put up with my attitude.
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I got the corn out and buttered and salted it (she can't/won't cook corn or butter and salt it). We sat down to eat and she checked her blood sugar. It was very high. "Is there anything you want to tell me?"
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"No, I haven't been into anything."
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I drew up the appropriate amount of insulin, and she took it. I sat there pondering the puzzle of her blood sugars-- they didn't make sense. Bingo. "Please give me your meter."
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"There's something I need to tell you."
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"Yes?"
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"My blood sugar wasn't 106 before lunch."
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"What was it?"
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"206."
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Sigh.
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So now not only do I have to keep her pills and insulin locked up and watch her take them, I have to check her meter to make sure she's telling me the truth about the reading.
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It is exhausting. Instead of becoming more independent, she's becoming less.

2 comments:

Miz Kizzle said...

I'm sorry you're going through this mess with your daughter. My kids are all neurotypical (I guess that's the politically correct word for what we used to call "normal") but I noticed the same sort of thing with them. It didn't involve lying but as soon as they sensed that more maturity was expected of them they started to revert to younger behavior: not cleaning their rooms, forgetting to do chores and just acting spacey sometimes.
I especially noticed this before the youngest one went away to sleep away camp for the first time and before the oldest one started college. I have no idea what cause it, maybe fear that their dad and I will ask too much of them? Nostalgia for less responsible days? Who knows. But it was definitely there.
I hope your daughter works her way out of it. Does she want to live more independently someday of do you think she wants to stay with you forever?
BTW, my kids all eventually snapped out of the immature phase and they're doing very well. My daughter is such a good companion and we have a lot of fun together just talking and hanging out. I hope you have days where it's like that for you and your daughter.

Reverend Mom said...

Thanks Miz Kizzle. We know that anytime there is talk of Daughter moving out for supported living or she talks about wanting to live independently, she begins doing things to prove she isn't ready. I told her last week we aren't even going to talk about whether she is ready for a year, so I don't want to hear anything about it until July of next year, and then we'll talk about if she's ready to begin thinking about it.

Psychiatrist thinks she may be experiencing seizure activity due to the change to the generic. So, now I get to follow up with Neurologist. She said seizure activity would explain many of her problems right now.

Tonight Daughter seems to be in a more cooperative mood, so maybe we're through the worse of it. I can hope. I always hope.