I think we're close to a new record here...Sam is nearing one and a half hours of non-stop bodybashing in desperation to get himself off to sleep. And the only change in this evening's routine I can pin it down to is the fact that he had his bath before his dins, instead of after as usual, thanks to our wonderfully efficient powers-that-be choosing a Sunday evening to be the headstart of loadshedding. I thought it best to give Sam his bath before the water in the geyser cooled too much as the only thing worse than Sam having his bath at a different time would be him not having it at all. So instead of the usual 30-45mins of bodybashing we're doing double time. Yay us!
Another new record and, at least a celebration-worthy one, (I think) would be that for the first time in over a week Sam pee'd in his nappy today. He will sometimes have his morning wee in his nappy, but even then has held it in until we take him to the potty. But aside from the occasional morning wee, we are basically just using one nappy a day which usually gets binned bone dry. Here's why there's a bit of concern regarding what would usually be a mind blowing accomplishment for a child with Sam's challenges...it seems as if Sam is now afraid to go in his nappy. So I have to make sure I take him to potty regularly otherwise he holds it in for hours. Here's how that gets even trickier...as mentioned here before, Sam does not sit on anything unfamiliar to him. And by unfamiliar I mean something that is not a very regular part of Sam's daily routine. Let me give you an example, during the week we very seldom go anywhere as a family. But over weekends we will travel as a family in Chris's car which has a kiddies chair in it but because Sam does not sit in that chair every day, each weekend's travelling is as traumatic for him as if he were being placed in that chair in that car for the very first time in his life. The first journey or two he is so petrified that he can barely breathe and just hangs onto the sides of the seat as if he were dangling dangerously over the edge of a cliff. Eventually by Sunday he'll chill enough to shakingly (yes, really) hold onto a book. And then it's mom's car again for 5 days and we're back to square one! So getting Sam to use a public toilet is not (and I fear, never will be) an option. On Thursday I had to run a few errands and take Sam in for a scan en route as well. We were in the car for at least 3 hours, during which time Sam drank a bottle. When we got home his nappy was completely dry! This evening he was sitting on the bed with me and all of a sudden frantically grabbed his nappy and gestured towards the bathroom. I was beyond flabbergasted...it was the first time he'd indicated to me on his own that he wanted to use the potty as opposed to me just taking him every hour on the hour. When I opened his nappy there were two or three little wet drops...he must have suddenly realised (for whatever the reason) that he needed to be doing this standing up :D
Never in my wildest dreams did I ever have imagine that Sam would not only be potty-trained by 5yrs old, but within ONE WEEK! I mean HALLO!
And certainly worthy of a second mention (especially as the first one was a Faceboast) while sitting schooling with Sam one morning, he breezed through 48 flashcards of the 50 I had presented to him for reading. One super chaffed mom here :)
Okay so onto the scan...the aim of which was to determine whether the little mass of tissue in Sam's scrotum was the died-off remains of Sam's sole surviving testicle or rather something else, leaving the question as to where that little testicle might be hiding.
So the good news is that the little sac was completely empty (good in that if it wasn't a teste it might have been something more sinister) and that our missing teste was located in the inguinal canal, alive and well, and not yet completely homeward bound to just under Sam's ribs where he and his deceased brother had originally been relocated from. Phew! We will have to attempt bringing the teste down again but seeing as Sam's grommets are hanging at odd angles from his eardrum, I'm waiting patiently for that first ear infection (should come early next year) and then we can group these two procedures together along with a thorough Glaucoma examination under anaesthesia which Sam has not had in 18 months.
And, on a bit of a sad note, I've had to chop Sam's lovely boyband style hair off! He's developed this really unsettling habit of yanking his hair out in handfuls and hitting himself aggressively on the head. At a loss of what might be causing this new behaviour and in sheer desperation to see it end, I hoped that perhaps with Summer settling in it was simply Sam's way of trying to tell me that he was getting too warm under that lovely mop of hair. Unfortunately, although the hair-yanking has obviously stopped, Sam still keeps hitting himself on the head. It is rather disturbing. Since Sam has been on the Risperdal he has developed an alarming number of bad habits and side-effects...but what a Catch 22 situation! Despite the amount of time it takes to fall asleep, Sam does definitely get more sleep than before the Risperdal. But it is still not what I would call quality sleep and is loaded with all these other new issues! What to do...what to do!
