My apologies

I know that I have kind of let this blog slip over the past few months, and I apologize for that.  The truth is, I've kind of been afraid to write anything about how Monster Man has been doing.  Just when I start to write that things are going really well for him, he has a turn-around, which then gets flipped back to the good side whenever I start to write about that.  The roller-coaster we call life has had so many ups and downs lately, and I'm afraid if I get high enough on one hill to share the view, we'll go spiraling downhill faster than I can ever imagine.

School has been going pretty well for Monster Man.  His grades had slipped a little at the beginning of the school year, but they've risen at a rather fast rate, and he's shown a significant amount of improvement.  He had mostly B's and C's his first grading period, and he's now up to all A's and B's.  He's starting to make a few new friends, and he's finally finding things that excite him about some of his classes.  I am so proud of him for working so hard to succeed in school.

Our home life has been particularly challenging.  Some days, we don't know what is typical preteen boy attitude and sibling rivalry, and what is his Tourettes and rage.  Other days, it's very obvious that Tourette Syndrome is taking hold of my sweet boy and shaking him up.  We'll go days - or even weeks - without a major episode of rage.  Then everything that he must've been bottling up during that time just seems to explode from inside.  Whenever possible, we try to let him stay in his room where he can release all the anger and frustration without having to worry about anyone getting in the path of his sometimes violent behavior.  When his rage does reach that violent point, however, we're still relying heavily on the anti-histamine his doctor had previously prescribed for anxiety. The good news is that we seem to be having more good days then bad.

His tics have become a part of our daily life, with very short periods of off-time in the typical wax-wan pattern that is common with Tourette Syndrome.  Thankfully, most of those are easy to live with for all of us, especially for Monster Man.  Who cares if he's blinking a lot, clearing his throat, tapping his hands (a new tic), sniffling, or chewing his fingers (a tic we've been dealing with for several years without me realizing it was a tic)?  We'll take those tics if it means having our sweet boy around!

Wax and Wan

Just as is characteristic of the tics associated with Tourette Syndrome, Monster Man's painful tic has wanned for now.  Tics seem to go through a wax and wan cycle.  They come, they go.  Some reappear.  Some stay gone.  We are hoping that this is one that will not make a reappearance.

Monster Man has had a number of tics that have stayed gone for quite some time after they've disappeared.  Some of them have been gone for so long that we are hopeful that they are gone permanently.  These all tend to be the more complex ones, too, like the painful tic or the 'take three steps and kick myself in the back of the leg' tic.

In place of the painful tic, Monster Man seems to have developed a head shaking tic.  He doesn't shake it all the time.  Instead, it's a sudden big shake, similar to a female tossing her hair over her shoulders in beach scenes in movies.  It involves a good portion of his upper body, from about his chest up, twisting to the side as he shakes his head like this.  I have seen this one before, about three or four months ago, and it lasted about a week last time.  It will be interesting to see how long it will stick around this time.