March 13

We let Sarah take Monday-Thursday off from kindergarten. We decided each day at a time. If she said she didn’t want to go I said that was ok. It felt really good to back off from pushing her at all (realizing from the previous week that pushing her to go was not benefitting anyone and was harder for her than I initially knew). Friday she did go to school but with Sonia there right outside the classroom so that Sarah knew she could leave at any moment if she needed to go home for any reason. Sarah stayed the whole time! (We also are now aware that it would be good to focus on helping Sarah not speak when others are speaking. Apparently she has times of talking to herself and not quieting upon request for long stretches of time. I didn’t know that this has been going on for the past month at school.) 

After school on Friday I took Sarah to be evaluated by a public school evaluator. I liked the person very much and even though I wasn’t in the room the snippets I heard from Sarah suggested that she was in fine form. Now we wait for the results and recommendations. Sitting in the office of the public school for two hours wasn’t the best selling point for me wanting Sarah to go there, but I realize her classroom would be a different environment and hopefully less loud and busy. We are still planning to hopefully find a good placement for her for next year but if nothing seems right then I am more at peace with the idea of continuing homeschooling.

I had several wonderful play sessions with Sarah and I felt like we really reconnected this week. She wants me around more than she has sometimes expressed, including wanting me to sit with her for her 10 minutes with the iPad. 

I read an amazing book that a friend recommended: It’s No Accident by Steve Hodges. This gives me a whole different perspective on what may have been going on in Sarah’s body recently. It is possible that it wasn’t related to food at all, or not in the way I thought. (We are still going to retest her blood regarding a possible allergy/intolerance to wheat and eggs.) I now know that apparently it is possible to be having daily bowel movements with good output and still be chronically backed up and carrying a backlog of poop. This is very common with kids who hold or used to hold it in. Sarah was an expert holder-inner for years. So it is possible that her body just reached capacity and that is why we were dealing with dirty undies for so many many many days/nights. We now seem to be in the clear but I want to discuss things with her doctor and maybe get an x-ray or ultrasound of her bowels to see what is really going on in there. If there is a backlog then there are steps to take to clear it. I wish that more professionals understood this possibility and could have mentioned it to me when I described our situation. While we do not know for sure what is going on, this possibility makes so much sense to me and relieves a feeling of guilt that maybe I recently screwed up with her food. 

Speaking of body situations… I received an occipital nerve block on Thursday to hopefully interrupt my cluster headache cycle. I was terribly nervous. I don’t like needles, I don’t like signing waivers that have any mention of death, I don’t like needles in the back of my head. However, I do like my doctor and I do want the headaches to stop. I have not had any headaches since the injections beyond a level 1 (10 being a level at which bashing my head on a bathroom sink seems attractive). I also understand my whole situation more than I previously had. Apparently, all of my times of toughing it out have been strengthening the pattern of pain and making my body more used to it so more likely to continue doing headaches. Sigh. Now I have a few more things to do if/when I get a headache to interrupt it sooner. I am needing to retrain my brain/body to not do headaches. I can take Aleve. I will order oxygen. My idea is also that when I feel even a whisper I focus on the left side of my head which feels good, healthy, and normal. My doctor said in her ten years of giving people nerve blocks, I have the tightest muscles in my occipital region (lower back of my head) than anyone she has ever seen. I do like to be the best! :) So I am going to do Alexander Technique constructive rests once or twice a day until this headache pattern is clear, and hopefully I can continue beyond that. I am going to be more attentive when I give massages to not over-tighten my hands and arms because I feel that pattern of tension travel right up to my head. I can tell that my patterns also includes over-tightening my legs and torso. It is a whole body pattern, not just something in my occiput. The tension is the chicken and the egg regarding the headaches because my muscles get crazy tight during a headache because I am in such pain. Anyway, it feels good to understand the situation more fully and be able to take steps to ameliorate it.

To end on an amazing note, Sarah buttoned Amy’s dress for her! I love this so much. Sarah also joined Amy in riding on a broom-horse and in using chalk to color our swing set. I love how often Sarah joins Amy in her play.

May you all have easy neck muscles and new understandings about any struggles.