I'd been counting down to Spring on my Scrabble-style letter magnetic board since I took down my Christmas stuff. I think it was in the 60+ day range back then, and it dwindled down to the single digits with only one brief spring-like period a couple weeks ago. But at least the sidewalks were finally clear and I could walk comfortably for a week or two. It was so nice. Then it was windy for days, including one spring-like day a couple weeks ago, before the temperature dropped like 50 degrees overnight and we woke up to three inches of snow. It's been mostly cold pretty much ever since, and despite the official arrival of Spring last Friday, it sure hasn't felt like it. We had another 50 degree drop the other night, in fact, after a few mild hours. We've had so much rain, too. I'm officially over it. I am ready for warmth and sun. It seems like it might start improving soon, but with everything else that's been going on, the cold, dreary, rainy weather has nearly been the straw that broke the camel's back on my joy.
We've had a lot going on since the end of Jacob's basketball season. He unfortunately hasn't been feeling great since he had the flu. He crammed in those last few games, but his energy level has been way down, and we suspect he has some sort of post-viral fatigue. Of course, it's not the easiest thing to get diagnosed and we've been exploring our options trying to get him help. We did blood work that his doctor had previously ordered, and it was all pretty much normal, so we didn't get a lot to go on there. The one thing we did notice is that even though he supplements Vitamin D pretty heavily, his level is still on the low end of normal. So, whether that's a Celiac thing (although those levels are perfect) or some other quirk of his system, we're not sure. I did get on him a bit last week when he told me he's been taking a double dose of magnesium glycinate (which he says is still low compared to some people). That stuff made me SO tired, and I'm like, is it possible it's making this worse? He did feel a little better after he went down on his dose, though it also coincided with him not being as exhausted as the previous day, which was after a very late night going to March Madness games in Buffalo. I don't think that's all of what's happening, but I think between that and his anxiety, it could be making it worse.
We talked to a couple functional medicine places last week, as their holistic perspective of connecting the dots on various issues seems like something he could use. However, they're not covered by insurance and they are prohibitively expensive--like thousands of dollars over a year, plus more for testing. We saw his pediatrician earlier this week, but he didn't have a lot to offer since the blood work was normal. He said some doctors won't even take referrals of someone with no visible problem areas in their blood work. But clearly the fatigue is an issue, especially for an athlete. While we could go the holistic route eventually, my goal before that is to try to access different doctors that are covered by insurance, to see if we can create a similar plan that would find anything else that might be causing him issues. Thankfully, one of Craig's Knighthawks medical contacts did mention an immunologist that might be able to help with the post-viral issue, so hopefully we can get in there soon.
It all got extra complicated last Friday night. He'd spent the day with some arm pain--presumably in line with sleeping on it wrong--but by evening it had ramped way up. Of course, this was after having just gone to the pediatrician (the first time) to see if they could give him any guidance on the fatigue. I think he was panicking a bit because he was expected to practice with his travel team, and he knew he couldn't do it, so he really wanted to get to the doctor that night. He got mono and strep tests--both negative--but we only saw the nurse practitioner and she said we were better off seeing his doctor, hence the second visit. But he didn't mention the arm pain when we were there because he didn't think it was relevant. By this point he was freaking out that it was a blood clot or something, but ChatGPT came to the rescue with a few tests that strongly indicated it was a pinched nerve situation. I suggested ibuprofen and heat, but he was still concerned and unconvinced. He went to see a Knighthawks trainer for some peace of mind since Craig was at practice. Of course, when he woke up Saturday, the pain was gone, which was pretty much what I expected as a middle-aged adult who's had more than one body part hurt in the morning and reset with a good night's sleep. Ironically, I realized my really bad bout of back pain in January happened at a similar point post-flu, so I sort of wonder if that could be flu-related? Like some sort of weird inflammation working its way out?
So, it's been another rough round with Jacob and his anxiety, but we really want to get him some help for this fatigue before it impacts his travel basketball season too much more. We did decide to up his anxiety med dose, as it was low and it was clearly not even taking the edge off of this latest issue. While he's generally functional, it does still seem to me that he worries about a lot of things way more than a normal person, like being skeptical of food freshness or my preparation practices, or worrying about a simple health concern.
The other current issue is that he's pretty much dead-set on going to prep school. I have so many reservations about that--from the cost and him being away from home to his ability to manage his own life and what happens if, for whatever reason, it doesn't work for him--which I hate to assume, but given his history, it is a fair concern. He hasn't stayed anywhere for more than a couple years since middle school, and each place has had its share of downsides. There's no reason to believe this couldn't have downsides of its own (and actually there are far more things that could go wrong), and I worry a bit about what happens when he's stuck in that situation. Then he's away from home with a minimal support system, and he doesn't have many (any?) options if he leaves there to finish high school AND play basketball. It's easy enough to say that he'd have to suck it up, but having a kid who can get very despondent very easily, it's a little scary to be two hours away with zero control. On top of all that, I'm just not seeing any initiative on his end about becoming a functional-enough adult to live somewhat on his own. He doesn't clean up his own messes despite my constant nagging. He can't easily motivate himself to do school work. He struggles to get out of bed and get ready on time. When he insisted that part would be fine because he would only have to walk across the parking lot to get to class, I reminded him that time blindness is a part of ADHD and if his brain knows his "commute" is that short, it will adjust accordingly and tell him he can sleep late and still make it, even though that's not the case. And if he's tired, it's a toss-up if he'll even be able to drag himself out of bed. I just don't know how I feel about investing all of this money in so many unknowns. It just ticks me off that almost all of this is because his coach this year wasn't very good. He didn't play him enough despite Jacob proving his worth, he doesn't have the knowledge to make him a better player, and he doesn't have connections with college coaches that are so important at this stage. Oh, and it seems he didn't even nominate Jacob for their league all-star team this year (or if he did, it would be odd if the 2nd best 3-point shooter in our section didn't get voted in--in favor of a kid who averaged three points a game and missed a third of the season (who we love, but still...)). If he had a better coaching situation where he felt valued, respected, and properly led, he likely could have made it one more year at BK. But now, he really can't bring himself to go back for another year of that. So, we could have a crazy few months ahead of us. Suddenly 18 years seems like far too short to have prepared him for life. More analysis/freak-outs on this coming soon, I'm sure.
On the other hand, Carter is doing well. He had only a four-week interval between infusions this time because his med level was dropping too low and they wanted to see how he did with a dose increase and a shorter interval. The med level came back pretty good, so we get to go back to eight weeks for now. It's so reassuring that his blood work looks great, but in the next week or so, we'll do our first poop test in a while to see the calprotectin level, which measures inflammation in the digestive tract. His used to be sky-high (in the thousands when normal is around 100, or a little higher for those with controlled IBD), so I'm curious to see how that is looking now that he hasn't had symptoms in months. He's up over 40 pounds and has officially passed me in height, so clearly he's doing better. I just told him to stop using the ointment he's used on the corner of his mouth for a couple years because I suspect that if he lets it go, it might not come back now that his system is regulated. His next colonoscopy looms in July. But in the meantime, school baseball tryouts were this week and he made the Modified B team. Unfortunately it sounds like he just made it, as the coach made it sound like he wouldn't play much, but we're confident that if he shows what he can do in practice, he might get more of a chance. In the meantime, let's hope the weather warms up before games start. Travel baseball practices have been going for a couple months, but will take a little break now while modified is keeping most kids busy. I'm so excited to see how he does this year with a healthy body!
I can't really believe that Easter is only a week away. I felt like it took forever to get past St. Patrick's Day so I could put up my Easter and spring decor. I was oddly craving having my Polish eggs out, and I was excited to enjoy my glass eggs lit by LEDs. I was so excited about them that I ended up adding a glass bunny from Aldi this year. Those decorations make me happy, although part of that reason is because of the hope of spring weather, but that's currently still just a hope. I think my strong desire to have those decorations out is akin to the large role that simple pleasures played during the pandemic. Remember how people were putting up Christmas decor in October, just to have something to make them happy amidst the monotony of social distancing? I think right now is having much the same effect because the world feels like a big dumpster fire right now. On top of the usual political insanity of this administration, now we're at war with Iran, gas is approaching $4, TSA is still not funded because Trump is pressuring the House to block it, and every day things just keep getting weirder and weirder. There is a prevailing feeling of gaslighting when half the country is screaming about every atrocity, and the other half (who was screaming about similar atrocities during the last administration) is giving it all a free pass. I'm currently in that realm of trying to control what I can control, although admittedly, it doesn't feel like much. I'm getting PT (now more for my tennis elbow than my back), I'm en route to some executive function training despite not getting the ADHD diagnosis, and doing what I can to keep my house from looking like a tornado hit it. We just hit the 16th anniversary of moving into this house, and I'm having another round of "I miss loving this house the way we did when we moved in." It felt so spacious and bright back then, and obviously going from one tiny toddler to two teenagers, plus 16 years of stuff, has changed some of those feelings. But we definitely can't afford to move in this housing market, so I really think I need to do two things: 1) Get rid of stuff; and 2) Decide when the time is right to invest in some updates to make it feel like a new house. We've been meaning to do the kitchen since the pandemic, and there are a couple other things that could make a difference, as well. Just today I was staring at our office (which is now mostly a storage room) trying to envision how we could remake that into a better guest room. I even flipped the orientation of our kitchen table today to see if it fit right, thinking it might give us a little more space. It didn't, but it could work if there's just three of using it regularly if Jacob goes to prep school. I don't know, I'm just trying to find ways to love my house more, but truthfully, getting the rest of my family to help keep it neater would go a long way.
I'm still wishing for a change of scenery or something to look forward to, whether that's travel basketball season or a weekend away. We were hoping to all go to Oshawa this weekend with Craig, but Jacob had practice (that he's simply sitting through), and Carter's practice on Friday was later than Craig could wait for, so it's just me and the boys at home this weekend...again. Sigh. My Facebook memories reminded me today that three years ago this week was the start of Jacob's and my midwest travels, and while I would not want to relive that anxiety, the adventure sure was fun. I could use a little of that (80 degree weather included) right about now. We do have Easter next weekend, and Good Friday is always a favorite, but I'm honestly feeling a bit more overwhelmed than usual about planning food and all of that, so I'm not having my usual giddy anticipation. I'd also really like to think of something fun for the extra day I'm taking off Thursday (so as to not completely resent the boys being home on break all week).
So, long story short, our lack of spring is sort of screwing me over in the mental health department, as it could very easily be throwing me a bone right now to get through some of the other stresses floating around out there. Any day now...
No comments:
Post a Comment