Month: January 2019

Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease

Posted on by MICHELLE N

Thursday morning, when I changed William’s clothes to get ready for school, I noticed some visible bumps on his thighs; I thought it was bed bugs so I changed the bed skirt, pillow cases and comforter. He was scratching his angle; but I thought it was just skin irritation.

Later in the evening when I gave him a shower, those bumps now turned to light red; and then later in the night, they were more visible and those red dots appeared on his palms and his feet too. And he started to scratch more; that was when I started to worry.

I checked his body again early morning, the red dots are still there; that was when I decided to take a day off work and take him to the doctor. That was Friday morning.

Called the doctor Huy’s office at 9:00 AM to make appointment, got a spot at 11:00 AM. As soon as I showed Dr. Huy the red spots, he said right away “It’s Hand Foot Mouth Disease” while checking William’s mouth. Everything is normal in his mouth.

“But he had this 2 years ago, I thought one can have this only once in lifetime!” – I was so surprised.

“It’s can be different virus” – Dr. Huy replied.

“It’s gonna be gone in a few days, no need to take any medicine, just keep him at home to rest. If he feels pain, you can give him Children Tylenol or Benadryl for his itch”. He also prescribed some itchy cream.

So that was it! William got to stay home for a few days; I called Lincoln school, Children World preschool, TasKids to let them know about William’s condition.

TasKids asked us to send the doctor’s note as to when he can be safely go back to school.

By Sunday, all the red dots starting to disappear; he didn’t have fever or blistering; I was so glad that this time it was mild.

  • Foot
  • Palms
  • Thighs
  • Belly

  • Foot
Taking blood pressure
43 lbls at 5 years old, 3 feet high.
William can return to school on Tuesday.

It Hurts!

Posted on by MICHELLE N

Wednesday night while we were eating dinner, William pointed to his lower right teeth and said “It hurts!”, and he did not enjoy eating too much. Later in the early morning around 1:00 AM his cries woke me; I kept asking him “Where does it hurt?” but he didn’t reply. So I asked “Is it nose or mouth?”. “Nose!”, he said.

So I thought he had trouble breathing, but I looked closely on his face, his throat and stomach, he did not seem to have breathing issues at all but I still took out the albuterol nebulizer but he pushed it away. I also gave him 5ml of Loratadine for his allergies.

He went back to sleep and woke up again crying around 2 AM, then again 3:40 AM!

I wish he could tell me what was hurting him but he did not so I was sitting there looking at him and trying to guess what was wrong. I recalled he said his teeth hurt while eating dinner so my best guess is that his teeth was hurting, not his nose like he said.

So I pulled out a list of dentist that our Service Co-ordinator Kim Than gave me last time we meet. Called the one that she recommended, Tustin Pediatric Dentistry, but they don’t accept Medi-cal. Then I googled it, found a few near me, and decided to try the South Coast Pediatric Dentistry which is ranked #5 in Yelp. It was 8:00 AM, I called several times but all I got was the machine so I left a voice message. Around 9:10 AM someone called me back, and we settled for 11:00 AM appointment.

It was raining so hard outside; in fact it had been raining for a few days already!

William was still in deep sleep so I let him, poor little guy he could not sleep much last night. I woke him up around 9:30 AM so that he could have some breakfast before heading to the dentist. I only told him that we were going shopping :).

Swim Lessons

Posted on by MICHELLE N

Sunday 9:30 AM at Australian Swim School in Fountain Valley, inside the LA Fitness center.

William is still asking “No Swim” every time but when I said “If we swim today, no swim tomorrow!” he seems to be fine and let me put on his swim suit. Before he’d cry and kick.

The pool at this location is small, it has 3 lanes and there’s only 1 lane that’s designated for Australian Swim School, the other 2 lanes reserved for LA Fitness members. Now William is ok of getting into the pool but still refuses to use the noodles or boards. Some days he’d be ok with board but only after a few minutes of persuasion from the teacher. Some days the teacher (Christopher) just gave up and let William hold on to his arms or shoulders.

Today Christopher was sick so we got a substitute.

Australian Swim School just made new changes: the fee is increased and no make up allowed for cancellations except those that have doctor’s notes.

For those days that school closed due to holiday we can have whenever to schedule for make up, doesn’t have to be within 1 year.

Another School Day

Posted on by MICHELLE N

Fri 7:45 AM. William did not give me hard time when brushing his teeth today! Here’s a few pictures before we headed to school.

8:30 AM The nurse at school called, saying he’s been scratching his eyes and asking if it’s ok to give him Benadryl. I said “Yes” and asked the Nurse to tell the teacher to wash his hands and face.

He was fine when I dropped him off. There must be something got into his eyes that caused him to scratch. I also checked his breakfast/lunch menu, there’s no peanut served today.

It’s cold today..
School Menu for Jan 2019
Love my handsome son

No Awareness Of Safety

Posted on by MICHELLE N

Thursday Morning. Woke him up at 7:30 AM, as usual he whined when I was trying to get him brush his teeth; but today he kept whining while I put on lotion on his body and dressed him up. When I carried him out the door he whined again, “I want to turn off the light”, so I put him down on the bench, ran back to the bed room to turn off the light.

Taking him on his stroller to school. At the traffic light stop, as usual he always wants to press the button on the pole so I took him there; and he pressed it. When the walk light was on, I started to push the stroller, and he started to whine and put his feet down on the ground that I could not push the stroller: he wanted to push the button again! Of course, we missed that walk light so had to wait for the next walk light.

It did not end there, we finally got to the school gate, Ms. Newman and Sandy were busy picking up his friends from the bus, I un-buckled his seat bell and was getting his backpack out of the stroller, he stood up and started to run toward the road. I ran after him; and only could catch him when he stopped. Luckily that he stopped on the side walk, not on the middle of the road!

Watching him walked with his teachers and friends to the classroom behind the gate, I felt so sad and helpless. This is how my morning goes everyday, mostly depends on his mood on that day (today he was cranky), which draws all the energy from me. I really don’t mind doing the hard work, but the thought that he’d never get better, and I have to deal with this for the rest of my life really makes me feel down.

“No Gary!”

Posted on by MICHELLE N

Wednesday Noon 1:00 PM. Picked him up at Lincoln school; He wanted me to carry him up and I heard him said “Time to go home, no Gary!”. I wondered what happened at the daycare that he did not want to go.

When we got to the day care and I carried him to his tiny bed, he threw away his lunch box, luckily it did not his anyone, and ran out of the door. Yesterday he ran out of the door too.

So something must happened that makes him not want to go to the daycare. I asked his dad how William looks when he picked him up: “He looked fine, he ran to me when he saw me. Some times he was playing in the room, some time in Mr. Gary’s office.”

I wish he could talk so that he can tell me what’s going on and what’s his feelings are. I guess not being able to talk about what he feels really makes him feels frustrated and he has to act out.

ABA Hours Cut, Again!

Posted on by MICHELLE N

Monday 5:30 pm. ABA session as usual with BT Thomas and PC Jody. Huy also came to go over the report that they will submit to the director. At the end Huy concluded that William has mastered most of the goals so he wanted to cut 6 hours more which means ABA sessions will be reduced to 3 days instead of 5 days per week. So we will only have 9 hours for ABA and 8 hours for PC, effective Mar 2019.

On July, 2018 Huy cut ABA hours from 24 hours / week to 17 hours/week , and then on Nov decided to not send BT to the day care; now 6 months later he reduced further to 9 hours/week. So that’s a total of 15 hours that he took away from us within a year. At this rate he will soon declare that William will no longer need ABA!

I understand that as William is mastering some goals and we would not need that many hours as before but cutting that many hours within less than 1 year is outrageous. I hope his decision is based on what is best for William, not because his ambition to graduate his client as soon as possible. William’s tolerance to No is no where near master but he marked it as Mastered! I’m just too tired to fight; mostly because I know for sure that I’d loose in this fight. He’s the supervisor and he has the final word.

As the supervisor, wouldn’t he know to add more goals to the list: he marked “Discontinue” for 20 goals but only adding 5 more safety goals, which I raised concern about. Other than that he doesn’t suggest any other goals, there must be some other goals that an autistic child need that we;re not aware of, as this is our first time being a parent.

I felt sad and helpless and speechless!

I’m trying to look at the bright side so that I’d not feel so down: maybe now that William will have some available time to take gymnastics or martial arts classes which are not offered on the weekends.

Back To School

Posted on by MICHELLE N

Monday 8:00 AM. After 2 weeks of break, it’s back to school time. I woke William up around 7:25 AM, he refused to get up as usual, and the hardest part is to make him brush his teeth. Of course we don’t have much time in the morning so I ended up brush his teeth for him after all whining, crying, kicking. After brushing teeth, and his face is washed, he runs to sit on the bed and smile: a totally different attitude than few minutes ago. This happens every morning; nothing is improved!

Then I put lotion on his face, especially over his eyes because if I don’t, his skin will be dry and he’s gonna scratch his eyes like crazy. Lotion really helps a lot. And more lotion all over his body before I dress him up: jean, uniform polo, socks, jacket and ready to go! I try to finish everything by 7:45 AM so that we’d be at school before 8:00 AM. The teachers usually pick up the kids around 7:50 AM from the bus, so if we miss this time, we’ll have to wait till 8:00 AM, when the teacher comes out again to pick up whoever was not picked up yet.

Zero Tolerance for “No”

Posted on by MICHELLE N

Saturday 9:30 PM on our bed. William saw me reaching out for the phone so he tried to take it away from me. I said, “No, William, it’s time to sleep”. He repeatedly said “I want the phone” but I refused to give it to him. I was sitting on the bed and he was standing next to me. He kicked me on my head!

That was the first time ever he used his leg to kick me; before used his hand to hit on my face or body but never his leg; I was so shocked! He attempted to hit me several more time after that even though I told him ‘Hitting is not nice.’