Biting the Medication Bullet

It’s come to my realization that I’m a “now” kind of Veruca Salt-like person with some weighty patience issues.  I want everything fixed NOW!  I want my house clean now, my new curtains made now, my dining room carpet ripped up now, and weight loss now.

And I want my child to pack his own backpack now, make eye contact with adults now, finish his homework legibly now, and gracefully lose a soccer game now.

NOW!

God, however, is not a “now” kind of person.  His timing is always perfect, but it’s rarely the timing I would choose at the time I’m assessing the timing.

(How many people have I lost at this point?)

I have been fiddling around with our gluten-free/casein-free/egg-free pancake recipe lately, and have found it hard to attain a lovely golden brown color on the outside while at the same time rendering the inside reasonably fluffy.  When I turn the burner on “high,” I get a perfect pancake center with dark, charred-like outside edges.

Yet when I turn down the heat to try a more moderate approach, the pancakes look lovely and golden on the outside, but are runny-raw on the inside.

(At one point my children actually asked me if the liquid part was some kind of “pudding filling.”  That just proves how much I have snowed them regarding my own cooking abilities because anyone who knows me remotely well knows I would never be able to carry off such a complicated culinary feat as a “pudding filling.”)

The other day, however, I was attempting to multi-task and craft pancakes at the same time, which only resulted in an equal amount of black-lace pancakes and raw dough ones.  I finally turned off the burner and walked away in disgust, leaving the last pancake to languish in the pan.

When I returned, however, lo and behold I found the most perfectly browned, delicately cooked pancake!

OK, obviously many lessons can be learned here.  When I leave things alone, quit pushing, and stop trying to control everything I slide over and let God take the driver’s seat.

Below you will find a list of most of the supplements, treatments, tinctures, educational options that we have tried over the years with our sweet Edward.  I must confess, that before I started each one of them, I fully believed that this treatment would be the one to help us round the curve, crest the hill, truly make a “night and day” difference.

NOW!

I would hold dear all the conversations I’d had in waiting rooms with other mothers who “ooowed and awwwed” over this therapy or that intervention that caused their child to finally be verbal, or, gasp, even lose their diagnosis.

Here’s our list:

*Floortime * Homeschooling * Tutoring * Kumon *EMDR * Music Therapy* BrightSpark* Focus Formula* Attend* Memorin* GF/CF Diet * Feingold Diet* The Listening Program * TOMATIS * Interactive Metronome Therapy*  Chiropractic * Defeat Autism Now Protocol (DAN) * Occupational Therapy * Physical Therapy * Social Skills Groups & Camps *  “How Does Your Engine Run?” Program * Joint Compression *Brushing Therapy * Hippotherapy * Homeopathic Attention Aids *Social Skills Camp *Private School *Public School *Part-time Public School *Swimming *Soccer *Gymnastics *T-Ball *Superflex Social Skills *Model Me Social Skills *

Now I can add *Stimulant and Non-Stimulant Medications* to that list.  Yes, I have freaked out for years in fear of all things pharmaceutical for my child.  We tried mild stimulants off and on a few times last year with no results, other than 48 hours of wakefulness and lots of stimming and perseveration.

After meeting several times with a new psychiatrist, we have decided to try a different medication that, guess what, takes a rather long time to potentially work.  The irony of this is certainly not lost on me.

Am I saying that my child is a slow-cook pancake?

Maybe.

Am I saying that God is teaching me to be more of a slow-cook pancake type of person?

Definitely.