What do you mean, I can't do it all?

After way too long without health insurance (for me, the kids can't go a day without coverage :P), I was finally able to visit a primary care doctor today for the first time in years. Finding a doctor in this area taking new patients with my insurance was like finding a needle in a hay stack. I called many places and finally stumbled upon Dr. O. All I can say is maybe it was just meant to be that I found him. He is so kind and compassionate...and...a few years back when he first emigrated here from Nigeria, he worked as a CNA for an agency with special needs children. One of his clients was, in fact, an autistic boy. OMG, does he honestly understand?

Without going into too many personal details, since after all this blog is mostly about my little ones, he begged me to get Little Man's overnight nursing shift filled. He was glad I have four hours a day currently, but he said that between the two boys I just can't keep this pace up. My body is going to start making it's unhappiness known and it won't be in a small way. What?? I'm superwoman! I can do it all, alone, with no sleep. I have for years. Oh wait...you mean that's the problem?

So that got me thinking, exactly what do I do in a day? Let's take tomorrow for example.

• 6:30-7:00 am Get Little Man up, get him showered, teeth brushed, hair brushed, and dressed. Yes, he's 10 but these all must be constantly supervised and directed. While I'm getting Little Man ready, Beans usually plays or gets himself dressed.
• 7:00-7:30 am Give Little Man his meds, make sure he has his backpack ready, shoes and glasses on, jacket if needed, write any notes to his teacher and wait outside for the bus with him.
• 7:30 -7:45 am Get Little Man on the bus, give Beans his meds and make sure he's dressed, and has brushed his hair and teeth.
• 7:45 am Prepare Beans formula, gather his tube feeding supplies and feed him his 300 cc bolus.
• 8:00 am Beans gets his shoes on while I check his backpack and write any notes.
  
• 8:15 am Beans leaves on the van.
• 8:15 - 9:00 am I shower, get dressed and do all my morning stuff.
• 9:00 - 10:00 am Here's when I make my miscellaneous phone calls and take care of business stuff for the kids - tomorrow this includes calling Little Man's developmental ped, Beans' GI, Beans' Home Health and Little Man's CMS nurse.
• 10:00 - 3:00 pm I'm at school
• 3:00 - 3:30 pm Check emails and communications for my online classes
• 3:30 - 4:00 pm Beans gets home, we go over anything he brought home, talk about his day and spend a few minutes together.
• 4:00 - 4:30 pm Little Man gets home, we go over his daily sheet. I usually get him a snack and he starts an activity like the computer or something.
• 4:30 - 5:30 pm Little Man's nurse takes care of him while I work on my online classes, at 5:00 I give Beans another 300 cc bolus.
  
• 5:30 - 6:30 pm I cook dinner, we eat, I clean up
• 6:30 - 7:00 pm More school work for me
• 7:00 pm Give the kids their meds. Little Man's nurse gets him bathed, teeth brushed and pjs on. Beans will read a story with me, take his shower, then put his pjs on.
• 8:00 pm Kids go to bed. I give Beans another bolus then get back to homework while Little Man's nurse makes sure they go to sleep.
• 9:00 pm The nurse leaves
• 9:00 - 1:00 am Online classwork, with a pause for another feeding for Beans at 11
  
• Sometime after that I try to get sleep between the night wakings of both kids
  

And somewhere in all that I try to fit in the housework and some sort of fun for the little guys. We have a busy life, but I thought I had a grasp on things. Lol. It's okay, once I have my degree and a nice job maybe I can hire some help for those things I just don't have time for now...or maybe I'll lose my mind. ;)

Anyways, while I was at the doctor the kids stayed at our friends' house. My friend, M, had today off and Little Man loves to play with her daughter T. M was so kind to take the position of first non-professional, non-family to watch both my kids. Wow! What a brave woman! Apparently the kids had the best time together and M survived, in fact she actually looked calm when I got back to pick them up. 8-0 She and I chatted for a while...and that's where I wish I could leave off for tonight...but since this is about the adventures and MISadventures, here you go...

When it was time to leave Little Man turned into a monster! He has not been like this in at least 9 months! After a couple warnings and explaining while he was calm, he went into T's room and pretended to be asleep, hiding under her desk. Skipping some details here, but I ended up having to drag him out of the house (quite literally, he's 94 pounds now, no way I can carry him) cause he refused to get up. When we got to the door he magically awoke (yeah right) and the real fun started. I have claw marks down my arm, was punched several times, he cussed me out in front of my friend and T's little brother, and was impossible to get into the car. Thankfully Beans took his shoes and jacket and waited in the car for us. I have no idea how long I struggled with him, but it was horrible. Horrible's not even the word for it. The only thing he'd calm down for was when sweet T came up and gave him a hug and told him it was okay. That was incredibly precious.

I finally got him in the car, he locked the doors so I couldn't get in. I had the keys so I waited for him to stop hitting the lock doors button and hopped in. He popped right out his door. I was so ready to cry and steaming mad at this point. Finally, finally I got him in the car and we made it home. I gave him an emergency dose of his Klonopin and he was back like nothing had even happened. He apologized many times, but geez....

I'm pretty sure the cause of this sudden aggression issue is the recently added Periactin to prevent his migraines. It's mainly an antihistamine and he reacted similarly to Claritin and Zyrtec when he was younger. Even now if he has more than one dose of Benadryl within a couple day span he starts having these issues. So tomorrow I'm calling the doctor and pleading with her for something else to prevent his headaches. In the meantime, he's not having one more dose of this one. He is too big for me to handle when he's like that now. I was seriously on the verge of having to call 911 for help.

But, all that's history now. He's back to his calm self this evening and did well at his guitar lesson. Hopefully he behaves for his teacher tomorrow and his doctor can find something else to help him. I never said our life was boring. ;)