Blood -Round TWO

Today, we went for another round of blood draw for Jaden. His doctor has advised us to do another round of test after his second round of drug-based antifungal, just to test his liver, kidney and have a complete blood count once again to make sure he is in the pink of health before we embark on this procrastinated chelation journey.

This time. I have another mother who joined me this trip, bringing her son along for his blood test too. Hers is rather extensive compared to Jaden this time round. Hers must be similar to Jaden's first blood draw last year in December.

I called the lab this morning and enquire about foreigners doing the procedure and what is it that they must bring. Turns out to be only the passport and of course the prescription letter by the doctor.

As I walked in through that glass door with Jaden, the lab technician and the receptionist took a look at me and say, AGAIN? 

i am a little amused that they remembered both Jaden and I. Must be their first time having to draw 3.5 tubes of blood from a child.

BUT little did they know that this time, they are going to have to draw from two children. ASD children at that. Its a challenge, I am telling you.

I mean, if you tell a neurotypical kid not to move, at least they understand a little and will be scared and not move that much but our children, the ones that are most sensitive to touches and us having to hold them down and strangers poking needles into their arms, they of course will scream their head off and try to fight their way out from those firm grasp. 

Jaden only had to draw one tube of blood this time and since his vein was exceptionally easy to find and poke into, blood was just running out as fast as they could as soon as they poke the needle in. It was over in like less than a minute. 

My friend's boy had a different case. Finding the veins in him was difficult, and that of course has got him started struggling and crying. I really felt for both mother and child. 

Worst thing was that his blood was so thick, it takes a loooong time to fill up even a tube and we had to rest for a while before switching arms to draw blood from the other arm. Blood traces was found splattered over his tshirt and mummy's arm as well.

The mom told me she was near to tears while she was singing twinkle twinkle little stars to help calm her son down while they were drawing blood from him. I totally understand how she feels. 

Her case took rather a while, as for us, while they were busy drawing blood from the little boy, I had to take Jaden off to the toilet to collect his pee sample. I am glad we have finally got him to pee on demand so it really made life easier, not having me to make two trips to the lab.

Of course the boys were in tears after the thing, but they quickly recovered from all that, and was themselves again while we mothers, especially my friend, was much more stressed out than her son.

It is always a pain to see our child in pain, wishing we could take the pain for them instead, don't we?

Anyway, now that this is over and hopefully we don't have to do it for a loooong loooong time, we shall just wait for the results and hope everything is on the normal or better range.

Insomnia

These has been going on with me for several days now, happened the past few weeks too where I can't seem to fall asleep, no matter how I try to shut my mind off. I just can't sleep.

Time seems to go by slowly while I toss and turn in my bed, wrapped under my comforter, hoping that my movements will not wake my little precious up.

Sometimes it gets so bad, I just need to come out from the room, leaving my two boys to the big bed while I will end up in front of the comp. On lucky days, I will probably have the drama episodes to catch up on that can help me pass the time much easier and of course, entertaining my boredom.

Some people would likely be doing some housework but well, knowing me, someone who is so so not trained for housework would procrastinate. The most I will do is do the laundry or prepare food for Jaden. Cleaning, I may not be sleepy but the whole body is tired.

I, no longer have the luxury to nap anymore. Jaden's therapy hours are arranged almost throughout the day and that, I have to be on my utmost alert as he might either throw tantrum, have pee accidents that I may need to clean up, hungry during his break time which means I have got to prepare his meals before he comes out for his break, clean up the dishes and pots after that to prepare for the next meal time. Bathing him, watching over him when the one therapists leaves for the day and he has that 1-1.5 hrs interval before the next therapist comes and by that time, its already nighttime. Time for dinner, washup, cleanup, wind him down and its bedtime by then.

And with each bedtime, I pray for a long good night sleep, only to suffer from insomnia and that sucks, because not only it will affect my next day cycle and also make my dark circles even darker. Not meaning to be racist but my dark circles could probably match a Southern Indian's skin colour with just a night of no sleep. That is how bad my dark circles can get, and pimples sprouting out... and the one I wish it never happens -migraine that no 2 panadols can help.

So for now, I am going to try to lie down a bit on the couch for at least half hour to have some power nap before its time to wake Jaden up to start his day. I need it badly.. :p

Bad habits are hard to break

My sleep cycle is never really stable.

There are times when I will be sleeping till past noon, and still feel that its not enough and there are times like these, where I automatically open my eyes at about 630-ish-730am and then, no matter how hard I try to go back to sleep, I just can't.

and then, at about 12pm, I feel sleepy back again.

* yawn *

Here I go .. already feeling the call of my bed but there is only an hour more to go before the boy has got to wake up and prepare for his classes today.

I never learn my lesson.

I figured that if I drink any coffee or tea, nearing lets say evening time onwards, its gonna be one loooonnnnng night for me before I can even fall asleep. Most probably when the rooster starts his day, that is when I will only be able to fall asleep. If not, I am like on some adrenaline run that I just need to be wide awake.

and Sunday's Macchiato Latte killed me yesterday, it has now turn my cycle to waking up at about 7-ish now.. hopefully not for long.. :p

I need my beauty, mind-recharging sleep.

One of the signs

that I must be getting old.

There was once upon a time where you can just take a few minutes to get ready, and go out the whole day and come back still feeling all energetic.

Today, all I did was to bring along Jaden with me on a short little errand outing in the mall, dress a little nicer, slab some makeup on and out we went at about 330pm.

I was trying to make it in time before the bank closes as I had a few bank transactions to do.

Our first stop, pump petrol for little monster.

Second stop, making our way into The Curve's parking and going two rounds before we found a spot underneath Borders.

Made our way to both the banks at The Curve, waited for our numbers to be called but that was shorten and I resulted into using the Cash Deposit Machine instead and opt for change in return from the others as Jaden was trying to take ALL of the bank's brochures! *phew* It was really a horrifying moment trying to maintain my looks yet grabbing on to my now-about-to-throw-his-head-on-the-floor boy and octopus hands reaching out to anything he could.

For me to be writing this post now, meant that I survived that and calmed him down and placed him in front of me at the CDM and quickly deposited whatever I had to.

Then we made our way opposite to IPC and got his spectacles fixed.

While waiting for the specs to be done, we treated ourselves to some edamame at SushiKing. Yes, just us mother and son eating edamame to our hearts' content.

and from IPC, we walked all the way back to The Curve, the other end...

Then we made our way home at about 520pm, hoping we won't be caught up in the after work jam..

Well, you see, The Curve is actually just 5 minutes drive away from my place but clever me, took the wrong exit out of the parking lot and was driving in the direction of LDP instead.

I had to make a big turn through Mutiara Damansara back to my place.

Reached home at about 540pm, smsed his therapist to let her know we are home and before I could even put down the bag, she rang the doorbell and off Jaden goes into his room for his therapy session.

and at that, the 2 hours out of the house was enough to want to make me just dive into my bed and sleep the night but boy, life does not work that way, does it?

So here I am, waiting for 1030pm to come, so I can bathe the little one one more time and then bring him into the room to wind down and hopefully he shall fall asleep easily today for I am really really tired out.

No thanks to the Macchiato Latte that got me wide awake the whole night last night and I only got a 2 hours sleep today.

Complaints ?

Each time I feel like venting out my #firstworldissues, complaining about how unfair life is to me and all that jazz, I feel that I am being very thoughtless and stupid and just plain bimbo.

There are so many that are leading much more of a harder life, yet they do not complain.

The very thing they consider luxury, I may have taken it for granted that I no longer feel the appreciation.

That is when I stop, think about how its not such an issue I can't handle and that I, have indeed a good comfortable life afterall.

I have a child, a husband who works his ass off to make sure he earns enough to upkeep his son's medical and education, to upkeep my expenditure (although, that I do feel guilty at times when I go overboard with my online shopping sprees) loving parents who continuously showers me with affection and care despite me reaching that BIG THREE O and loving my two boys. What more could I ask for from such loving responsible people in my life?

I sometimes get depressed about not being able to go out there to work, and look in envy at my friends who are climbing up corporate ladders like nobody's business but then when I think about it, I know I am doing so much more staying at home and taking care of Jaden. I don't want to regret that its too late to help him recover while I slought my ass off in the office. Somehow, at times hormones do make you think crazy but when it all settles, I know where my priority lies and that is getting my son to recover, to climb out from the label autism.

I might not be attending events, I might not know whos who in the society anymore but I am learning other things too. I am picking up on medical terms and knowing what supplements helps my son tremendously and watching him do his firsts, the proud smile on his face when you praise him for being such a clever good boy. Well, I may not be rubbing shoulders with Miss Fashionable, or Mr I OWN BILLION DOLLAR BUSINESS or the MD of abc International BUT I, too, have my own social life. I still get to make new friends, only that these are friends that are on the same war path as I am, fighting our way against time and autism for our children. We have our very own supportive teams of parents who are ever ready to share the good and bad of their experience. There is no competitive sphere over here, only encouragement. :)

I am really bad at housework and keeping the house spick and span, and he lets me order part time maid service to assist me. Laundry, he allows me to send most of his clothes to the laundry and have them ironed them. Instead of asking us to take bus rides, he buys us plane tickets when he, himself takes the bus. I can't cook for nuts and he is ok with us tapaoing food home (fyi: Jaden is excluded from tapaoing ok? GFCF diet remember?) How can I not be thankful for a husband like that? So being not able to leave home to join friends occasionally because he feels tired after all his work and wants a break and I get all emotionally depress? How thoughtless ! Although sometimes I feel a little bit cheated about the 'taking a break' part but still ... at least I am not squeezing my brain juices out how to bring in the next moolah for the months and years to come in order to let my family live comfortably?

So I guess, now before I want to complain, I think about how those people who are not living as luxurious as I am yet they are not complaining, and even better, happy with their life puts me to shame.

Therefore I shall learn to be more appreciative, grateful and be more humble in analyzing conditions before I simply blurt out diarrhea from my mouth.

Peace yo !