Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Steroids

Ahh, the joy of a child on prednisone. Mix in a little OCD and...yikes.

This morning, I was upstairs finishing up my morning routine and heard quite a bit of this:

“Stop that! Olivia, settle down!”

And finally:

“Go, get away from the table.”

At that point, I heard her laugh and head for the living room. I supposed we’re lucky she doesn’t take anything either of us says personally or let it hurt her feelings because ugh, there are days when she’d try the patience of a saint.

For the record, no saints live in our house.

Alyssa escaped the drama and joined me upstairs. I asked her what was up with her dad and sister.

She shrugged, “Oh, you know how Livie always needs to wipe her cup, she spilled her milk and it made Dad mad.”

“She can’t help the wiping, you know.” I said this more to myself than to her. I get Tom’s frustration, I mean, cleaning up messes gets old fast. And Olivia is so high functioning that sometimes we forget that her OCD really isn’t in her control.

Not that I don’t have my moments of frustration with this sweet, darling child who simply MUST hop before she sits down at the table, on the couch, gets into bed, climb into the car, sits on the toilet, steps into the tub…you name it, she’ll hop before doing it. It’s so irritating and yet I know…I KNOW she can’t help it.

And so, knowing this, we attempt to parent her patiently and kindly and yet there are moments, like this morning, when we feel like we can’t take one more wipe or one more hop.

Add steroids into the mix and life can get volatile.

I sent an email to O’s teacher this morning warning her of the potential for irritation in the form of a nine year old girl who is taking prednisone to help her heal from an illness.

She feels so much better, thanks to bot the steroid and the antibiotics that she’s bouncing off the walls and yet she still tires easily and needs more rest than she is willing to admit.

This too shall pass, as we all know. She’ll get well, the steroids will leave her system, we’ll all deal with the OCD and life will go on. It just might be a little messier for the time being.

We can handle that. If only because there’s no other choice.

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