Health Issues with My Ari

My poor little Ari.
Life has been so incredibly stressful, overwhelming and heavy.

About a month to a month and a half ago I thought Ari was just tired as his eyes started rolling back.

I giggled and picked him up, but once I picked him up he was not responsive to me at all.
I was talking to him and he was just kind of limp and his eyes kept rolling back.
I was worried to an extent, but still chalked it up to him being tired.

We went home and took a nap.

It didn't happen again for a while, but since then I have counted about 6 more occasions when he would have an "episode".

I made a doctors appointment and started doing my own research on what could cause this.
Based on what I read and videos I found on youtube I thought it looked a lot like "absence seizures".
When I took him to the doctor I never said what I thought it could be, I just told her what was happening.
Sure enough she said it sounds like he is having absence seizures.

They measured him and his percentile in height has been dropping as if he just stopped growing.
They did a blood panel and when the results came back the doctor called me with them.

I knew as soon as she called that something was wrong because the nurses usually call.
She talked about everything that came back normal, but then told me that his blood platelets are elevated (could just be from the stomach bug that was going around), his protein levels are low and that she thinks he may have Renal Tubular Acidosis (RTA) which is basically a kidney malfunction. It is when the kidneys don't filter things properly and that could be what is causing him to not be growing the way he is supposed to.

They are considering him to be a failure to thrive case :(

Our pediatrician sent a referral to Children's Hospital. We have to wait for them to call us and then there are a lot of things we need to do in order to get seen by the specialists.

We need to see a pediatric neurologist and the growth specialists.

So needless to say, I am extremely tired and worried and overwhelmed.

There are also other things going on in the family that have contributed to all of this stress.

Please keep my little man in your prayers. I just want him to be happy and healthy.




I seriously LOVE when he crosses his legs while sleeping!





































For Reference, what a absence seizure looks like and this is what Ari does!

Whats Funny About Mental Illness #NaBloPoMo

I just wrote a very long post about my mental illnesses after watching a video of Ruby Wax speaking about mental illness. After getting close to the end, I decided I did not want to share so many details that are quite personal to me.

So to make that long story short, without trying to explain all of my decisions, I am just going to post a timeline of sorts:

May 2006-30 weeks pregnant, severe anxiety. Put on meds. Gave birth two months early.

2006- changed meds several times until I was on lexapro and it took the edge off

August 2008- gave birth to my girl, had PPD and PPA. Upped my dosage, was doing ok.

July 2010- severe anxiety/pain/depression. Tried to OD. Hospitalized for a week.
put on klonopin, ativan, cymbalta, trazadone. Was misinformed about what the drugs could do to a baby if I conceived then the psychiatrist vanished.

August 2010- got pregnant. was running out of hope. no one wanted to prescribe my meds while pregnant. I knew then how bad these were for my baby, but I needed them. I couldn't chance anything bad happening while pregnant. Found a psychiatrist who would see me and give me meds during my pregnancy. I was a high risk pregnancy.

May 2011- gave birth to my baby. he had withdrawl symptoms. was sedated, was on several meds to "wean" him off the meds. I had severe PPD and PPA. I chose to go back to the hospital.

late 2011- attempted to OD again. severe depression. meds were switched/adjusted. have been mostly stable since.

I do NOT know what the future holds.
I just need to trust the Lord will watch over me.
I pray my children never have to deal with the pain I have had to deal with since I was a child.

I wrote this poem when I was hospitalized:

Help Me Lord Jesus
Help me, my sweet savior
out of this pain and all this anger
Please take all these thoughts, these pains
off my shoulders for a happier life, to gain
I want these pains all gone
So for my children I may be strong
For my children I do pray
to never have these anxieties and pains
For my precious babies I pray
They will have a perfect life till their ending day.

Mental illness is something that is NOT controllable
While I do not believe in evolution and do not agree with everything she says, she makes several very true point about mental illness and how mentally healthy people see it.
"perk up, like I didn't think of that myself."
Check out this video, this is how it truly is.
Again I do not agree with the evolution part, just focus on the mental illness parts.