The Day We Got Our Kid Back

E's Story- Part III (Hopefully the END of this saga)

 I haven't been able to write much since Passover started because E has been out of school. ....And still is not back in school yet. Tomorrow....

BUT, I have fantastic news and I want to share.

We got our son back. No, he wasn't physically missing. But he lost his "mojo". He got it back. On Easter Sunday. Kind of funny seeing as if we were celebrating Easter in a traditional sense, like with egg hunts and big dinners we wouldn't have known he got his mojo back. But since we chose to spend our day at a "spring carnival" with RIDES we were able to get our miracle.

Every year since E was like two years old, he LOVED rides. Rides he wasn't even really supposed to go on but that his tall hair and fat-soled Gymboree sandals helped him achieve the height requirements. He loved the dragon roller coaster the best. The summer he was three, he must have gone on it twenty times in a row. Last year, we missed a lot of the local carnivals somehow in April and May. In June, he was having his tonsils & adenoid surgery so we missed the Glen Rock carnival because he wasn't really allowed out of the house. We'd gone to the DARE carnival in the parking lot of Garden State Plaza every year but they didn't do it last July at all. So we hadn't seen him in action on any rides prior to surgery. And there was so much...life...we had to cram in before being quarantined in the house for ten days, carnivals just weren't a priority. His doctor was being extremely conservative with E's recovery instructions because he was starting camp on the eleventh day of a ten day recovery.

Surgery and recovery went off without a hitch and we were just thrilled that the 2-pack a day smoker's cough was gone. We didn't think there were any other problems...

*Just an FYI- usually doctors say if you make it to ten days without a bleed, you're good to go. Healed. But a bleed is very dangerous and requires a trip to the emergency room, stat.

He still seemed like he had some seasonal allergies so we were just giving him 24-hour Zyrtec and it seemed to work. He'd sniffle a lot but nothing was coming out. But THE COUGH WAS GONE and we were still basking in the glow of that.

E goes to camp full time. That's eight weeks, five days a week, out of the house about nine hours a day. So we weren't doing anything during the weeknights. We started going down the shore on Sundays, which is over an hour in the car. Depending on traffic, sometimes two hours. E started complaining his stomach hurt. But it was only in the car. We thought.

Somehow we ended up at the Renaissance Fair one Sunday for the first time. We put him on a very basic back and forth swinging log ride thing. He FLIPPED out. Said his stomach "feels crazy". We had to have the operator stop the ride. We were stymied because this was a kid who freely and with reckless abandon and joy went on roller coasters. Without issue. Next was a merry-go-round kind of ride at a child's birthday party. Made them stop it. Next was the regular swing at the playground. We were so puzzled. And a little worried. But summer ended, the rides and long drives stopped. And we had a new problem. The whole tic situation.

See: http://knowitallinnj.blogspot.com/2014/03/es-story-part-deux.html for the whole tic situation story. Happy to report, now, the tics are 100% GONE. No thanks to that OT.

Once the tic thing was resolved, we had to figure out what this belly thing was, why the motion sickness or whatever, and what to do about it. On our own. Not paying $150 a week to a therapist who is guessing. We made plans to go to Hershey Park in June with three other "only" parents from school. It will be the first time ever for all of us. But we needed to get this handled before we end up at an amusement park where he wouldn't be able to go on any rides with us or his friends. And really, he couldn't even swing on a park swing. It was a problem that HAD to be solved.

Enter Easter Sunday and by chance seeing an ad for the Spring Carnival at New Overpeck Park. I'd never seen a carnival on Easter Sunday but since we're Jews, we'll take it! Perfect time to push through whatever is going on. B was admittedly nervous and thought it was a bad idea. But I just ignored that. We went. It was small but just big enough. A Ferris wheel, giant slide (where you sit on those burlap things and catch air on your way down), the twirling strawberries, a dragon ride that goes round and round and up/down, a kid bus, and....the Tilt-A-Whirl.

E approached the Ferris wheel with trepidation. It was going to be our first ride of the day. We all got on and he was visibly nervous. It started going and he relaxed. As it kept going he just got into it. Said his belly was ok. Just "a little crazy". But you could just see the change in confidence when he got off. He immediately ran to the strawberry ride. That would be really telling because those giant strawberries spin. He went on with B and rocked it. Loved every minute. Did the rest of the kid rides, passed with flying colors, and then, asked B to go on the Tilt-A-Whirl.

I'm sure you can look that ride up but it's no joke. It's FAST and each chair spins FAST. E was in HEAVEN. B not-so-much. E asked him to go on two more times and time number three, B hurled. But he rallied. He was taking one for the team. Because THIS, the ride/belly thing, was SUCH a hurdle. A year's hurdle. E just wasn't himself in this respect. He lost his awesome confidence, and worse, I think the new fear was making him physically sick.

We stayed at that carnival from one-thirty until FIVE o'clock. We could've stayed longer but we were cold and starving. Well, B and I were.

There was no better feeling that watching E just do his thing like he used to be able to do, and LOVING it.

So to recap- the cough? GONE. The tics? GONE. The motion sickness? GONE. We don't know what exactly caused the motion issues. It could've been a combination of his equilibrium being off from the infection that caused the tics, the nasal drip that was going down his throat, combined with the fear of getting motion sick from when it was real. I don't know, but I don't care.

We have our boy back. It was the best Easter miracle we could ask for.



**From the beginning: http://knowitallinnj.blogspot.com/2013/07/es-story.html