Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Stress

Stress does a lot of bad things to me, always has. When I was in college I would get chest pain on days that were particularly stressful. When I would float out to clinics I wasn't familiar with I would have panic attacks. I've always had problems with my muscles tightening up while under stress and lately that's been my big problem (that and stress eating). As much as I want to lose weight I can't because it hurts to exercise when my back and shoulder muscles are in giant knots and then you add on my massive craving for chocolate when I'm stressed and I've hit a plateau, which of course stresses me out further.

Now you may be asking, "What's stressing you out Cate?" And it's a combination of things, work has been particularly stressful since I'm working all sorts of hours with many different doctors, doing flu shots and just trying to help out where I can.
My home life isn't easy right now. Nate will be losing his job October 30th, he's in school full time and with my goofy hours at work Lex is in daycare more than I like. So money is about to get tighter and expenses aren't getting any lighter.
Then there is Lex's therapy. While Nate and his therapist David feel good about it I worry. Maybe it's just because I'm so over protective of my little boy I worry about how every session is going to be, I worry that we aren't doing enough for him and in the end I worry that he'll never catch up to his peers. I can hear the sympathetic thoughts now, that I shouldn't worry and he has plenty of time but imagine it's your child, wouldn't you worry too. I don't know why I was chosen to have a child that has challenges most of his peers don't have and most days I do feel blessed to have him but some days I wish we could just carry on the back and forth play and "conversations" about what we see. I know when we do hit those milestones I will be incredibly happy but right now it's tough.

I know everyone has their ups and downs and I'm in the downs right now but at least I know there isn't anywhere to go but up.

4 comments:

Shauna said...

Cate, what exactly is wrong with Lex? I know that he's in ocupational therapy, but I never did figure out where he was behind. But anyways, I know exaclty what you mean about having a kid that's behind. I wish that Matt could talk like other kids his age, but I know that he'll get there with hard work. I just have to fight for him until then.

Catie said...

They haven't given us an official diagnosis yet, but he doesn't talk, he has two words "Dada" and "Mama" but I rarely hear mama unless he's hurt himself. He can also sign "more" and "please". When we were doing occupational therapy at the hospital they used a working diagnosis of sensory processing disorder, but the program we are working with now isn't so sure that's the problem.

Patty said...

I know exactly how you feel, I truly do. I long for the day when my son can come home and tell me about his day at school. I yearn for it, and ache when it doesn't happen. Our boys are different (and sometimes, I think they are better). It makes US better, and it will enable us to teach them tolerance and acceptance when they are older.

I don't know if you will find this at all encouraging, but Stephen has been in OT/PT/ST since he was 14-15 months old, and is now caught up with everything except his speech. He started ST in January, but didn't even start VOCALIZING to his therapist until 2 weeks ago.

((((HUGS)))) to you and your little man!

Molly said...

It's hard because when my David has his physical therapy sessions, I always worry that we're not doing enough for him in the interim. Particularly when he has a crappy session, as most of the ones in September were. Because they ended up falling during a time when he wanted to be napping. But he is catching up, when given opportunities to run around and jump and such.

Many of us are faced with challenges with our children. I get more than my share...but any hurdle to be overcome will make us stronger and appreciate our children that much more.

I'm voting against Sensory Processing Disorder, by the way.