12/8/22

In therapy I learned that I am being to “motherly” to Ethan. I understand “why” I do it. Otherwise he will just go amok. But I am supposed to be more “airy”. Ethan missed the crucial stage of developement where he was supposed to rebel a little bit, branch off, grow. He had a good thing going the first part of his junior year.

He was then told he couldn’t be around friends, he was told to get poked and prodded. He was told to move away. He had no choice over his medical decisions except life or death.

Then when he was finally free, he was told not to drive (because of seizures). We told him to go to college. And the list goes on and on.

I still have to tell him to get bloodwork done. It’s me. Hi! I am the problem, it’s me.

So I am supposed to work on my communication style with him. Instead of saying “you have to go for bloodwork tomorrow” I have to rephrase it to “My schedule is open tomorrow. If you want, I can take you to get bloodwork.”

Instead of “I forgot to pick your meds up at the pharmacy, can you go get them?” I need to rephrase it “it would be really helpful to me if you could pick up your medications at the pharmacy. Is that something you think you can do?”

I have tried both scenario’s. We had a win for the bloodwork and a unsatisfactory effort for the pharmacy. Bloodwork is more important. My bright spot was getting the bloodwork done.

Ethan’s bloodwork looks pretty good. His WBC count is within the normal range. His kidney values are just about normal. His liver values look good. His platelets are low but he is on an anticoagulant as well.

This therapy and growing business is hard. I practice what I am going to say before I say it.  I run stuff by Avery to make sure it didn’t sound too “airy”.

I have an early meeting tomorrow at 4:00 am. Yuck!