10/8/24

 Ethan gets lunch from 12:00 -12:30. Today Ethan had an appointment with his psychiatrist at 12:00 PM. I noticed that he also had a therapy appointment at 12:30. That wasn’t going to work with Ethan’s job, so I cancelled it and asked to reschedule.

For the psychiatrist appointments, I drove to Ethan’s work so I can be present. I am not present for the therapy appointment, just to chat meds with the psychiatrist.

Ethan was prompt at 12:00 and when I went to log in, I noticed at some point today, the psychiatrist and therapist switched times without consulting us. After that happened, I unknowingly cancelled the therapy appointment (didn’t realized they had flip flopped times). This isn’t the first time this has happened.

Noon came and went. Once we figured out why no one was meeting with us, Ethan was pretty annoyed. He said he was not going to be present for the appointment and they will “just have to deal”. Such a boy response. I explained to him that this doesn’t just affect him. I have to drive 25 minutes to his work and back AND make up that work time in the evening.

At 12:30, the doctor joined us. We told her what had happened. She asked if we wanted to reschedule. NO!!!!! It is such a pain to arrange schedules to make it work.

The psychiatrist was nice enough to let Ethan give permission for her to talk to me about what the next steps are to treat his suspect ADHD. He went inside and went back to work.

The psychiatrist told me due to the complexity of Ethan’s medical conditions, the medication she had shared with us at the last visit was not approved by the heart team.

The psychiatrist and the heart team decided to try a medication that is used to control blood pressure. Lots of human medications are used to treat one condition, but are found useful treating others as well.

This medication Ethan has been on before. It seems like a versatile medication. Its main purpose is to treat high blood pressure. However, Ethan was put on it to help ease the side effects as they weaned him off of his opioid addiction. Turns out, it can also be helpful with ADHD as well. I find medications so interesting. Also, it is not processed through the kidneys so they will be unaffected by it. Yay!

This medication will allow Ethan to be able to concentrate a little bit better while preserving his heart and kidney function. We’re starting off at a low-dose just to see how things go because it could potentially lower his blood pressure make him feel dizzy and cause some side effects.

The good news is that he is able to cope  with his focus on his own so this will just be supplemental at this point.

On my way home, I was mulling over my thoughts. I thought about how it was annoying that the appointments got switched around, but happy we could work through it. I then thought about what the mix up caused.

It caused me to have a half hour in the car with Ethan’s undivided attention. It caused us to joke and share a laugh, discuss his next steps for work and share a little time with him. After I thought about it, that was my gift for today. A simple miscommunication brought me an unexpected gift. If I didn’t look for it, it would have been missed. 

 Ethan shared with me what his next steps are for work. I am excited that he has made it through his apprenticeship which started with five people, and he and one other guy were the only ones successful. I am also thrilled that he likes it. I think that he is headed in the right direction and that makes my heart happy for him. It has been a long and incredibly bumpy road.

This evening, I immersed myself into the world of food prepping for our camping trip. I also had to juice up my large crop of cherry tomato’s for when I make chili. I cooked up some corn and removed it from the cob also ready to add to my chili. YUM!

Penny was cold today. She was under the blanket all day. She and Jiminy earned their keep by snuggling under the blanket and keep ME warm!