I let myself enjoy the weekend. I let myself bask in that river in Egypt. Da Nile. I didn’t look at work email all weekend (which was a nice change– I have got to remember that I control if I check it or not). In not checking, I didn’t think about work and I didn’t see the email from younger son’s teacher. But I’ll get to that in a moment.
I knew I was wrong about the possibility of canceling the January appointment for younger son from the moment I wrote it. As we sat eating a late lunch at Great Adventure I got my visual proof. As he ate his food, younger son’s head was moving and he didn’t miss a beat. His lip tic was happening too. Hubby and I looked at each other at one point and just gave each other that look. You know the look. The look between a husband and wife that says everything it needs to without any words.
That was Saturday. Involuntary movements were all of the map on Sunday too.
Then this morning at work I read the email from his teacher. She had written to let me know he was holding his own in class, keeping up with the other students. She also wrote to let me know she had noticed several head movements and noticed the sounds, the noises. Small, quiet grunts that younger son seems to not notice at all.
January 3, 2013 is a long time from now. I can’t not do something to try to help him (if you’ll forgive the double negative). Hubby wants to look in diet and nutritional options. What I wonder is if we try to help, will it make it difficult to diagnose something like Tourette syndrome? I am going to call the doctor’s office tomorrow and let them know that we can’t sit and watch without actively trying to help him. Perhaps if we keep a record of what we observe and what we try so they have a running record.
In college, we would say DENIAL all the time. How it wasn’t just a river in Egypt. We also said “Your MOM” a lot. Don’t completely remember the origin of the mom reference. It’s strange to be over 20 years out from college and be the MOM in denial.
ohbloodyhell8 
you made it sound like your son doesn’t even realize he has a tic… and what harm is a tic anyhow? A tic is harmless, so doing something to “help” him, really wouldn’t be helping anybody but his parents at this point, would it? I am not a parent, so do not know how hard it must be, but I can imagine, and I am sure it is difficult, but waiting for a diagnosis would be wiser than trying to “fix” something that may not even be broken… just my opinion. 🙂 From personal experience, the best way to help him would be to not give your husband ” a look” whenever you see him tic, because if he catches you doing this, then he may become more self-conscious…if you see it as a problem, so will he.
Dear Info,
Never fear, the “look” was not a jaw-dropping obvious look, just quick eye contact. At that moment, younger son was so engrossed in his fried chicken that he wouldn’t have noticed if we were dressed in hula skirts dancing the hully-gully.
You’re right, there’s no harm in a tic…but this is an involuntary tic. He has two other involuntary tics and involuntary noises that have lasted now for nine months and that the school called us about from class observations. Our pediatrician referred us to the specialist. Younger son is not self-conscious about the tics because he doesn’t realize he doing them. The tics are beyond his control. I don’t want my son to have to live with Tourette’s Syndrome, but if that is the diagnosis we will face it together as a family. We are helping him as much as we can right now and realize that the tics and noises will not resolve in the next few months if it is Tourette’s (or a similar diagnosis) so it won’t impede the evaluation by the specialist.
Thanks for reading!
Be well,
pinkpigrulz