dsummersill

Sorry to read about Dan. My family is praying for you and your families.

I am glad to hear that you finally got what you deserved for fighting for our country. I too have PTSD but they learned that it came before the military. The judge who saw to my SS claims couldn't believe the military let me in with all the problems my childhood caused me but like they say "don't ask don't tell". They surely didn't ask and of course I didn't know to tell them.

Went to the doctors and had blood tests and chest xrays done and they even did an ekg on me. All came out normal but blood tests showed some inflamation so they have me going to see a breathing doctor. I wont see him until June 11th. I will let everyone know how that goes. They dont think that I have any lung problems but every now and then I still have trouble catching my breath. Cayden is doing good this holiday season. He has his friends from down the street come to our house every day and he has even met 2 new friends that live kiddy corner from us and him and his sister go to their house every now and then but we have to keep him pretty medicated so he can play outside, He is allergic to all neutotoxins and it affects his attitude and we keep a water bottle on him at all times because he gets over heated and his sister is getting really good at reading his moods and giving him cold drinks when she thinks he is getting too hot. This is his sisters first summer with him so she has to get to know her brother in the summertime. He loves to be outside but he is allergic to tree pollen and dust and those along with mold affect his attitude toward others. We dont know when we are going to go to Florida to visit family but we do have some plans to go to Dollywood and a few other attractions. Me and Donnie want to take the kids to some haunted houses but are worried about the kids because Cayden can talk to ghosts and dont want to freak him out, But right now we are taking it one day at a time and doing what Cayden wants to do and right now until he gets bored of the kids down the street we are staying home so he can play with them.

We will be taking Cayden to Florida next month depending on how my doctors apt goes on monday, I have been having trouble catching my breath and I even quit smoking for the most part. Please pray that my trouble breathing is just my new meds they put me on and not anything more serious. Cayden is freaking out that when he wakes up tomorrow or any other day I will be dead. It is taking us longer and longer to put him to sleep like tonight it took me almost 2 hours to get him to go to sleep. I let him tell me how he felt and we talked about dying and being in heaven and he told me its ok if God has to take mommy home as long as God sends mommy back to earth as his very own angel. I told him if I were to die before he grew up I would ask God to send me down as his angel. Cayden then ask me how I prayed when I died. So it took us a half hour to talk about that and how if I died then I would see God and what surprised me was he asked me if God was "cloned" where did he pick that up? I told him I was not God and I didnt know everything and he said I did know everything down on earth and named all the things I did know and said "see mom you do know everything" Kids are so cute arent they. I will hate to see him turn into a teenager where it goes from me knowing everything to me knowing absolutely nothing and him knowing everything. I am going through that right now with my daughter. Well I best get off here and I will let all know how things go after mondays apt.

Well today started Caydens summer vacation and he is already bored stiff. His sister is still in school so she is gone all day and all his friends are still in school so he cant go visit them. We have started taking him to museums and finding new ways to keep him occupied until his sister comes home from school. She still has a whole month before she is out for summer. If anyone has any ideas how to keep Cayden occupied please comment THANKS

You know I get so many people on here who tell me what a great job I am doing with Cayden but I think I have it so much easier with Cayden because his stroke happened before he had his own personality and I get to see him for who he is but to listen to yall having had a person with a certain personality and the stroke change them I think yall are the best people. To stay with the loved ones and care for them and continue to love them no matter what. Being a caregiver not just to my son but as a career I see too many family members leave the people they are suppose to love because of a personality change whether due to stroke or alzheimers. Caydens grandma's on both sides of the family are missing out on a wonderful boy and I think your spouses are very lucky to have such loving people to stick by them. I wouldnt be too hard on yourselves I know it cant be easy all the time but love is worth it right?

Sorry I dont get on here to write more like I used to but we are so busy now that I just dont have the time until late at night. Cayden has his eyes and ears checked and they said that his hearing is normal for him and I told them about his plugging his ears on some things and they put special equipment into his ears and they said that his hearing was normal so they think that his brain is amplifying his hearing when it reaches the brain. He has astigmatism in his right eye so he is wearing glasses now but only at night when he does his schoolwork. Yes we are now doing night school with him. He learns better at night when he has played all day and he is ready to settle down for bed. So when we homeschool him next year we will start him off at night and if he continues that way then when he is ready to go off to school we will have to find a special school where he can do his schooling at night. Right now it doesnt look like he will be ready to enter a public school again until highschool. I dont know what happened in K but he doesnt want to be around anyone again. I try to get him to visit an old friend who lives 4 houses down and he will go but he only goes there for maybe an hour at the most. I dont know what to do or how to help him with that but I do know not to push the issue. I hope when he gets older he will want to be around others. I know right now that its a good thing for all concerned because of his body not being able to regulate its own temp and if he were to get sick he would be right back into the hospital. I used to feel bad that I took him to the hospital everytime he got sick but its a good thing because they are better equipped to break his temp and control it like they have been. I wouldnt know what to do because here I have been medicating him when he didnt need it tho the meds didnt seem to work until I stripped him down......GO FIGURE!!!!!!! Either than that all is going well with my lil miracle. I will try to blog again soon. take care everyone and thank you for all your support

Cayden is doing good. He is playing on the computer most of the time but he is trying to use his right hand to move his wizard....WOW!!!!! He usually just turns his wizard in circles but he is trying. He has one more session of PT and his foot dr. wants him to stop. He has to wear his orthotics now only when he wears his shoes which isnt very often if he can help it. But we got it to where he only has one pair of shoes so he has no choice but to wear his orthotics. I try to get him outside every day but he prefers either the ds or wizard 101. He is reading more words now and has a new favorite movie beside "Milo and Otis". It is now "Site Words". They have words he didnt know but now can spot them in books. I also got some easy reading books that he can read and am getting him to read to me during school hours and he prefers that to doing his 2nd grade LA book. GO FIGURE........LOL

Well Braincore has definetly worked. Though the allergies is a pain. He has to stay inside most of the time to keep him healthy. This time of year is hard for him because he is getting cabin fever bad. His sister got a DSI and games for Christmas and he stole it from her. He is also playing a game on the computer called wizard 101 and he is on it most of the day. He also watches "Milo and Otis" I wish I can throw that movie away. He hates going to school but is taking to homeschooling real well/ He has finished his K-books and almost done with his first grade book and started 2nd grade book. the game wizard 101 is teaching him to recognize words.

Yes Asha I am teaching him Math. He is adding and subtracting and soon will be doing fractions. He can add and subract to ten right now. I want to wait a little while before I do adding and subtracting double digits. He loves math and he is also doing language arts. He even can write a story and we are learning verbs and others that even higher grades are doing right now.

It has been a few weeks now that we have started homeschooling Cayden and it is really fun!!!!! I believe he goes on more field trips than all the schools put together. In fact he goes on another field trip to Alabama next week. He is finished with one school text book already and he only has 3 1/2 to go before 180 days and he is already almost finished with another one. In fact I have to go out and buy more books to keep him occupied for the next few months. He is too smart for my own good.....LOL. Him and I are finally having fun since he started school in 2008.....Can ya tell the year? Yes my boy has been in school since he was 17 mos old and HE IS SICK OF IT.....NOW ITS TIME FOR THE FUN school. I am teaching him more than what he would learn in the school system and he can work with less clothes on to keep his body regulated. He has had no more high fevers since he has started homeschooling. THANK YOU everyone who has supported me in this lil adventure with my precious boy. I really appreciate the nice words.

Cayden is actually the bully in school and no he is big for his age just smarter because he has been in school since he was 17 mos old. We decided to homeschool more because of his health issues with regulating his temp. more than anything else.

Cayden has had his 20 sessions of braincore and he did great. 1 wk later he started acting up again. We did three more sessions that did NOT work. We found out that he is allergic to mold. Well we knew that but not the extent of his allergy to the mold plus we had no idea that mold was a neuro toxin. What was happening was that the mold was changing his brain function and making him very upset. Onto good news. We are homeschooling him and he is breezing through Kindergarten and first grade at the same time. He loves being homeschooled and today he is going on his very first homeschooling fieldtrip. The bus driver (daddy) is taking him to the firestation. He has been there with daddy before but it has been awhile and so he wants to go again. We are trying to get a sponser to take him to the Air base to have a tour but so far dont know anyone who works on the base. I know someone who is in the national guard who might be willing to take him to the armory and show him around there and we are going to take him to some museums and a few other places. He told me he wanted me to homeschool him through highschool. I am definetly going to try. He seems to do more work with less breaks with me than he did at school and he can skip grades here at the house plus he will be the youngest child in the next grade when he returns to school. He wants to start 2nd grade and the way he is working his Kindergarten and !st grade work I can see him starting 2nd grade at the first of the year. His PT is going great and his physical therapist (AJ) says his ankle and leg muscles are getting much stronger. Of course as of yesterday he is using weights to climb a dead tree we had cut down and he is LOVING it.

Cayden had his last session of braincore today and will no longer need anymore so far. He is allowed to have home braincore if needed but to go to the doctor to have it done so far so good. Shelly his braincore buddy has to fax the paperwork in to Doctor Guy and he will give the final go if we need more or if he is totally done, Dr. Everrett will be using Cayden as an ad in the paper with his photo and my testimony on braincore. She even wants to use him on the tv to show people how well this braincore works. People with only one problem only needs 20 but Cayden had multiple problems and he is a totally different person. Oh and I went to the doctor about his heat stroke and they told me that he has a thermal deficit disorder something like that, I will try to explain this so bare with me. His body cannot regulate his temps, He sweats but he doesnt sweat enough to cool off his body so he is easily suseptible to getting heat strokes. He is to drink gatorade when in the heat like when he went to the fair. The doctor asked me about how we keep him regulated and I never did think about him when we first brought him home. It would be freezing cold but if we put warm clothes on he would get a fever but he never sweated. He would turn beet red and I would have to strip him back down. She asked me what I do at home and he normally just wears his underwear unless we are going somewhere but then we keep him in the coolest clothes possible. We have an emergency guide for the school. And the school and I have decided it is best if I accompany him to all field trips.

Cayden had his first field trip yesterday which turned out to be his schools nightmare. The kids were all having fun at the fair and after riding the merry go round the trip changed his teachers outlook on life. At about 11:00 am yesterday I got a phone call I will never forget. My son was acting strange. The teacher had no idea what was going on and he wasnt responding to anyone. He kept looking into space and to start out with the teacher thought he was afraid of the next ride that they were going to ride on......the spinning dragons or something like that. By the sounds of it the ride is like the teacup ride at Disney World. But when the teacher tried to talk to Cayden he couldnt talk and he had no idea who was talking to him or where he was even at. I got there to the fair and saw the teacher and Cayden waiting for me in the shade. I looked at Cayden and he was burning up and his eyes looked strange. He couldnt recognize me until the teacher told Cayden who I was. At first I thought he had a seizure but he couldnt even walk. We brought Cayden home and he started drinking water and all sorts of fluids and realized that I forgot to pack his drink for the fair. Not only that but the kids were in the sun most of the morning. My baby had a heat stroke and was severly dehidrated. He is back to normal today with more weakness in his right side but we are doing his weights again. Hopefully that will help get his strength back in his body. Please pray that he gets better from this lil episode at the school. His daddy is pretty upset with the school but it wasnt their fault. Just like it wasnt my fault that Cayden had his first stroke.

I know what you mean I too have learned alot about strokes but its hard to use it in my case because Cayden is so young. I know it is so much easier for Cayden to recover because he never learned anything to begin with yet but I know sometimes he has to wonder why his buddies are doing things that he cant but I havent seen him get too sad for that. In fact his friends seem to be more jealous of him than he is of them. But I love him and very proud of him and all of the survivors on here. I cant forget the caregivers who have made the choice to stick by their loved ones even in this sickness. My family left us because of Caydens illness......because of his stroke he wasnt good enough for them. Well TOUGH they arent good enough for my lil miracle.

I wouldnt normally put another update so close together but we just had a home visit with Caydens social worker through his psychiatrist office and she just told us that Cayden is doing so well that in another month they will be closing his case for awhile. If we think we need them when he hits his teenage years they will reup him. He will also be closed with his psychiatrist in a few more months as well. This braincore therapy is really working for him that he really does seem like a whole new person. Caydens dad finally admitted that he sees a big difference in the boy. I think it is because I had to show him that where Cayden used to not kiss daddy good bye without me telling him to now I have to hurry him up from kissing daddy or we would be late for class every morning. Myself I am so happy that the two are finally getting closer. Some days I would love to have a break and where I couldnt have one before Cayden is allowing me to because he is loving to spend more time with daddy. Cayden still has his tantrums like I said but now not as bad and everyone can see it. Everyone is commenting on how much better he is doing in the things that he wouldnt do. I wish his psychiatrist he had for the past year was still here so he can see how well our son is doing due to braincore. I met another therapist for my daughter yesterday who was into braincore and he wants to meet Cayden because he has yet to see anyone who has had braincore. So far everyone is wanting to meet the boy who wasnt supposed to do anything and how he was so bad off due to his stroke with so many mental issues doing so well in less than two months turn into a very well adjusted boy.

Cat, The females are correct in this one I believe. I am a caregiver tho my stroke survivor is just a young child. I am at a crossroads in my life as well when it comes to taking in other children. My husbands cousin has had two children taken away from her do to drugs as well and her parents are not doing to well and she wants my husband and I to care for two children who are way younger than 11. The two kids in this scenario are 2 yrs and baby at 7 mos. I would love to take these small babies in but as my blog says I am way too busy. With all the things I have to do for Cayden at 5 yrs of age I can just imagine what you have to do to help Mike out with. I know how hectic being a caregiver can be. I know with us not having the stroke it is hard for us to understand what our loved ones have to go through that is what I like about this site you get other peoples sides to this stroke issue not just caregivers but what our loved ones may be going through. I think with your sister taking your granddaughter in you can still make sure she is in a more stable environment and still care for the man of your dreams. But this is just my opinion and you need to do what is best for your family and your life GOOD LUCK Dyan

Sorry for not getting back to let everyone know how Cayden has been doing but time has flown by. He is still going every Mon., Wed., and Fri. for his braincore therapy but last week he only had it on Wed. because of Labor day and then Friday the docs had a conference they had to go to so we did more home braincore therapies. We are seeing a very big difference in this boy and we are so proud of him. He is no longer acting like a three yr old, he is now making friends and playing with his friends instead of near them and he talks to everyone for lot longer. He does still throw a temper tantrum when he doesnt get his way but what child doesnt do that? The difference? The tantrums dont last as long and he can refocus himself to forget why he is all upset. He still tells us he hates us and that we are mean but again normal for kids his age. We are now looking at another busy few months but not with braincore. He has 9 more braincore sessions then he has to go threw aggressive physical therapy for his right side again. We took him to the foot specialist and she noticed that his right hip is still real tight and he cant manuver his right side correctly and that his right foot is deformed so she wants aggressive physical therapy for a month and then she is setting him up with a special brace that he has to wear all the time except at bedtime. The next time I can get on here and we hear from his insurance about his brace I will let yall know how everything is going on that end. OH BEFORE I FORGET: CAYDEN IS SLEEPING IN HIS OWN BED ALL NIGHT LONG FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!!!!!! SO PROUD OF MY BOY!!!!!

This brain core therapy is a good thing but harder to administer than I thought. He has done 5 so far at the office and 7 at home and the office visits are easy. He behaves for the lady-Jessica-but will not do it here at the house. He says the lights bother his eyes but I have tried to remedy that with a pair of sun glasses so the other glasses and the lights arent seen by just his eyes. He likes the sounds of the heart beat but I have to fight him every time I need to administer at home. I have remedied that as well. He will be getting it done at school for 15 min. He will allow everyone else but me to do it. So if that is the case the nurse and the teacher are more than happy to do just that. He always seems to allow her to give him meds he is supposed to take at home so I let her give him the meds and do the things that is better done while calm. I see a small subtle change in him but I hope the longer he does this the more I will see a change in him. right now they are trying to keep him calm most of the day and I do see that in him. But like any 5 yr olds he does throw his tantrums but they dont last as long.

Caydens braincore therapy was postponed until yesterday. He didnt do very well with his evaluation so she had to talk to the guy heading up the therapy about what to do for Cayden. He did very well yesterday at the office and for only having one office visit and one home therapy his attitude is really looking good. Where he would show his oppositional defiance disorder real bad when you tell him no he isnt showing it much now, You tell him to not go in the street off he goes. Now he is actually doing as he is told and his tantrums have really improved. Even today he did really good going to school. He did throw a small tantrum because he doesnt like his new shoes all that well and I made him wear them for school. But as soon as he got to school he was really good, surprisingly good, In fact he told me "just because I told you 'I love you' doesnt mean you can leave". But when I did leave there were no tears......In fact a lil girl who just started school was crying because she didnt want he dad to leave and Cayden actually watched her......Looking at him you could tell he was confused.....I dont know if it was because he didnt know why she was upset or he didnt know what to do for her because he felt bad she was upset. I will keep you updated the longer he goes through this braincore therapy. Dyan

We got the best news today!!!!! I have been talking in the chat rooms about a new therapy for Cayden but it was trying to get the insurance to pay for it. Well I talked to the lady today that has the machine at her office and we start Caydens braincore therapy Aug. 3rd. The best part is for $1300 plus we only have to pay $300 for a machine that we have to take home. He will be receiving this therapy for 45 min. a day for the next 6 plus weeks. We dont have to actually pay for the therapy itself but she said that if we have the extra money then we can donate it to the office so others who need this therapy can get it without having to pay for it. Now what I would like to do is find a way to get money up with different businesses as a fund raiser to help his doctor so others can benefit from this therapy as well. His therapy is supposed to cost $65 a session and that is 3 times a week for the next 6 weeks or longer. They think it may be longer because of his possible Autism. And we found out today that this is supposed to cure Autism too!!!!! It is also supposed to help his OCD, ODD, and ADHD. Let me add one more thing about this therapy. The insurance is NOT paying for it. We didnt even ask the insurance because his insurance doesnt cover chiropractic care and when we talked to his psychiatrist to ask the insurance he said that they most likely wouldnt pay for it because his ADHD meds was working for him. The chiropractor who has the machine at her office is doing all this for free except for the machine we have to bring home for his treatments at home but we keep that.