the beginning…..

Ah, where do I begin. For starters I am not an english major, so be prepared for grammar mistakes and forgive me now.

My daughter Mckenna will be turning 8 years old at the end of July. She is a smart, spunky, miracle.

I remember looking at that test, and immediately thought of all the things parenthood would bring. All the things I would get to experience as a mom and all the hopes and dreams I had for this little tiny being inside of me. I would daydream of all the things we would do and it was filled with so much happiness, laughter, adventures.

Well. Sometimes dreams are just that, dreams.

When Mckenna turned around 18 months old things drastically changed. My baby girl who once laughed, played, and seemed normal had changed.

She became different. She no longer played and became increasingly agitated and angry. Now me as a first time mom thought this was normal. But compared to other little ones her age I knew in my gut something wasn’t right.

As she became older things became worse. She would scream in fits of rage, pull her hair out, bite herself, throw things. It became unmanageable. She didn’t know how to play with other children and she wasn’t able to do things appropriate for her age. She had also abruptly stopped sleeping at night. This was not an inability to fall asleep. This became and inability to sleep all together.

When she was two and a half we welcomed our second child. We had decided to go to a new pediatrician and I remember at my newborns very first visit I broke down in front of him about Mckenna and pleading with him to help. He looked at me and said “Do you know what my passion is? I am a pediatrician by trade, but my passion is helping children with behavior issues and getting them better. I want to see you back here with her in three days” and ever since then, this man has been our angel in disguise.

His initial diagnosis was ADHD, but even then he was honest he didnt think that was all that was wrong. But with her being so young, it was hard to really understand what was happening. He wanted to get her brain “tuned in” so we could see what else we were dealing with that stuck around. We started her on medication for ADHD and we started seeing improvements. Life was manageable again and somewhat happy. We started seeing small glimpses of our little girl again and it gave us hope things were going to be easier again.

but sadly, that did not last long…..