Looking back....

Part of the recovery, not just for Alex, but for us as a family involved looking back at his life to see if there were any clues to how ill he would become, and to see if we could identify when it all started.

When he was in the last year of infants (I think that would have been around 6 years old), all of a sudden his behaviour became very erratic.  He would be hyperactive, almost bouncing off the ceilings, then angry and violent (often towards me as a 'safe' person'), then suicidally depressed.  This went on for months to the point where I'd done everything I could but nothing seemed to help, and I couldn't cope.  I finally admitted defeat (it felt), and went to seek help from the GP.  Of course, describing the individual incidents didn't make much of an impression, and whenever Alex had been to the Drs he had always been pretty well behaved, but did agree to refer us to a child psychologist even though he didn't think it was necessary.  I saw the psychologist a few times, both alone and with Alex.  She helped me analyse everything, and find ways of dealing with his behaviour and working out what the triggers were.  It became apparent that a lot of his mood swings were caused by blood sugar fluctuations, so I spoke to the school and made sure that he took a cereal bar to eat at ,id-morning break, and always took something for him to eat as soon as school finished.  The hyperactivity and violence quickly became control able.  But the depression was a frequent visitor. 

Depression is a hard subject for most adults to discuss and deal with, but when it involves young children, it is almost impossible.  How do you tell someone that your child regularly tells you they want to die, or wish they were dead?  And not just while they're arguing with you, when they're in bed crying at night because they are so deeply unhappy although they don't know why.  Who do you turn to?  In my case, I struggled through, trying to deal with it as best I could, all the while blaming myself.  Did he inherit it from me?  Was I causing it somehow?  Why couldn't I make my child happy?  It's a terrible burden to carry.

When he started in the juniors he started to complain of stomach pains, mostly in the mornings when he got to school.  The teachers and I thought it was because he didn't want to be at school, and the unhappiness was making him have the pains.  I repeatedly approached the teachers for support.  I could see he was struggling with the work, but it hadn't been picked up on.  I asked for him to be tested for dyslexia which runs in the family.  Just as we started to get somewhere we would get fobbed of.  It seemed that because he was quiet, well behaved and not totally failing at school, he was falling through the net.  In year 4 the teacher suggested he have his eyes tested to rule out sight problems.  It turned out that he did need glasses and they seemed to help a little with his confidence.  The teacher he had that year was great.  She could see the potential in him and that he just needed help to raise his confidence in himself.  He started to make progress again, and things seemed to be going well.  He still complained of the stomach pains some mornings, but he seemed happier.

Then came the following school year when he seemed to be constantly ill.  Tonsillitis at the beginning of the school year, a nasty bout of flu before Christmas, tonsillitis again in February followed by the abdominal pains which were so awful he felt like he was dying, and lay on the sofa groaning for a month before finally several months later being diagnosed with coeliac disease and recovering so well it was like a butterfly had finally been able to stretch its wings which had been crushed in a chrysalis of pain.  Yes, strange imagery I know, but its very late and I'm rather tired!

Looking at all of this, it seem to me that the coeilac disease was probably triggered during that last year of infant school when his behaviour deteriorated so badly.  Everything makes sense given the context we now have.  He still has times of depression, but they are nowhere near as severe.  He does have stomach pains, but they don't last long and are not as bad.  The sever constipation he had had for as long as we could remember has pretty much disappeared!  Now the only reason he's taking up the bathroom for an hour at a time is because he's reading a book and lost track of time.

What a difference these few months has made.

Now we wait to see the differences in Ruth.  Her symptoms were thought to have been caused by puberty (stomach pains, irritability, tiredness) until we got her blood test results.  Of course, there's no guarantee that we will see a difference, but I'd like to think she will find school easier again.  After a lifetime of swanning through school at the top of the class, this past 6 months she has found it much harder to concentrate.