So I wasn't crazy and something abnormal is really happening with Jane. She was screened by a neurologist at our local university's hospital today and after looking at some videos I'd recorded of what looked like seizure-behavior to me, he referred her for an EEG and an MRI.
Oooh, boy.
The one-hour EEG is this Friday. He said it takes about 48 hours to hear results of an EEG.
He did not see overt signs of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. He did want to do genetic testing to look for a chromosomal disorder. And he also ordered the MRI just to look at all kinds of things, including more mild forms of FAS that may not result in physical characteristics.
On one hand we want definitive results after all this testing, but on the other hand nobody is wishing anything upon her.
And...the foster care lens. I saw this so many times when working with parents as a special ed teacher. I could give biological parents or foster/adoptive parents the exact same news and the reactions would be completely different. Bio parents were devastated. Tears, comfort, long pauses, careful words. Foster/adoptive parents shrugged and said, yeah, we already suspected. What paperwork do you need me to sign?
If I'd been hearing the exact same news from this doc about one of my biological sons I'd be utterly devastated. I'd be so sad and frightened and upset that one of them had to have their brain tested for abnormalities. I'd have been crying, shaking and horrified. I'd have gone to my car and sobbed.
But I didn't have any of those reactions. I spoke calmly with the doctor, scheduled future appts with the receptionist on my way out, and took Jane out for donuts afterward. We were happy and chatty on the way home.
Because, let's be honest, I expected to get a broken child. I never expected to give birth to a broken child--that would've been devastating. But I knew what I was getting into when we signed up for foster care. It's almost a tiny bit of a relief to have the path we're on clearly laid out for us. Better to know for sure than to wonder what monster lurks in our future.
P.S. Sidenote: today she returned to writing the first letter of her name upside down (it's not a J, Jane is a pseudonym, as are all names in this blog). She's done that on and off for about six months now. I truly think I've observed a whole collection of behaviors that go together. I think there's A) which includes: stuttering, drooling, outgoing personality, hyperactivity, and correct (right side up) letter writing. And then there's B: non-stuttering or drooling, more reserved personality, more prone to anger or brattyness, bigger vocabulary, upside down letter writing.
She got really upset when I pointed out that the letter was upside down. That's what clued me in. She emphatically stated, "I can't do that!" and refused to even try. There was a stage where she was eager to write it again and again and again and wanted to be taught how to do it. Today it was like I asked her to do a perfect lay-up when she can't even dribble the ball. She was angry that I'd ask her to do this impossible task.
There's probably even more that I'm not yet aware of. Makes me want to develop some kind of charting system like I would've used to record data on one of my students.
The doctor talked a lot about stress and anxiety leading to significant neurological phenomenon. He said some people can even appear to have strokes that impair their speech and movement after highly stressful times in their life. So, maybe just maybe, this cluster of symptoms is attributed to stress and as her life continues to stabilize and we continue with therapy, they can be resolved. Let's hope.
Oooh, boy.
The one-hour EEG is this Friday. He said it takes about 48 hours to hear results of an EEG.
He did not see overt signs of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. He did want to do genetic testing to look for a chromosomal disorder. And he also ordered the MRI just to look at all kinds of things, including more mild forms of FAS that may not result in physical characteristics.
On one hand we want definitive results after all this testing, but on the other hand nobody is wishing anything upon her.
And...the foster care lens. I saw this so many times when working with parents as a special ed teacher. I could give biological parents or foster/adoptive parents the exact same news and the reactions would be completely different. Bio parents were devastated. Tears, comfort, long pauses, careful words. Foster/adoptive parents shrugged and said, yeah, we already suspected. What paperwork do you need me to sign?
If I'd been hearing the exact same news from this doc about one of my biological sons I'd be utterly devastated. I'd be so sad and frightened and upset that one of them had to have their brain tested for abnormalities. I'd have been crying, shaking and horrified. I'd have gone to my car and sobbed.
But I didn't have any of those reactions. I spoke calmly with the doctor, scheduled future appts with the receptionist on my way out, and took Jane out for donuts afterward. We were happy and chatty on the way home.
Because, let's be honest, I expected to get a broken child. I never expected to give birth to a broken child--that would've been devastating. But I knew what I was getting into when we signed up for foster care. It's almost a tiny bit of a relief to have the path we're on clearly laid out for us. Better to know for sure than to wonder what monster lurks in our future.
P.S. Sidenote: today she returned to writing the first letter of her name upside down (it's not a J, Jane is a pseudonym, as are all names in this blog). She's done that on and off for about six months now. I truly think I've observed a whole collection of behaviors that go together. I think there's A) which includes: stuttering, drooling, outgoing personality, hyperactivity, and correct (right side up) letter writing. And then there's B: non-stuttering or drooling, more reserved personality, more prone to anger or brattyness, bigger vocabulary, upside down letter writing.
She got really upset when I pointed out that the letter was upside down. That's what clued me in. She emphatically stated, "I can't do that!" and refused to even try. There was a stage where she was eager to write it again and again and again and wanted to be taught how to do it. Today it was like I asked her to do a perfect lay-up when she can't even dribble the ball. She was angry that I'd ask her to do this impossible task.
There's probably even more that I'm not yet aware of. Makes me want to develop some kind of charting system like I would've used to record data on one of my students.
The doctor talked a lot about stress and anxiety leading to significant neurological phenomenon. He said some people can even appear to have strokes that impair their speech and movement after highly stressful times in their life. So, maybe just maybe, this cluster of symptoms is attributed to stress and as her life continues to stabilize and we continue with therapy, they can be resolved. Let's hope.
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