Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Night terrors in a 4 yr old...

It's a reasonable time now, (5:50am.., well, maybe not for some), but I've been up since 1:10am  with my grandson, Kai as he's dealt with the struggles of night terrors and hallucinating. He's been diagnosed with Reactive attachment disorder (RAD) and impulse control issues (slight hint of ADHD) and was recently put on medication (Concerta) for it. As in yesterday evening. They told my daughter, Julie (who still lives with us) that he may have some symptoms of sleeplessness. Well, I gotta say (pardon my language, but I've had 2 hrs sleep), No shit, Sherlock!! I 'felt him leave my bedroom and head down to the first floor. I followed. The back door was wide open, he was talking about being afraid to go back to bed (they sleep in the basement), so tucked him in with us in our bed. He kept fidgeting and lifting his head up. Since Lee is a light sleeper, I took him downstairs to tuck him in and lay with him.

Then the 'sky opened up' and all he did for 5 hrs was talk about 'bats coming out of the hole', and 'do you see those eyes, Gramma?'... "There is a cow over there (pointing to the cellar window) and he's blocking our way. He's going into space."...." this story is just coming out of my brains!"... "Did you see that? There was a ghost flying by!!"... "But I caught him, See Gramma, he's sitting in my hand."... There's a crab/spiders on my leg/in my bed/ on my hair!! Get him off!!!"... and so on. He would sit up, and then lay down for seconds, then "Did you see that spider? There is his shadow!"...By 5am, he had all his clothes off and his mom was talking to the doctor on call (but he still wouldn't sit down in his bed- he was standing there). She is now at the Manchester ER hoping to have them tell her what she can do for it (was it a reaction? a side effect? a poisoning of his system?...).

Now how do I get through the rest of today. Probably with a lot of coffee...Pray for us all.
****
Update on Kai,.... doctor said to cut pill in half and give to him on Christmas eve (I say go one more day since we're going out that evening- in case we have a bad episode), and Christmas day and see how he is on Sunday. If fine, then give full dose on Sunday and after that. Julie wants to only give 1/2 dose all week then see how he is. (He was fed crackers and orange juice in ER, then allowed both of them to get some sleep before discharge from hosp). He still talks about the crabs/spiders in bed, but I sang him to sleep with Christmas carols and stories of Goldilocks.

1 comment:

Deborah said...

Nancy, our youngest daughter also had night terrors - I am will to wirte to you privately. At 3 I could set my watch by the start of the terrors every 45 minutes all night. She is now 8 and they are rare now.

Deborah Cohen
deborahc@bigpond.net.au