He’s happy. He’s chatty. He’s getting stronger and stronger.
(He still has cerebral palsy. He’s still non-verbal. He still has a vision impairment.)
But, he’s doing so well!
The new home would be part of that. Everyone is relaxed and happy.
Dexter is surrounded by the chatter and laughter of his sisters.
He has so much more area to move around in.
It could be that the impact of Dexter’s chemotherapy treatments and the femoral osteotomy surgery have finally faded. It could be that his body is feeling stronger.
Or, it could be that Dexter has started to take medication for sleeping.
This is something we have resisted... for so long, because we don’t want Dexter to be relying on medication for the rest of his life! That thought scared us! We have so much to worry about, that we didn’t want to have the ‘burden’ of daily medications. Dexter has overdosed on pain killers, and has severe allergies to some medicines, so medication scares us. But, after four years… we gave in. After four years of Dexter staying awake for hours after we put him to bed… we gave in. We gave Dexter Melatonin. Melatonin is naturally produced in the body and it helps us realise that it is time to rest. |
We gave it to Dexter and, an hour later, he was in a very rested and happy place. There was the most gorgeous grin on his face and he was soon asleep.
He was asleep hours before he would usually have fallen asleep.
He was asleep without the whinging that came when he was over-tired and had been in bed for an hour or so.
We’ve been giving Dexter melatonin for a couple of weeks, now.
He’s eating breakfast. And morning tea and lunch and afternoon tea and dinner!
He’s eating really well! (We’re still having to make sure he drinks enough.)
He’s so much chattier. He rarely sleeps during the day and no longer falls asleep half way through dinner.
He is more active during the day and doing really well with his home therapies.
There was one night episode of Dexter’s constant crying and whinging, which he occasionally does. We call these ‘cerebral palsy nights’. He works himself up to a very agitated state and we cannot bring him out of it.
These are bad nights, and we hate them.
Dexter had the start of one of these episodes… but it didn’t last long.
We weren’t sure whether the melatonin was causing Dexter to have a reaction, but there hasn’t been another one of these episodes.
That little melatonin bottle was pretty pricey!
We went in a little doubtfully… a little reluctantly… but now, we’re seeing some great results. We’re seeing a cheekier, chattier and more determined little man, who is doing so well with his eating. He’s still grabbing for the spoon, too!
If you are like us… fighting using sleeping medication for the first time…
If you have a child like Dexter, who needs some help to relax and fall asleep…
We are finding melatonin to be really helping Dexter.