No confession this time, just some info to share...
A couple of weeks ago, during a dr visit, we found out that Nick has severely enlarged tonsils. After visits with his pediatrician and an ENT specialist, it was determined that he very likely has sleep apnea as a result of his enlarged tonsils. During our visit with the ENT specialist, the Dr started describing possible traits and symptoms that children with sleep apnea could exhibit. Unbeknownst to him, he was also describing Nick and all the issues and problems we've been dealing with for the last several months. Temper tantrums, bathroom accidents, behavior issues, inability to focus/lack of attention...I was shocked to find that these could all be stemming from the same source. It had never occurred to me that any of these problems were related to the quality of his sleep.
Then the Dr went on to explain that sleep apnea in children is almost always misdiagnosed as ADHD, so most children with sleep apnea go untreated (which can be dangerous). Worse yet, they end up being labeled and treated for the wrong thing. In most adult cases of sleep apnea, the individual suffers from excessive daytime sleepiness. Usually, this is pretty clear both to the individual and to the people around them. They look, act, and feel very sleepy. But in children, it tends to manifest almost in a backward manner. They may look and act sleepy, but even if they FEEL overly tired, they are very hyperactive and have great difficulty focusing and paying attention. I cannot begin to tell you the number of times I have seen Nick with dark circles under his eyes or with red, puffy eyes. Outwardly, he is clearly very tired. But he just. won't. sit. still. He is SO hyper. I couldn't understand the contrast. Until now.
I share this information with you because I spent a lot of time being frustrated. I was frustrated with Nick. I was frustrated with myself. I was frustrated with our lack of connection, my lack of ability to get him to calm down, pay attention, focus, chill out. I was frustrated with the knowledge that we were likely in for years of fights with teachers and doctors who would recommend he be medicated to treat what was likely going to be diagnosed as ADHD. I saw that road laid out ahead of us and I hated it. I hated it for him and I hated it for us.
But as the ENT rattled off this list of symptoms and I heard him describing my kid, I felt like crying. And laughing. And maybe doing some cartwheel. If I, in fact, could do cartwheels. First, it was a relief to find out something actually was going on with him, and that these frustrations have not been completely in my head. I've spent months feeling like I was the problem, like I was doing something wrong or responding to him the wrong way and making things harder for both of us. In no way do I ever want anything to be "wrong" with my children. But in a way, I was relieved to know that there was something was wrong, or rather that something wasn't right. Secondly, it was a huge relief to hear that we may not be headed down that road to ADHD hell, to hear that there was likely another explanation for all of this.
I share this information with you because I know I'm not the only parent frustrated with these similar issues. And I'm by no means trying to make the claim that if you think your kid has ADD/ADHD, it's probably just sleep apnea instead. In truth, sleep apnea only effects a small percentage of children. But the symptoms are very, very similar to those of ADHD and in most cases, simply removing the tonsils greatly improves their quality of sleep, thus improving their daytime symptoms as well. Call this my Parenting PSA if you want. But if you are struggling with these things with your child, and you haven't considered sleep apnea as a possible cause, I strongly recommend it. So many people, myself included, never even consider the quality of sleep a child gets, simply the quantity. We just assume that if they slept all night, they must be rested. But that's not always true for us as adults, so we can't count it as true for our kids either.
Nick's surgery is set for next week, and obviously, I have no way to know yet if this will be a "fix-it button" for us. According to the surgeon, it will be a few months before we will even be able to notice quantifiable changes in his behavior. I can't tell you, "Take their tonsils out, it fixes everything!" I don't know that, and I don't even believe that. I don't expect that this surgery will fix everything for us. I'm not expecting a perfect kid after the surgery. I'm just hopeful that this simply makes him sleep easier, and by extension, makes our days a little easier too.
Here is a link to a page with some more information, if you are interested.
