Ryan & Risperdal

Ryan started on the Concerta this morning during our session and this afternoon during our visit, he was taken off of it. Instead, the doctor started him on Risperdal. Risperdal is an "atypical antipsychotic". It works by changing the effects of chemicals in the brain. It is used in autistic children to treat symptoms of irritability. This medicine has been prescribed for two of our foster sons in the past and the change was miraculous. I'm hoping it works as well on Ryan. Once Ryan's moods are better controlled, then the doctor will restart the Concerta, but at this point, ADD is the least of his problems.

I told him I had 2 bits of good news and one bad and he wanted the good first. So I told him his bedtime could be later now and he could sleep later in the morning. Both things he has wanted to do but couldn't because of having to go to school. So he would go to bed at 8 and Carly and Wes stay up till 9.

Then he asked me what the bad news was and I told him to use his thinker and figure it out from what I already told him. He did figure it out and was about to cry when I assured him I would get the phone number of his friend from school. Driving home from the hospital I felt a great sense of relief for Ryan - that the pressure of school would be gone from him. As my friend, Vicki Alvey, so elegantly put it, "It's not worth it."

I don't expect Ryan to grow up and be a rocket scientist. He tells me he wants to work at McDonald's to make sure they don't put cheese on my hamburgers. He knows I hate cheese, yet fast food workers seem to think everyone MUST have cheese on their burgers or the world will revolve backwards. And I don't think Ryan has to know where to put every comma or quotation mark in order to do that so we will learn the basics at home and prepare him the best we can to face the world when he grows up.

Ryan loves God with all his heart - that is one thing he is very clear on. He will correct anyone he hears say that so and so is their best friend by telling them that God should be their best friend. That alone makes my heart burst with love for my freckly face kid.