Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Parenting Fail: Having one of those depressed days where I'm unsure whether I'm making the right choices for one of my kids, and wishing that the line between pushing too hard and not pushing hard enough was painted in neon and had flashing lights and arrows so you could find the dang thing. Especially for kids with FASD, it's just so hard to know whether apparent potential is real, and a worthwhile goal, or just a mirage to pursue at everyone's peril. Sigh. Tomorrow is another day, and fall is another semester.

1 comment:

Danica Surette said...

For almost a month last summer my daughter was admitted to the psychiatric unit of the IWK children's hospital here in Nova Scotia . This was a necessity as she'd been suffering from debilitating anxiety and OCD for 7 years already. The wonderful, overworked doctors there decided on a new prescription for her that did wonders.


Unfortunately with progress came some digress as she eventually developed some type of depression. Not as severe as her anxiety, but worth looking into. Not sure if this was the depression doctors warned us could develop during her teens or some pms dysmorphic disorder, I soon contacted our family doctor. To my surprise, our physician's receptionist advised me to seek help from a pharmacist rather than the doctor as there were no upcoming appointments available. She assured me that a pharmacist was just as well qualified to advise us on homoeopathic remedies for this matter. WHAT?


With nothing else to go by, I did just as the receptionist suggested and reluctantly asked for some homoeopathic medical advice from a pharmacist. She appeared dumbfounded at the question and so I explained that my family doctor's office had sent me there for answers to my problems. Not surprisingly, she admitted that homoeopathic medicines for such diagnosis such as pms were geared more towards headache, cramping, bloating...Now what?


Eventually I was able to speak to a child psychiatrist who further informed me of the reasons and symptoms of adolescent depression and the difference between depression and that caused by pms dysmorphic disorder. He sent me a chart to follow my daughter's "ups and downs" during her cycle to analyse the cause. PHEW! Light at the end of the tunnel.


As a woman with no problem speaking her mind, I am speechless with the lack of service from our family doctor, let alone the lack of compassion.


As Bell's "Let's Talk" approaches this January 28th, I trust that (eventually) all physicians will learn that mental and physical health is fundamentally linked.