March 9 - Blood Work

March 9 - Blood Work

Oh what a morning today was!! Levi had melt down after melt down, no listening ears, and no decision making this morning! It included him losing the ability to even ask to get a donut at blood work before we had even left the house. It was a rough one!

When we got to the hospital we headed right in to the lab. There was no line today so Levi went right in to see P! He picked his band-aid, the blue fish as per usual lately, though I thought for a minute he was going to go with emoji's because he asked what it was and giggled at the smiley faces. He climbed up in the chair and was being super silly with P. It was nice to see him smiling! He did a decent job holding his arm out, but did have a little melt down after the needle was in, not quite sure what that was about, but he came out of it pretty quick. While his blood was filling the tubes he asked P if he could take the tourniquet with him. She said "no, but you can have a new clean one!" he was pretty excited by that. Then he asked her if he could take his tubie with him. She explained that it needed to go to the lab, but that he could have a green one! When the blood was done he got his band-aid and jumped down, but instead of immediately going to the treasure box like usual he just stood there. P and I kinda looked at each other, and then Levi tried to slide in front of P to get to the cupboard and said "You forgot my tighty tight!" she was like "your what?!" he said "my tighty tight!" she giggled at the fact that he uses her fun names and she got him a new one from the box. He told her that they were so cool! Then she handed him a green tube. His little mind was so excited! We had to ask him if he was going to go to the treasure box. He got over to the treasure box and opened the cover and what was sitting right on top?! Another package of 3 race cars!! He was super excited. He grabbed them and off we went. Since his hands were full of all his stuff he gave P a hug instead of a high five!

We headed out to the fountain. He looked at the fountain and then looked at the donut case. He then looked up at me and said "I wanted to listen but I didn't!" with this cute little pleading face!

 I answered with you're right, you didn't listen this morning. He took one last look at the donuts and then put on his coat! He was very good and never actually asked for a donut! I was proud of him for knowing that he had lost it.

On the way to the car he asked to be carried and said "Sorry I didn't listen Mommy" all on his own! I said "Thanks buddy! Now you have had your consequence of not listening with no donut and we can have a good day from here on out!" He said "Maybe we can try for a donut tomorrow?!" I said "Maybe!" It was really cute. I think we are finally starting to find a grove of things that work with him. Time out doesn't work, he doesn't understand; the biggest consequences for him are losing things that are in his routine/norm and emotions. Telling him you are sad or angry or upset makes him change his tune, and losing things that are in the routine like the donut. As we were walking to the car the wind was really strong, I was very glad that I was carrying him. He giggled when the wind came up and said "The wind tried to blow over my race cars. The wind wanted to play with my race cars, but they are mine!" It was adorable.

We loaded up the car and headed to school!

I was a little worried what this blood work was going to come back at. With a huge drop from last Thursday to Tuesday and the small stomach bug he has going on I was very concerned that we were going to be in trouble. But it seems like the infusion was perfectly timed. His counts came back at 224 today! A 10 point increase from Tuesday. Not great after an infusion, but I'll take it. Any up is better then a down!

Plan: Next blood work will be on Friday 3/17. Levi has a specialist appointment on Thursday 3/16 with another doctor so we will be out of town.