Awareness
Well, it's Tourette Awareness Month until June 15th, so I figured I'd update the ol' blog for a change in honor of that. I hope everyone reading is doing well, and I'm sorry for not writing for a solid four and a half months. Since my last post in January, the world has almost fallen into WWIII, the Chiefs won the Super Bowl for the first time in 50 years, Tiger King was a thing, and the world presently stands in the grip of Covid-19. Good times, am I right?
The whole Covid thing has thrown me for a real loop. I find a lot of comfort in routine, and that has obviously been disrupted by the spread of the virus. My work is still open, though I've been home for the last four and a half weeks because I am lucky to work for a very generous company. My co-workers and I were given the opportunity to stay home and parent at a reasonable percent of our normal pay for up to four weeks. I threw some PTO in there, so my total at-home time should top out at around 6.5 weeks. Having this time off to spend with my wife and our son has been awesome, although I freely admit there have been challenges. My son is turning three in two months, and I'm sure some of you can relate to the fact that kids at that age (especially boys? I'm not sure.) are a whooooole lot to handle. His routines are jacked up too since his daycare is closed, so he and I have established a tentative truce/equilibrium where I get to parent him with a good degree of confidence and he only runs out the back door while my back is turned two or three times a day. I do totally feel like I'm failing him as a parent since I have no skills when it comes to teaching. He is as educated now as he was on his last day of daycare, except that now he knows how to change my name on my Nintendo Switch. Also he speaks in full sentences most of the time now, and he loves to yell out "FUCK IT!" for no apparent reason, which of course concerns the shit out of me.
It's weird, because my wife and I (both of whom curse now and then) never actually use that formulation of the F-word. We're not entirely sure where he learned it, and it's also possible that we're not hearing him correctly. At any rate, we're trying to convince him to say "ROCK IT!" instead, and we've had some limited success with that. He appears to also be developing an eye roll/light stare which is a page right out of my tic book. I'm not sure if it's a tic or if he's just imitating me. I'm hoping for the latter but am curiously sure it's the former. With all deference to all the TS parents with kids who also have TS, I'll be devastated if he ends up having it as well. Poor kid is already stuck being a lefty like me. All I can hope for is that if he DOES have the TS, I'll be able to be a good role model for him and help him navigate some of the tricky parts.
I guess it's true that you stop caring as much about yourself once you have a kid, because I've lately been more concerned with his potential symptoms than I am with my own definitely symptom symptoms. I've started hitting myself in the face and temples. Sometimes it's with an open palm, other times it's with a closed fist. Just depends on where I'm hitting myself. Temples get a closed fist, and the sides of my face get the slap. It's humiliating enough that I've managed to get out of other people's range of vision when I do it, but I'm worried it's just a matter of time before I start leaving marks. In the beginning, I was turning my head with the hit, which lessened the blow. Now I'm keeping my head still or even turning into it, which makes it so much worse. I've set my ears to ringing a few times now and I've been dazed by a few temple shots. It's not a constant tic like my eyebrows or my lips. It's more like a special guest tic that, once it shows up, sticks around for an hour or so. I've also got a weird compulsion to do it in front of a mirror, which makes it even more embarrassing. I know this sounds weird, but other than that my tics have been really good lately. Part of it definitely has to do with being away from work, which is a really stressful environment. Mentally, I'm in a better place now than I have been in a long while. It took a while and it took no small amount of putting aside my pride, but it seems my doctor and I have found the right mix of meds to keep me feeling good and being functional. It feels pretty good.
The whole Covid thing has thrown me for a real loop. I find a lot of comfort in routine, and that has obviously been disrupted by the spread of the virus. My work is still open, though I've been home for the last four and a half weeks because I am lucky to work for a very generous company. My co-workers and I were given the opportunity to stay home and parent at a reasonable percent of our normal pay for up to four weeks. I threw some PTO in there, so my total at-home time should top out at around 6.5 weeks. Having this time off to spend with my wife and our son has been awesome, although I freely admit there have been challenges. My son is turning three in two months, and I'm sure some of you can relate to the fact that kids at that age (especially boys? I'm not sure.) are a whooooole lot to handle. His routines are jacked up too since his daycare is closed, so he and I have established a tentative truce/equilibrium where I get to parent him with a good degree of confidence and he only runs out the back door while my back is turned two or three times a day. I do totally feel like I'm failing him as a parent since I have no skills when it comes to teaching. He is as educated now as he was on his last day of daycare, except that now he knows how to change my name on my Nintendo Switch. Also he speaks in full sentences most of the time now, and he loves to yell out "FUCK IT!" for no apparent reason, which of course concerns the shit out of me.
It's weird, because my wife and I (both of whom curse now and then) never actually use that formulation of the F-word. We're not entirely sure where he learned it, and it's also possible that we're not hearing him correctly. At any rate, we're trying to convince him to say "ROCK IT!" instead, and we've had some limited success with that. He appears to also be developing an eye roll/light stare which is a page right out of my tic book. I'm not sure if it's a tic or if he's just imitating me. I'm hoping for the latter but am curiously sure it's the former. With all deference to all the TS parents with kids who also have TS, I'll be devastated if he ends up having it as well. Poor kid is already stuck being a lefty like me. All I can hope for is that if he DOES have the TS, I'll be able to be a good role model for him and help him navigate some of the tricky parts.
I guess it's true that you stop caring as much about yourself once you have a kid, because I've lately been more concerned with his potential symptoms than I am with my own definitely symptom symptoms. I've started hitting myself in the face and temples. Sometimes it's with an open palm, other times it's with a closed fist. Just depends on where I'm hitting myself. Temples get a closed fist, and the sides of my face get the slap. It's humiliating enough that I've managed to get out of other people's range of vision when I do it, but I'm worried it's just a matter of time before I start leaving marks. In the beginning, I was turning my head with the hit, which lessened the blow. Now I'm keeping my head still or even turning into it, which makes it so much worse. I've set my ears to ringing a few times now and I've been dazed by a few temple shots. It's not a constant tic like my eyebrows or my lips. It's more like a special guest tic that, once it shows up, sticks around for an hour or so. I've also got a weird compulsion to do it in front of a mirror, which makes it even more embarrassing. I know this sounds weird, but other than that my tics have been really good lately. Part of it definitely has to do with being away from work, which is a really stressful environment. Mentally, I'm in a better place now than I have been in a long while. It took a while and it took no small amount of putting aside my pride, but it seems my doctor and I have found the right mix of meds to keep me feeling good and being functional. It feels pretty good.
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