- AD/HD & me -

here's kiara on the last day of school [last year]

she's happy, excited & ready to see what this day held for her

here she is sucking her thumb [which she does at home, but never at school]

as even more people came into the classroom & it started feeling very crowded

here she is after she'd totally shut down - the classroom we'd been in all morning was wall to wall people, nothing was going according to the schedule that she went by everyday, there were tons of people near her that she didn't know, things were totally out of the 'norm' for her

well, there you have it - we've heard more about AD/HD [attention deficit hyperactivity disorder] in the past 12 hours, than i've heard in a lifetime - as most of you know, we're having kiara take kindergarten 1 more year - academically, she's right where she needs to be, but emotionally/socially/physically...she's not

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with moving over the summer, she'll be going to a new school [she starts tomorrow & is VERY excited about it] - we thought that with her starting a new school, if we were to hold her back, now would be the time to do that - when she first heard she was going to kindergarten, she said, "hey wait a minute, i already was in kindergarten, remember?" & before i could have the time to come up with something to answer her with, she said, "oh yeah, i forgot...i never took kindergarten at my new school yet!" [she thinks when you move, you START in kindergarten!]

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well, with the advise of the school [her old one that knew her], we had her tested at st vincent [indianapolis] a couple months ago - we were there all day [& by that i mean like 8 hours of just testing] - today was our followup visit, so spike, myself & kiara all went - what they found after the doctor that initially ran the tests, her assistant what witnessed all the testing & 2 other doctors besides, was that she's got AD/HD - there are different ways they determined this, but all in all, she was well below average on almost everything that she was tested on & VERY low on others

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they gave us a lot of information to read through [those that know me, know how much i love to read!], recommended books to read [again, more to read!] & several therapists to talk to as well, in order to educate us - we've certainly got our work cut out for us

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one good thing's that we're a very structured family & from what we've heard today, that's a plus for people with AD/HD - i also heard that the feingold diet helps tremendously with this as well, so i went online tonight & ordered their packet & am looking forward to getting it & getting started [that's how i am, if something needs to be done, i'm not waiting, i'm doing it NOW...even if it does require more reading!]

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i feel that at least we've a name to put with what we've seen in her since we've known her & now we can work towards helping her live life to its fullest - we did the same thing for ruby, when we found out she was totally deaf in both ears & we'll do it now for kiara