Ohhh, Snapples!

Ethan was released from the hospital yesterday morning with a mobile jet pack EEG.  I knew that it would be hard to duplicate a sensory overload "episode" in the hospital, so the doctor's finally agreed to let him out with a mobile pack so we could try and load Ethan up on as much sensory overload stuff as possible (sounds torturous, doesn't it?). 

I was at home with Hope and Loren, so it was up to Scott to tackle this task.  I told him to take him to the mall, restaurants, and the mack daddy...Chuck E' Cheese.  Due to the fact that Ethan was already sleep deprived from not sleeping much in the hospital, those places should have thrown him over the edge.  They didn't.  He was, quoting Scott, "PERFECT".  Say what!?!?

Then, it hit me.  Ethan had been wearing the EEG box on his back.  It weighs at least a couple of pounds.  {Sensory Moms may know where I am going with this...}  Anyone that has a kid with sensory issues knows that a possible tool to "ground" them is to use a weighted blanket or weighted vest.  The amount of weight used is supposed to be 2-3% of the child's body weight.  If you take Ethan's weight of 42 pounds, 3% is 1.26.  Ethan has been completely GROUNDED by the weight of the pack!  Geesh.  That's perfect. 

Even with my theory, we still took Ethan out again last night.  First, Chick-Fil-A because there was a horn quartet playing right in the restaurant.  We sat as close to them as possible so Ethan got the full affect of the loud music.  Then, we were off to the mall...again.  We took the pack off of him and put it in the back of the stroller and then went up and down the mall, into stores, went up and down the elevator, and rode those little cars.  On our way out, we ran into our friends The Lyons Family.  Michelle is an OT and I told her my theory to which the response was basically, yeah- the pack is likely defeating the purpose.  *sigh*  Before leaving, we passed a wind tunnel thingy and decided that we could do one last hoorah since the wind was supposed to get up over 70mph.  Scott, Ethan, Paige, and Chase piled in the tube and let the wind blow, but it really didn't, so that was a wash too but still kind of funny to see.  Trusty Michelle had her camera on her and got to take a pic.  I think the wind just blew down instead of all around the "tunnel".  Oh well, we tried.

Scott just took Ethan up to the hospital to have the EEG removed and the doctors wanted to keep it on another day.  We decided against it because we really think that he is not going to go into a sensory overload situation while wearing the pack, which puts us in a tricky position.  I don't know if we will ever be able to get a doctor to see what we are seeing.  From this point on, we will just monitor and document if he has any episodes and hope and pray that they are not seizure related.