Potato is in sixth grade this year and has really been struggling. I've shared many of our struggles on my personal facebook page. Trouble started within the first week of school. We live within a mile of the school, which means he has to walk. Originally he was very excited, but walking and carrying a heavy backpack for my tiny guy (52 inches, 54 pounds and hypotonia) was just too much. I thought no problem I'll just drive him to school, which worked for about a week. Then he started refusing to go to school. Every morning was a battle.
He was upset, crying, screaming, throwing his body around, and scripting (repeating same phrases over and over again). Most mornings I would be crying on my way to work after I finally got him dropped off at school.
We tried therapy, and are still going to continue to work on things.
The biggest problem was Potato's encopresis. It started to get worse. He was holding his poop for longer periods of time and having more frequent accidents.During a meeting at school, his guidance counselor suggested we put him in diapers. The suggestion was made to help keep Potato from becoming embarrassed about the accidents and for the "health and safety of the other children". I totally understand where the school is coming from. It's disgusting, poop accidents, cleaning up poop, helping to make sure my 12 year old is clean. But NO way was he going to wear diapers. The GI specialist and his therapist agreed, diapers would make things worse. Potato has encopresis because of his anxiety.
After weeks of discussions with my husband, GI, and therapists we decided the best way to help Potato was to take him out of school and put him on a high dose of laxatives. GI says this will help keep his rectum and colon empty so that it can heal and go back to its normal size. High amounts of laxatives also means lots more accidents. Which means school is just not an option.
That is the short version of how we started on this new journey. I'm hoping now that I am home full time I can share our homeschooling journey and tge work we're doing to help my youngest out medically.
Video below does an amazing job explaining encopresis.
~Earthy Mom
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