Ugliest Feelings...

The past couple of months have been rather difficult for Max.  He has had such a hard time with his emotions and hormones.  Going through puberty is rough....going through puberty as Max is extra rough.  He can't always express what is bothering him,  and that upsets him because he can't get his thoughts across fast enough.

We have visited with his doctors about what Max has called with his talker, "My ugliest feelings." He told us he needed to see the doctor and talk about his feelings.  We think he just gets so frustrated without being able to express himself all the time.  And that makes him angry and mix that with his hormones and he has had some rather incredible episodes of being upset.  He has had to spend a lot of time in his bedroom on his request to be by himself to calm down. It's also the only place we can leave him "alone" so he can kick and scream it out.

A few weeks ago it was all hands on deck to figure out what we could do to help him out.  We didn't know what else we could do for him, but we knew he couldn't live his days in his bed screaming and kicking.  We noticed he had one great week after his testosterone, and the remaining weeks of the month he got increasingly more agitated until he would get his testosterone shot again.  We've also been working with his dietician to put more weight on him, which has dealt him some tummy troubles until we got it sorted.  It's just been a rough couple of months for our guy.

We've been working with his PCP and Endocrinologist and think we may be on the right track with getting our happy Max back.  We changed his testosterone shots to every other week at a lower dose for a start and that already seemed to help with his emotional swings.  The other thing we've had to work on is the hot flashes he's been having. We had to  install a personal air conditioner for him.  Max has never liked the heat, but with this heat wave we've had so early in the summer, he's really been struggling.  Since he's sitting at a frosty 65 degrees morning noon and night he's a much happier boy!

Max still has his moments of feeling grumpy, but we all have grumpy moments...especially as a teenager! I can handle the sporadic moments of grumpy so much more than the constant emotional roller coaster for him.

Even with the rough spots, we've tried to have some normal moments too.

A late afternoon walk once the weather cooled. 

There were a lot of moments of cuddles in his bed. 

Showing off his new "officer" cap from one of his Secret Service pals.

A walk in the rain. 

Cool dude with his air conditioner on. 

Hopefully the rest of summer will look up!  I am certainly looking forward to more happy days not spent in his bed!