The Po Show

He Likes It! Hey Mikey!

Yes folks, I believe we have a winner! Abilify has been a great drug for Matthew, after the initial 3 weeks of being utterly unable to sleep and 3 additional weeks of being so tired that he'd have to put his head down on his desk at school almost every morning.

He's so much less prone to outbursts, so much easier to reason with. He gets huffy, but then he can stop himself, de-escalate on his own, and comply with whatever request made him huffy in the first place.

The thing that really has blown me away, though, is that he has been asking to try new foods. This is the child who has eaten almost nothing but fruit and Trader Joe's little pizzas for about 6 years now. On Thanksgiving he asked to try some green beans, and he loved them and has been eating them ever since. He's started eating hamburgers with barbeque sauce. He asked to try PASTA the other night! He has not eaten pasta since he was maybe two (and he didn't like it then).

Ross came home from work that night and was in the kitchen. I called out to him from the dining room that Matthew had asked to try pasta. I walked into the kitchen and he was grinning at me, saying, "I must not have heard you from the other room properly. It sounded like you said that Matthew wanted to try pasta." :D Matthew actually, and I wouldn't have believed this if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, ate a plate of lasagna the other night.

He's also talking to his classmates much more, engaging them in conversation. We saw his teacher on Tuesday and he said that a couple of kids actually *asked* to sit by Matthew, so he has new table mates in class.

We still don't know what the future holds, but I gotta say, I'm feeling pretty good about this drug.

(On a side note, have you seen the commercial for Abilify on TV? A woman is walking by herself through a field and some trees, looking sad and lonely. The voiceover is talking about bipolar disorder, the highs and lows. Then it mentions Abilify and the woman comes upon another woman standing by a fence. She perks up and they start walking together, not exactly holding hands, but walking very close together, very intimately. So what's the message here, that Abilify can turn you into a lesbian???)