Where have you been??

Hello again. I'm back!! Some of you may be wondering "why haven't you posted in the last three weeks," and I wondered that myself. I thought maybe it's because I was stuffed from the Thanksgiving feast. But that's not it. My pants are tighter now though... Perhaps my absence is because I was busy as my alter ego, saving the big city and getting the girl. But no. Little Rock is not a big city, and super heroes pants aren't snug. I was actually touring the mid-west United States with a traveling wild-west show as the horse poop cleaner/rodeo clown. I tried to do both jobs at the same time one night during a show, got trampled by a bull and underwent a brain-replacement operation at the state hospital in Phulaschit, Nebraska. The TRUTH is, we've both been working a lot and the two times I sat down to write in the past few weeks, I've had a completely blank mind. Writers block. (wild-west story was better huh?!)

I read an article earlier this year that I found very interesting, but I also found it is a very touchy point for some people. The article was here on Time.com and entitled "ADHD Does Not Exist." See, touchy and controversial right there in the title. A good, interesting read if you have five minutes, but if not it is a behavioral neurologist with over 50 years experience in the field, (dude must be OOOOOLLLLLDLDDD) who has practiced under the thought or pretense that ADHD doesn't exist and that by curing underlying issues, the symptoms of ADHD go away. Now I'm not here to start a rally or upset friends who have kids who, or themselves, have ADHD, so calm down. There have been enough 'movements' started in the last few weeks that we don't need another one. I just read the article and did some more googling (because that's what amateur research is these days) and found that treating underlying issues to cure common symptoms is not an uncommon practice at all. So I took to google and my local yellow pages (again, via google) and thought about applying that to my TS.

I know through my own experience and research that TS is often associated with anxiety and OCD. Exactly how they correlate seems to be a foggy area that 'experts' don't seem to agree on 100%, but they agree the conditions do correlate. So I connected with a Psychologist and spoke with her about what behavior therapy is and how to use that to treat my tics. Knowing the anxiety that I have as well as some of the obsessive-compulsive tendencies I have exhibited in the past, our sessions have been her digging into my brain (figuratively of course. I do enough literal brain digging through my nose sitting at red lights) and asking open ended questions to literally figure out what makes me tic. Since I met my wife 4 1/2 years ago, when I try something new to minimize my tics I will ask her if she has noticed a difference, and the answer has always been no.

As I've been seeing the psychologist I've learned more about myself, and even more about Tourette's, and have been given all kinds of pointers to help combat the anxiety and the OCD. While I'm not cured (that wasn't my expectation anyway) I finally had my wife say that I seem to twitch less recently! After all the punches I've thrown and the eyes I've poked, hearing her say that I felt like this:

So while I still twitch, it was nice to feel some improvement, and even better to have someone else who sees me every day to acknowledge it as well. And I'm sure my kids appreciate how much better I've become at not blowing air into their faces!

I like to continually learn and try to improve, not just with TS but with everything. I strive every day to be a better husband, father, brother, firefighter, Christian and every other aspect of my life. Life is hard. My sister just told me this morning that being a parent is hard. (amen!) But it's all part of life. Better yourself so you can help better others.

And finally. My beautiful little girl turned 3 this last week. Happy Birthday Cutie!! She can't decide from one minute to the next if she is Doc McStuffins, Queen Elsa, Sleeping Beauty or one of the Bubble Guppies, but I love all of her! And I'm not ashamed to admit I can sing along with all the aforementioned songs. (I may even sing "Let It Go" better than Queen Elsa herself...)

Update!

In the winter/spring of 2013, National Geographic followed my family and me around Little Rock for awhile, filming the everyday aspects of our lives and my going through the hiring process with the fire department. I had a blast with the cameras around and meeting with the various camera operators and sound techs and producers. I was hoping Life with Tourette’s would be a season-long show, but only one episode was aired and I didn’t hear anything else from it. (And I actually can’t find it ANYWHERE! I’ve had a few people ask to see it, and I have no idea if there’s record of it anywhere, so if any of you computer savvy internet geniuses know where to find it, let me know!!) So I thought since the show kind of left people hanging on what happened to me, I’d update y’all now.

Since the show I did in fact get hired on the FD. I worked hard and waited a long time to get the job, and I was ecstatic when I got the call from the chief of the Little Rock Fire Department offering me the job. I get to go to work now every day (well, actually it’s every 3rd day) at what I think is the greatest job in the world! One thing that didn’t make the airwaves was me walking into the fire department for the first time with a whole entourage of people with cameras, microphones and clipboards. The FD was nice enough to play along but I was quickly reminded how generally unhappy they were about the surprise visit. They lived though, and now I get to be one of those guys I used to look up to when a fire truck went racing by.

I’ve developed a number of new tics since the show. A person with Tourette’s has tics that change over time. Some tics get better, some get worse, and some new ones develop while old ones go away. In the show I was hitting myself in the back of the neck pretty hard and regularly. I don’t do that so much anymore, which is nice! That particular tic hurt!! But one tic I’ve had for a long time, touching the eyes of pictures and in mirrors (which is more of an OCD based tic than a neurological tic,) has gotten worse. I started to poke other people in the eye! I only did it for a couple days to my children before working really hard to change that tic. I definitely don’t want to hurt them! And…I don’t want to get punched in the face. At work one night we were loading our hose back onto the engine after a fire and I reached up and almost poked a co-worker in the eye. I stopped myself because if I did that, and he decked me, I wouldn’t have blamed him one bit! So that is the most recent ‘new tic’ that I am working on. I no longer poke my kids in the eyes, but I still run my hands over their face, which my almost-3-year-old has told me is “noying Daddy.”

Other than a new job and new tics, we’ve also added a new member to the family! When my daughter was born I didn’t think I could love anyone or anything as much as I love her. Then my son was born and I found out the amazing feelings of love and happiness that come from having two. I go to work every day and smile because I love my job, then I come home from work and have a bigger smile because I get to have these two waiting for me when I walk in. Addie turns 3 next month and Dallin just hit 6 months, and both are growing like weeds! They are without a doubt the greatest joy in my life.

I’ve also had the chance to meet new friends since I was on the show. (What’s up Tyler!) I have a lot of fun talking with others who have or know people with TS and just get to know them and hear their stories. The news and current events make you believe otherwise, but I think most people are awesome. Every person is different than the next and that is what makes the world interesting.

Life changes and I’ve learned to embrace it. Some changes are big, major changes that alter your whole life while others are so minor that other people don’t notice. But that’s all part of life. Roll with the punches, even if you’re throwing them at yourself!