I have two stories to tell...both involve alarms, and I'm realizing one story has not yet been told. The primary story, at the moment, is the story of the child and the new alarm. Here it is.
In an effort to hold on to my sanity, I give you a glimpse of our adventure through the bathroom.
Hold on to your hats, if you’re brave enough to read!
I hope wish and pray that none of you will hear the words I've heard. Dysfunctional Voiding....or Voiding Dysfunction. I've heard both and seen both on the net...it's inSANE the amount of crap they can call something when all it means is your kid is unable to stay dry. that's it...that's the definition...there's some variation on the why, For our kid it's that the bladder wall is "too strong" and unwilling to relax. There are other specifics but it just doesn't matter at the moment...
Around Thanksgiving last year, the song at our house became "All I want for Christmas is a urine-free house..." Most of the time it was sung by a male adult in the house. Around mid-February it was "All I want for Easter is a urine-free house..." You get the idea.
At our most recent urologist visit, I was given a new piece of paper I had not seen before. It's a pamphlet. 8 pages total. It's a sales brochure for a company called The Bed Wetting Store. I kid you not. Daddy purchased a Father's day gift for himself. Again, I kid you not. The order was for a discreet alarm that attaches to a pair of undies. If said undies get wet, the transmitter sends a signal to the alarm - an alarm that has a volume control, but it's still an alarm.
On Thursday this week, a wonderful white box arrived with a return address of BWS. Nice and polite, yet I knew what it was and I cackled. Yes, I cackled. We have four pairs of these wonderful attachable undies, one transmitter, and one receiver that's plugged in now. What I did not expect was the reaction of the child.
Night One - In fear of the alarm, the undies were taken off, the pullup put back on, then the potty was "dispensed."
Night Two - The undies AND the pullup were taken off, and the child awoke in a lake on her bed. (EEEEEEEWWWWW)
Night Three - Only 2 pairs of undies were locatable. Upon further search, one was found on the curtain rod above the tub, and the 4th was found amongst the sheets from the previous evening. Night three is also when a new child monitor was purchased so the sleeping child does not have to come upstairs to wake her family if the alarm does not wake them - the alarm can be heard through the new monitor. When someone at the store asked about the purchase, mommy though quickly and said the child was having nightmares. Out of earshot, mommy was questioned about the lie. Mommy responded "Would you rather have them know the real reason?" After a moment of thought, the child responded, "No, I guess nightmares are a bit more appropriate." 'Nuff said.
We've had the suspicion that most of the wetting was soon after bedtime as the muscles relax. This is being confirmed by the alarm going off several times before an hour is over. The child is frequently saying "Not aGAIN" as the alarm goes off. The amount on the undies has been reducing, though, so the child seems more able to be aware and stop the flow already...possibly...prayerfully...we'll see!
Thank you for reading my book.. I hope this will give hope to those who are struggling with just plain old "will you
PLEASE sit on the potty"issues for awhile...DV is not diagnosed until age 5 or 6 and is treatable, but [i]not[/i] something a lot of families deal with. We're the only family I personally know of in Anchorage, though I know there are other families that see those urologists.
On to the other alarm story. I spent some time trying to find the information I sent out to others and came up blank. I'm rather shocked! I think I'll have to look at our visa records to find when this actually happened since the mind and emails don't seem to remember!
Several months back, we realized that the children were waking each other up in the night to watch movies. One child (and it tended to vary) would wake up the other, and they would proceed to the TV room and watch until they both fell asleep again. It was creating problems at both schools, and was just plain wearing out the parents.
On Saturday, after some discussion, we went to Radio Shack and didn't tell either child what we were there
for. We merely purchased the items and took them home. The items are two small alarms - one for each floor of the house. The Upstairs alarm is posted above Timothy's reach and will "DING DONG" if a child walks past when it is turned on. The Downstairs alarm is just across from Hannah's room and pointed towards the TV area. Again, if it's turned on, it goes "fweep, fweep, fweep fweep" until turned off. The third part of the "answer" was a timer attached to the TV which turns on and off,(and I forgot this part until recently. - Scott told the kids that the company turns the TV on and off - not us).
So there are our Alarming Stories. I'll try to post pictures later.
