Potty Training~ The Nightmare continues....

On this journey we are all taking wth trying to raise a child with special needs, we will encounter so many obstacles. Tests, trials, call it what you may, but it is so hard. Potty training a typically developing child is difficult. Training a special needs child can seem like it is going to break your spirit. At least it has tried to now for almost 3 years. My son turned 7 this past April. He does not use a walker and is capable of getting to the toilet. He has severe brain damage from a neglegent hospital staff that delivered him. It is a miracle he is even walking. Around the age of 2 maybe, I was told by one therapist to not even try until he was at least 5. He absolutely refused to stand in front of the toilet to even attempt to pee. Really traumatized him. Trying to sit him on the toilet was just as bad. We installed those bars on the wall so he could hold onto something forthe extra sense of support. That has helped. We have had many instances in the past 3 years of some success. For us, the steps were very small. Getting used to the toilet, the sound water makes when urine hits it, modifying the toilet seat so he would know he wasn't going to fall in. It was a sensory issue with him for many years. It was difficult figuring out all of the different triggers he had when going into a bathroom. When he was about 4, he was pee trained for the most part. You couldn't ask him if he needed to go to the bathroom, you couldn't even tell him to go. You had to pick him up and carry him to the toilet, assist him with his pants and tell him to "make bubbles". He would comply. Around the same time, he was diagnosed with Epilepsy and when the medicine reached a certain dose, it gave him chronic and explosive diarrhea. There were other outside stress factors going on at the time, we were not convinced it was the medicine giving him the diarrhea for many months. Beacuse of sanitary issues at his preschool and Kindergarten, they asked to keep him in pullups. He would use the pull ups as a diaper. We had enough with the diarrhea, we had changed everything in his dailly life that could have caused the diarrhea and decided as a last result to change the seizure medicine. The new seizure medicine has the opposite problem. Constipation. Now, my son is pee trained and with the help of Miralax, are trying a regimine for poop training. He has been in underroos now for about 3 weeks. A couple of accidents. Since the age of 4, I have had multiple specialists "help" with potty training. I tried every program out there. I would go in fits and spurts. Iwould have him in underoos for 3 or 4 weeks (on weekends and during school vacations) at a time with absolutely no success. I was so sick of poopy pants to clean or throw out. It was trying in every sense of the word. Itwas exhausting. I was always told 'if you do this and are consistent, he will be trained". I felt like a failure. It was so disheartening. Finally,after 2 years of this, the Neurologist said "kids with CP usually have no problems potty training if they can get to the toilet. so, in my opinion, he has autism." That is another post. I was referred to a specialist that worked with Autistic children and potty training. I had already done that 2 years prior, and tried those methods again. No success. Rewards didn't work. Routine did work. Last spring, he would go after lunch in the clinic atschool. Summer came and he reverted back to his old ways. I went to the school clinic and tried to make the bathroom downstairs outfitted just like the one at school. No success.Finally, a gastrointestinal specialist evaluated him. In our situation things were as follows (stop reading if this doesn't affect you as it is a bit graphic). His constipation had stretched his bowels. When they are stretched, the sensation it has when full is altered. Kids don't get the same sensation they usually get when they need to go. The doctor also said that with the evaluation the way it is, the stimulation of certain nerve endings would trigger the body to expel excrement that was in the bowels. My son did not. SO, she said that some kids with CP have difficulty poop training because the brain is not sending the right signals to that part of the body. When I saw the Neuro after that visit and explained what the Gastro said, he just replied "oh yes, kids with CP sometimes have difficulties with that." GEEZ, can the doctors drive me any crazier than I already am???