Mark in Idaho,

Excellent points that are well worth deep consideration. Thank you.

The normalcy vs recovery thing is one we grapple w daily. Son is in outpatient treatment akin to a school day, which is where he meets w therapist & psychiatrist. The "accidentally met her" phrase is misleading I now realize - son was assigned to a different dr and the psych we met was there filling in bc assigned dr was out. We decided then to have her be one of his regular dr's. The program has family meetings w social workers at least 1x/wk (along with his daily one on ones & group sessions) and psychiatrist calls regularly with progress updates. I do wish we were able to meet face to face with psychiatrist more regularly, but this is how the outpatient program works.

Son is deeply aware that he cannot live as though he were uninjured. He has lowered his social activity to a few times a week, which to me still feels like too much. Its a process for all of us. Convincing a socially active teenager that he cannot continue along his expectations is difficult, at best. He is realizing lately that the price may be too high, in terms of what it does to his mood & the rest of his day.

At camp, he will be home each weekend, and we have the option to do whatever we think is best, be it pull him for a week or for the rest of the calendar. (We have to anyway with a few standing appts.) The camp facilitators are aware of his limitations, have known him for many years, and the outpatient staff has been putting together a coping guide for son when things get to be too much. He has counted on this experience being part of his recovery, and to take it away has been met with opposition from both son and his psychiatric team. Your points, however, are extremely valid.

Magnesium is definitely too much. Halving dosage of Natural Calm as of tomorrow night (when he takes it next). We were told to work up to 4g but his GI is definitely being affected at 5 with the blended OTC pill.

I will discuss the option of a sleep study with his psychiatrist as well as blood work-up.

Your points about maturity development are also good ones that I had never considered. In part, because a concussion of this nature never even entered my mind, and the past few months have been so terrifying any future development beyond what was directly in front of us just hasn't even been thought of.

His academic end to sophmore year has ended well with the school district having frozen his GPA and exempting him from all school and state exams. If we need to next year, home schooling is an option. I agree, the "year" time frame is a difficult one for us to accept, seeing how progress and healing are so extremely slow. There is a part of me that wishes his dr had never said it. But the caveat was be that he may be "different" from how he was before the accident, but would be ok. Whatever the hell that means.

Thank you so much for your insight and recommendations. We will take it all into consideration.