It's Where I Am with Zandra Polard

Kevin Krall 0:00
This program is paid for by its where I m.com The content of this program does not reflect the values or opinions of 91.5k U and V or the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

Unknown Speaker 0:40
Good morning Las Vegas, it's Zondra Polare with, it's where I am. This show is sponsored in part by coast to coast coffee. I want to thank my guests for being here today. I have Nicole DS, who was a very good friend of mine for over the years. And also, Dr. getting's White, who was one of my favorite mental health professionals is on the show. She's been on a few times before. And she's so great. I wanted to invite her back on today. So thank you both ladies for being here. Thank you for having me, of course. So I asked Nicole to come onto the show today, because we've been friends for so many years. And she is just going through so much. My friend of these few decades became blind with a visual impairment later in life. And while she was going through that journey, she decided to have a baby. So Nicole, Tell us, when did this start for you? Like when did you realize that you were losing your vision?

Unknown Speaker 1:50
Well, I was having slight issues bumping into open doors and such back in 2007. And with multiple doctor visits, have finally met a proper doctor to diagnose me with my retinitis pigmentosa. And that was in February of 2008. And with that, he directed me to retinal specialist that gave me some tools for my eyes to try to prolong my vision as long as as long as I can have it. And eventually 2016 I lost my vision completely.

Unknown Speaker 2:33
Okay, so when did you have Addison

Unknown Speaker 2:34
Addison in 2010?

Unknown Speaker 2:37
Okay, so you had her right before we had that big party? Well, we had the pineapple, upside down drinks. And we had so much fun. And I don't even know if I knew, actually during that trip is when I found out that you are losing your

Unknown Speaker 2:55
vision at that time that I completely went blind in 2016.

Unknown Speaker 3:01
And so after you had Addison in 2010, yes, there was an issue with Addison and epilepsy, right? Yes.

Unknown Speaker 3:10
See, I'm at play on she had her first epileptic seizure. Okay, which was extremely scary. When you're a new mom, and an older Mom, you don't know what is happening, you know, especially when everyone around you appears to be traditional. So you know, with Addison's, epileptic seizures, you know, is this lesson, you know, something to learn, and know, something to learn something to understand. And I was talking with many doctors, we had the best help with beryls Medical Center, and Phoenix Children's Hospital, with all the testing that we can get, and to find out where the brain was creating the seizure, and how to handle it. And now, I can gladly say she has been seizure free for about seven years. So yes, absolutely. Live that with the seizures. Brought a diagnosis of autism. Okay, which is a delayed learning.

Unknown Speaker 4:21
Wow. So going back to the epileptic seizure, how did you know Was someone with you or were you

Unknown Speaker 4:30
still have vision at the time and a movement, eyeballing is willing to back up their head, their arms are flaring. And that just is that normal? You know, that isn't normal for anyone to do. And let alone a five month old baby who can't communicate. So it's so you you react quickly, and you we decide to do Take charge and do what was necessary. I know,

Unknown Speaker 5:02
getting back to you and your visual impairment, you first told me about it in 2010. So and with that for these, the years since then, you know, we talk on the phone quite often. And, you know, I know that you are battling off and on with some depression. And I don't know if you are seeing a therapist, or are you thinking about seeing one? What's going on with that?

Unknown Speaker 5:31
Well, with the help of my mother, we are in research. Because the state of the world, there's a lot of people that are dealing with depression and other issues. So we're all kind of been running into lately. No, my patients being taken or my insurance doesn't qualify me to use that service, or they don't accept my insurance. So it's been, it's been trying believe we're still going on looking for something? Well, you're someone, you're someone to give me some, um, some tools to work with losing my vision, I lost my vision, I was 45 years old. Yeah, took away my complete independence, I stopped diving, I need help with everything. And rolling with the blind school has been challenging, the process is extremely tedious.

Unknown Speaker 6:22
And, and then you have a child with special needs and

Unknown Speaker 6:26
special needs. So I also have a village that is very loving, and extremely supportive and strong. So I'm very lucky for that. Yes, lucky for my family and my friends. Yes, and no. And my mom,

Unknown Speaker 6:39
Dr. Kidding. So I want you to chime in here now. And I know there's very few resources for people with visual impairments even here in Nevada. I know we have Angeles house that helps people to become more independent. And then there's the blind center. But I'd like for you to talk to us more about the autism spectrum.

Unknown Speaker 6:59
So we touched on medical factors and depression. As one of the factors we talked about, we talked about access to care, because that's big people identify they have depressive issues, and they want to help but the access is not there. And people think access is not having insurance or not having no access is the ability to get the services that you need. Okay, so we've before the pandemic, we've had no access to mental health care, because of decreased funding, because of the ratio of population to provider, the different factors that affected access. But now with the pandemic, demand has even grown has grown even more. So the access has decreased. So I used to tell students, you know, putting a hospital in a community doesn't create the creates a village ability, but the access isn't there, the person doesn't have what it takes to get in the front door. Yes. So. So one of the things we need to address this access. And forgive me, I didn't introduce myself. So I'm Dr. Michelle beadings. But I'm not an MD. I'd like to clarify that I'm a board certified psychiatric nurse practitioner, practicing mental health in Las Vegas community, a peaceful mind Psychiatric Center. And I treat individuals across the lifespan with a variety of mental health conditions. And I know access is a problem because sometimes people call in to talk to me. And my schedule is booked in sometimes I find myself working beyond office hours, my clients have my cell phone number. And I'll have text messages, which should be a visit but it's a text message from it's giving them access. Because, you know, we need to do everything we could to create access. In terms of autism. What do you want me to say about autism? Autism is a it's a developmental disorder that affects it, just like mental health, just no criteria. It's for persons getting autism. We still don't there's no specific cause identified for autism. And there's no medical tests for autism. So autism is still under research in a lot of areas. We know specific things about autism, that it's you could identify early in childhood, based on a meeting certain developmental milestones. But then there's also kids that tend to be meeting the milestones and you see a regression as they get a little bit older. So in a lot of the behavioral things that we observe in children around what

Unknown Speaker 9:41
age Dr. Giddings is, you know, is it going to be identified? Is it three four

Unknown Speaker 9:47
great, they can identify it pretty early, but usually around the preschool, the preschool areas I work with, they catch three years old, they're supposed to be meeting certain milestones and you know, they're not it. It really affects On social interactions, and you would see things like repetitive behaviors, and emotional, it also affects emotional interaction. And I've worked with a lot of children and adults with autism. And one of the things people fill out, they don't have emotions, they don't respond to different things. Their brain works differently. So they do respond, but they have sensory issues. And if we were to be sensitive to think that, okay, we have sensory issues when we feel things respond a certain way. But imagine having a heightened sensory issue, to the point where somebody's arguing, and you're like, oh, my gosh, oh, the TV's loud, you like turn the TV down. Imagine working in a world where you have a heightened sensory, sensory sets of sensory things hearing, you know, noises is something that affects them a lot. So you walk into a room and it's loud to people, they're all talking loudly, someone with autism cannot tolerate that. So they tend to pull away, they tend to be more isolated. stimuli, when it's increased, increases the set distances, and they can't tolerate it that much, is having a tantrum, because they only misbehaving no look around and trying to adapt the world. So they will feel more safe, uncomfortable. And I think that's what we're missing in having empathy, that they're dealing with things that we some of us don't understand what it feels like, but we could try to adapt to what we know about autism at this point.

Unknown Speaker 11:43
This is something I don't know. I wanted to ask you Do people with autism or children in particular with autism? Do they take medication?

Unknown Speaker 11:53
Yeah, met. Medication is not a treatment for autism itself. Because autism, you can't we can't treat it we treat behaviors associated with autism. Okay. All right. When someone comes into me and says, my, you know, my kid has autism, and I need treatment today, not sure they see behaviors, I would rule out autism. And if I feel like yes, it's sounds like it's on the spectrum, I would say, presumptive autism, but I've worked with other people in the community, neuropsychologist, psychologist, and I'll send them for a neuropsychological testing to get a definitive diagnosis. Because it's a spectrum disorder, it presents differently in different people, still, this testing that we could do to act to actually identify it and different things. Because you will look at someone and say, well, this might be autism, they do testing. And it's like, no, they're testing above the autism spectrum, they really don't meet all the criterias. So it's a broad spectrum. So medication, when we see like I just said, it affects social and emotional, it's the emotional part of it that we really look at and try to treat the behaviors that are the explosiveness, the irritability, the anxiety, because some of that explosiveness that happens when they get increased stimulation can actually lead to self harming things. Like they'll give themselves a better themselves, they'll fight themselves, in order to decrease that overstimulation that they feel like

Unknown Speaker 13:25
is some of that due to not being able to communicate,

Unknown Speaker 13:29
a lot of it is not being able to communicate and society not understanding, you know, the cues because people with autism, a lot of times do not recognize social cues. That's why we have to be concerned, if an adult with autism goes into somewhere, and they do something in a store that's not socially acceptable, and someone comes up to them and tries to, you know, get in their face and put that back and and it's increasing stimulation, and they will respond to those types of social cues. So they may respond with agitation, and throwing that thing away or doing something with it, that leads to them being arrested and, you know, being because they don't know how to respond to you know, authority. So it just forms a spiral. So, there's so much that we need to learn as a as a community to live with people with on the spectrum, because now the new statistics are showing one in 59 kids have been diagnosed with autism. So we have to adapt

Unknown Speaker 14:35
so cultural competency is extra important day. Dr. Getting you have about three minutes because I know I thank you so much for giving me your time. I'm sorry, we started a little late

Unknown Speaker 14:47
and need me to I think I have like 10 minutes actually. Oh, okay, well,

Unknown Speaker 14:51
you're more than welcome to stay. I just wanted to make sure that you gave all of your handles for the people because you are x Slin well, just so knowledgeable. And I just really appreciate you being here. Again, if you want to tell the name of your agency again, and how they can reach you.

Unknown Speaker 15:09
Yeah, it's peaceful mind psychiatric services, where I've won one to sell Jones Boulevard. And our telephone number is 702-909-4600. And I think one of the messages I really want to get out, if I don't get the opportunity to say, again, is if you identify things in your child that you question whether this is normal or not, have them evaluated, because early intervention sets them up for better functioning in the future. And it doesn't have to be medication. The question was, do you medicate people? Yes, we do. But the first step is usually therapy. And we know what works, because therapy to help them with socialization, therapy to help with speech, because there's there's problems with speech and communication. So behavior, occupational therapy, teaching them how to do things that they environments, how to read, you know how to respond in certain situations. So therapy plays a major role. And like I said, medication sounds a part of that. But it's the dose, those individuals that are actually experiencing severe emotional problems, doesn't have to be severe, but, but emotional problems that's affecting their ability to function also would be autism.

Unknown Speaker 16:27
So just don't throw medication error, make sure you get an evaluation from

Unknown Speaker 16:33
that's why I end up getting a lot of kids with autism, because I take time educating the mom, I get them information that they could educate their families to be patient that this child is not as if they have a proper understanding of what's happening. So the expectation isn't that you could put pressures on this chart, or you know, put them in situations and then criticize them when they don't function the way you expect them to.

Unknown Speaker 17:00
Wow. And so if you missed any of that information that Dr. Giddings provided about psychiatric services, you can still find it on my website. She's always there, because that's how much I love her. Go, you can go to it's where I am.com You can find Dr. Giddings white there. And you can simply click on the link from the site, and you'll get right to her website. Okay. And with the depression

Unknown Speaker 17:26
we talked about, give me the names Nicole, Nicole. Yes. With the depression, you talk about Nicole, um, call the office because sometimes we we do take a lot of insurances. We do take cash. And we don't offer a sliding scale. But the depending on the patient and what they're presenting with. And if it's a level of emergency that we need to get someone into can get it. We'll tell you go to the we'll send you to the emergency room, we'll send you places where you could get it all we'll try to accommodate you can see how we could meet your needs. My appointments are a little bit out. Now, of course, because we talked about demand, sometimes we have rescheduled or cancellations. And if we have you scheduled for an appointment in a month, and something happens, we may call you and say Hey, Dr. Giddings wants to know if you could move up to this week because there was a cancellation this week. Because you call the office and they say she doesn't have anything for the next four weeks doesn't mean that you can't see me before that time.

Unknown Speaker 18:29
Okay. Okay. Now I have a question about that. Now, Nicole lives in Arizona. Is she able to do the telehealth?

Unknown Speaker 18:38
Well, not at this time. It's something we're looking into, but I'm licensed to practice in the state of Nevada. So my clients aren't in Nevada winters rural. I see people in Reno once you're in Nevada. It's a little difficult to do Arizona, but we're looking at expanding the area since telehealth is, you know, is a growing platform that allows increased access. So it's something we're looking at right now. As you know, we're a young business we just started. I just started this practice three years ago after working in the community at the university, the state hospital everywhere else. So yeah, we're looking into that. So at some point, you will be able to same goes in Arizona, if someone says they don't have an appointment right away, you could take whatever they normally tell them if there's a cancellation, if they could please call you.

Unknown Speaker 19:25
Awesome. So I'm glad Dr. Giddings is always willing to help even though she's super busy, she still extends herself. So we thank you for that in our community and hopefully, one day, you know, sounds like she may be able to help you also in your family, Nicole. Now let's talk about your support system. So your mom, she helps with the baby and gets her on out the baby. Your Young Child helps to get her to her to school and picks her up or does she gets the bus. How does that work? Well,

Unknown Speaker 20:01
my mother is a great advocate with Addison concerning the day to day activities and Madison's therapies as well, like the doctor mentioned, therapy is great for Addison with her sensory and communication and also feeding because with autism, kids tend to just only want to eat one type of food that isn't often where a child with autism let's see is diving into a buffet of food.

Unknown Speaker 20:29
Right? So what's what's our favorite food? What's her favorite?

Unknown Speaker 20:33
fish and rice? Okay, right fried fish.

Unknown Speaker 20:37
One guy I know, I knew it was fried. When he came to you

Unknown Speaker 20:41
find fish and rice, and she loves a toggle and bacon and sausage, do you know most breakfast foods like that, that my mother definitely supports me the reason why Allison hazard therapies gotten to where she is because of my mother. And we never stopped fighting, getting the service and we were denied so many years that we didn't know how to process the paperwork properly. And then you, you have to be shown how to get benefits from the state, you know, in order to get benefits from your child because you know, that she is deserving of that, you know, just like any other child or person that needs that has needs guard, you know, developmental issues, you know, and such. So,

Unknown Speaker 21:22
but how are you doing? I know you have your mother? Yes. But I still feel like you need some professional outlet and advice. Because Mama's going to be bias.

Unknown Speaker 21:34
And we're working in looking into getting myself therapy, out of out of pocket is extremely costly.

Unknown Speaker 21:42
Yes, yes.

Unknown Speaker 21:43
So we're constantly looking, something's gonna happen. Somebody's gonna say I have an appointment, and then they're gonna listen to me, and I'm gonna cry, and I'm gonna mourn my older self that had vision and be able to progress to my new self without vision. That's what I'm having.

Unknown Speaker 22:01
Well, I'm no therapist. I'm no therapist. But I'm always trying to be encouraging and remind you of all the fun that we continue to have. I thought I was going to see you this weekend. I know you just recently had a birthday. So happy birthday to you. I love you. And with all of that fun that we had, so I'm going to wrap this up until Dr. Giddings, thank you so much for coming on. I know you have to get back to your patients.

Unknown Speaker 22:30
Thank you so much for having me. And they call it was a pleasure meeting you and your daughter. I just wanted to add one last thing with kids with autism that sensory with food is part of it, too. So something helped me like your daughter like fish on rice Good for her. Every day. Every single verbal?

Unknown Speaker 22:53
Yes, absolutely. Yes. And she's, she becomes more and more verbal everyday. She She surprises us every day. She's it was a little delayed. But it's here. She's just like you. I'd say to my dad. I will she will call me Mama Nelson says Mama Mama Mama so much I might clear

Unknown Speaker 23:15
her speech. Absolutely. Marshall, children. Thank you so much for having me. I wish I could be here longer. I want to just educate the world about autism so we can make the world just as friendly for them. Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 23:31
Of course. You're welcome. Anytime all you need to do is just let me know. Okay. All right. Love you Take care.

Unknown Speaker 23:37
Bye, Nicole for.

Unknown Speaker 23:39
So girl. Yes. I don't know if I told you. But one of our running buddies from back in the day now has a podcast that I've been on a few times since it started. It is called the conservative frequency. And the host is Paula J. Parker Bapatla. Hey, Bala. And also on that platform is the rapper corrupt what a gay Hikmah and a sound No, not a sound a music producer by the name of frequency. So all four of us come together every Friday night. And we do this live podcast. And you can find it at p j AI Parker on all platforms. So I hope you tune in because this conservative me is not really conservative on that one. It's where I am over there. Okay. And where I am over there is a lot different from where I am here. So so just be ready. Okay, because I have multiple people that live up in here, and sometimes they come out. I'm aware. I know. I know you are. So I just want to throw that out there every Friday. It's a lot of fun. It's a long podcast, but it is so hilarious and it's really fun. I hope you can tune in. Awesome. So it's where I am.com I'm your host Zondra Poldark. Thank you all for listening. And I'll see you this Friday. Talk to you soon. Love ya. Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai