4yr old haemophiliac asthmatic showing aggressive behaviour

[love_my_kiddies]

Our son is 4 yrs old, diagnosed with severe haemophilia A at 7 months. he suffered many bleeding episodes, mainly to ankles and bottom (from learning to  walk) when he was a baby. At this time, his behaviour took a down ward turn, and at the age of one he would throw toys, pull cars apart, and scratch his play friends... this led to not a lot of socializing at that age as it was a constant struggle. He had a 'port a cath' put in just before his 2nd birthday, and so instead of being held down while doctors tried to access his veins, missing and causing trauma to him, we could treat from home prophylactic of 3x a week then up to daily as bleeding episodes continued.  . over a 6 month period his behavior became right, and he was fine to play with out hitting out...he started preschool around this time (aged 2 1/2). OK, his sister was also born a month before he turned 2...

so fast forward two years.... his behavior has been 'normal' if there is such a thing for a 4 yr old boy.. he has made friends at pre school, enjoys all things a boy should, sand pit, cars, trucks etc.. now just before christamas his port stopped working, he is having it out some time late Jan.. so we have been accessing him from home, via his veins, we have talked about venous access for ages in preparation, and his pre school have been helping out also with reading kids books on haemophilia, venous acces etc.  we thought he was 'phycologically' ready, and although the first few times were traumatic, he was very worked up, as the weeks have gone by he has become confidant and quite happy to get it 'over and done with', we have not missed the vein and treatment has gone well we are doing it 1 x week now.....

however, during Christmas new year he was in hospital for asthma. he is still having ventolin and stopped with the steroid 'redipred' 2 days ago. we found he got 'hyper' on the ventolin. - the last time he had an asthma attack it was just before his port insertion and we had to cancel the surgery and rebook 2 weeks later.

His behavior for a  few weeks up to Christmas got a bit 'punchy' at pre school, he hit his friend for jumping on his back instead of going to the teacher...and he was getting a bit 'rough' with his sister...

Now today when i went to pick him up.. (he does 2.5 days at preschool a week)  a teacher said that he had been silly with another teacher and had started tapping her stomach, then punched her in the stomach. he had also said something later on like 'i will smash his face' .... i am not sure what to do, we do 'naughty corner' at home but at the pre school they have to distract as the ministry of heath will not allow 'isolation' ...

do you have some advice on how to deal with this behavior? my husband thinks to continue as we are going and it will pass. i just want to make sure we are doing all we can. - also  do you think the asthma was brought on by stress of doing venous access? there seem to be no other triggers.

[love_my_kiddies]

thanks..

[Sandman2]

   He is only 4 and this is all he is doing?  The kid is a saint.  You can talk to a child of this age till you are blue in the face, but they can't logically put it together.  All they can do is trust you.  When it hurts, they begin to act out.  What he needs is a lot of hugs, love, and understanding till this passes.  What you are doing is wonderful. But what is most important is probably the first 10 minutes after the treatment.  And yes, I do believe that stress can bring on  an asthma attack.  But, your doctor should know this.  
   Your child cannot be the only kid going through this.  Talk to your doctor and get the names of some forums of people with the same problems.  Also kids with cancer are going through a lot of the same problems (although probably older), so you might look into those groups too.  It sounds like he needs a way to vent or act out his emotions.  Hopefully, someone can come up with something that is age appropriate.  Doesn't really matter if  "transformers" gave him ideas.  You need to give him better, more appropriate ones.   I have the feeling that he needs to do more than talk it out - which is very hard for a 4 year old any way.  
   So yes, I do think you need to be more proactive in helping him.  If he was 9 or 10 it might be different.  He is much to young to "grin and bear it".  Good Luck.

[love_my_kiddies]

oh i should also add that we have not had TV in the house as it was always on and its all rubbish, so he doesn't watch anything violent, BUT, when in hospital they lent him a portable DVD player and he saw 'transformers' ...i wonder whether seeing that gave him ideas?