vaxjedi | A tale of woe

The weekend was a long one.

The weekend started out really good. Eleri and I got a ton of cleaning done. We got the carpets professionally cleaned as part of the deal for renewing our lease. The Living Room was near emaculate, and was really nice with the new couch that we found at Goodwill for $30. Mousie's room was clean, as was the hallway. We even put a dent into the kitchen.

Kristopher, the 13 yr old, came down for the weekend. He and Eleri went to see Harry Potter. We played video games together too. It was all going really well.

On Sunday, Miri just completely melted down. She screamed all day, from the time she woke up. She hit me in the face so hard that I got a splitting migrane and was ill and near incoherent for hours. Nothing clamed her down for more than a few minutes. Every time she was told no, she got even worse.

We called the child psychologist on call at OHSU. They told us to take her to the emergency room. So we did.

The people the emergency room were just confused. They didn't know what we wanted from them (and we weren't sure) or why Miri was sent to them. There was a bit where thy didn't really seem to believe us. Everytime a nurse walked in, Miri calmed down. Everytime they left, she lost it. I got nailed in the face again (same place) and she bite Eleri on the arm, breaking the skin significantly through her shirt.

Eventually, they sent us home with a prescription of Benedryl to sedate Miri and orders to call our normal child psychologist in the morning. She hit me a third time in the same place when we got home.

Monday morning, we call the psychiatrist. Miri is acting the same as soon as she woke up (didn't even wait to get out of the bed). He wants Miri to be admitted for inpatient for a few days. Then what follows is a day full of Eleri playing phone tag with half a dozen doctors, account managers, psych units, etc. In the meantime, I am a useless mess, paranoid that they are goign to take Miri away from us.

About the middle of the day, Miri stops melting down. Just stops. And she's back to her normal crankiness. Still a handful, but nothing requiring medical attention. So now I'm stressed because I believe no one is going to believe there was a problem.

Around 4ish, we find out Miri isn't going anywhere. The psych unit declined to accept her as a patient - they felt she wasn't 'clinically significant' or such and didn't need inpatient care. So it seems like we are simply shit out of luck.

We talk to our state disability case worker who seems frustrated by the fact that no one is doing anything to help. He's pushing at a few charitable organizations and 'subacute issue' centers. And he mentions what the child psychiatrist wanted was a place to try Miri on some new meds. But since she is so young, he wanted to watch her in a medical environment for a few days.

So it's not like they are committing her. Just wanting to do some observation. This makes me feel a lot better. That plus the fact that Miri has been relatively calm for the latter half of the day. She even takes a nap.

Kristopher has been really upset all weekend. He's seeing his little sister at full strength crisis. And it's yet another weekend with his mom ruined by Miri's issues. We take him down to Salem back to his grandparents. Miri is actually doing really well, for her.

So we have an appointment with the child psychiatrist today to discuss options.

We are tired. Stretched thin. We've given so much up to take care of Miri that there isn't much left of us. Ryan and Jenn have pitched in huge amounts to help us. But I notice the strain on them to at times.

We need to change something. But I don't know what. Maybe weekly respite. Plus a solid plan of what to do when Miri is too much for us. One where we don't have to turn our friends' and relatives' lives topsy-turvy every time there is a crisis. We need time to be people, as opposed to just resources.

Maybe the psychiatrist can help us.