Posts in month: May, 2009

You or your child has been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, depression, anxiety, oppositional defiance disorder (odd), bi-polar disorder, or another behavioral disorder. What do you do? You read all of the medical books about the subject. You or your children take the medications the doctor prescribes, and you practice the exercises given to you by therapists. Or perhaps a hospital stay is in order. Some people look at alternative ways to address their particular problem. They may diet, or take herbal supplements, or even practice yoga. The bottom line is these are all ways to help you improve your situation and make you appear “normal”!

But what if, biologically, you were designed for a different purpose and these disorders are manifestations preventing you from following this purpose?

Then along comes a book called The DaVinci Method to explain what that purpose may be. The subtitle of the book is “Break Out & Express Your Fire. Discover & Master the Fiery Temperament Shared by Great Leaders, Artists, Entrepreneurs & AD/HD-ers”. It was written by Garret LoPorto who is himself an entrepreneur, CEO, inventor, presenter at MIT, and an “AD/HD-er”.

His premise is that 10 percent of the population is made up of DaVinci types. A description of a DaVinci is someone who is impulsive, is a risk taker, is easily distractible, and is insightful or intuitive. A DaVinci also craves risk and excitement, has an addictive personality, rebels against authority, and thinks differently.

Does this describe someone you know?

Thousands of years ago humans lived in hunter-gatherer groups. The hunters were risk taking intuitives who provided the group with meat. The gatherers, who later evolved into farmers, worked hard but didn’t need to take risks so developed more complacent demeanors. Since they were in the majority these became what is now “normal”.

The hunters are out of place in today’s society. As they try to fit in, they attempt to suppress their personalities. As a result they develop what used to be known as “neurotic tendencies” and more recently given labels such as ADHD, ODD, or Bi-Polar Disorder.

LoPorto writes about what we can do if we have these disorders because it is not all doom and gloom. Jane Pauley is highly successful despite her Bi-Polar Disorder. Richard Branson has created his Virgin Airways and Virgin Records empire even though he is ADHD. And where does DaVinci come into this? He appears to be the first known person with ADHD. He was an explosive man who did not like to finish the things he started; he was a renaissance man who was an artist and scientist.

You might be saying “Well, that’s all well and good. Sounds nice, makes my diagnosis look better. But is there any scientific proof to all of this?”

LoPorto spends sometime discussing a gene called the DRD4-exon III which has been determined to be related to Novelty seeking personality traits. This same gene has also been associated with ADHD. People that have this gene tend to be policemen, fireman, warriors, and generals. This section was a little dry for me but gave me background into the rest of the book that describes ways to develop this gift and look past our struggle to be “normal”.

He also has a website known as The Davinci Nation that brings together people that recognize that they need to “express their fire”. Here they watch videos, read articles, and discuss with each other the progress they are making in breaking free of conformity.

Alright if I am a DaVinci type why are doctors trying to prescribe all of these medications for me? Well guess what, society wants everyone to be “normal”, follow the leaders, and not cause any trouble. It has no place for people who are “out of the box” thinkers, who take risks, and are impulsive. Some of us still succeed like Jane Pauley and Richard Branson but others in their attempts to suppress their personalities develop disorders that can be disruptive either to ourselves or society as a whole.

If you have a disorder such as ADHD, Bi-Polar Disorder, or ODD read the book, judge it for yourself, and then “break out and express your fire” too!

“Spring has sprung!!”  As I write this it is a beautiful day.  Birds are singing and every once in awhile I can see the rabbit in back poke his nose out of the trees to see what is going on.

Max and I have been riding our bikes a lot this past week.  We’ve also been walking and running and…

Oh yeah, this is also the time of year to do the big cleanup.  We have been working in the back yard for awhile.  Some of the fir trees broke in an ice storm over the winter.  We have been sawing up the huge pile of branches and slowly getting closer to the trunks.

One job took precedence this weekend.  We have a single car garage that has not had a car in it since we moved in 8 years ago.  In the beginning it was full to the rafters with my stuff.  When my wife and I got married I moved into her house and stored everything.  After moving here I pulled it all out and loaded up the garage.  But several years ago I got the itch and ended up throwing away three fourths of it. Now we could move a little bit in there.

As Max got older his outdoor toys and crafts replaced everything.  Before long it was full again and Max could not bring himself to part with anything, not even his old baby toys.  This is part of his ocd.  When he was in the hospital he collected the dose cups he got twice a day, broken toys and games, and even bits of lint.  All of these ended up in the drawer beside his bed.  When we visited at night he would pull us over to show us but we had to promise not to tell anyone first; it was a secret.

Now that he is home everything goes into the garage.  When I take the trash barrels out I have to crawl over his bikes and skateboards to get to them.  In the winter it is a job getting the snow blower out after storms.  In the summer it is a struggle to get the deck chairs.

If we were to move we would need several trucks to take everything out.  Nope, been there, done that, not again!

Max needs a new bike, he practically has to squat down to ride the old one.  Of course it is three years old now.  He has been begging us for one some time.  He has even earned the money to buy it; not bad for an eight year old.  We have been telling him that to get the bike he has to first get rid of ten toys from the garage.  He balks every time we mention it.  The idea of losing anything of his no matter how small or worthless gets him very edgy.

Max is a pack rat but so are his parents.  When I was his age I believed that everything including inanimate objects could think and had emotions.  I couldn’t bear to hurt their feelings by getting rid of them.  I can’t say that Max believes this too but he has this ocd need to hoard everything.

When it finally dawned on him that he really wasn’t going to be able to get the new bike he took action.  On Sunday he opened the garage door and began removing junk.  I looked at my wife and mentioned that we only told him ten items.  She hushed me; let him keep going.

By the time he was done 90% of his possessions were piled on the sidewalk waiting for the trash man.  Not only that half the garage from front to back was empty!!  The sidewalk had sprung a wall but this didn’t last.  I had planned on putting out a sign saying “free stuff” but it wasn’t needed.  Most of the good stuff was gone overnight.

It was beyond our wildest dreams.  It definitely earned a trip to the bike store.  We went to Wal-Mart where he picked out a beautiful mountain bike for less than he had earned.  Because of the good job he did his parents threw in a brand new bike helmet.

When we got home he proudly rolled the bike into the back of the garage to stand beside mine.  Yeah right!  It stayed for all of two seconds before he shot down the street.  He has now been on it almost continuously since Sunday.  If he could he would probably sleep with it.

As far as the garage is concerned there is almost room to put a car in.  We still have the left side to do, probably this weekend.  Max has promised to weed out the rest of his junk but we’ll see what happens.  This aspect of his ocd took a holiday the other day.  Perhaps it will be ready to do the same again.

Max gets up at 5 in the morning on school days. On weekends he sleeps in. This means he sleeps until 6 am. When he is up, everyone is up!

During school days he gets picked up by the van at 7:25. Before then for about 2 there is a lot of noise and a lot of play. He gets dressed finally about 6:45. Then he spends time doing his homework; he thinks better in the mornings. If he has free time he and I will play outside until the van arrives.

It takes a half hour to pick up all five kids that ride the van, then off to school which is about an hour away. All runs like clockwork including the meltdowns; we generally know when they are going to happen before he leaves. As the van drives down the street my wife and I wave until they are out of sight.

At the beginning of the school year there was just the driver and the kids on the van. After several incidents, like kids fighting, they first assigned seats to keep the troublemakers apart. When this didn’t solve the problem they added a monitor. This has calmed things down quite a bit.

On the way home everything goes in the reverse order: one hour van ride then a half hour to drop off the kids. Max is perhaps the third child to be dropped off at approximately 3 pm. When it gets close to time my wife or I will be near the door waiting for the beep, beep, beep of the van backing into the driveway. Then we can be there so the driver knows that our child will be safe.

Everything worked fine…until yesterday.

My wife was out doing errands and I was waiting for Max. The phone rang. It was the van company informing me that the driver had just called them to let them know that he had dropped my son off already. The driver said that when he drove off my kid was walking around on the grass.

“Umm, excuse me, I am at the door and I didn’t see the van. Besides I would have heard it anyway.”

“Yes sir, he is there!”

Now I’m getting nervous, I am outside the door; there is no Max. I said that to the caller. She wasn’t interested in hearing that. She wanted to talk about an incident on the van.

“Sir, we don’t like having these things happen. We would appreciate it if you talk to your son and straighten it out.”

“Yes of course, but where is he?” I thought maybe the incident was so bad that Max was hiding in the bushes or in the back yard.

It’s every parent’s fear, you’re child is missing! I can’t find Max anywhere. He’s not on the grass where the driver said he left him, he’s not out on the street, and he doesn’t seem to be hiding anywhere!

“Lady he is not here! Where did the van driver drop Max?” I’m starting to get frantic.

“This is Max’s dad?? I’m sorry I thought I was calling Bobby’s house. Max was okay today, he should be home soon. Max’s phone number is right below Bobby’s number.”

Whew, what a difference one line on the call list can make! I hope Bobby is okay. No telling how long he has been waiting. Max arrived shortly afterwards all bright and cheery.

It would be nice if people would confirm whom they were talking to before giving them bad news.

She had arrived on the soccer field just a few minutes earlier with her young son in tow.  He was about 7 years old and appeared to have some degree of autism.  He stood on the field holding his soccer ball against his chest and his head face down on top of the ball while his Mom looked for a coach.

When a coach came to work with him he seemed to get an attack of shyness and refused to move.  “You go with this nice boy,” Mom said to him.

“No!” he answered as he seemed to shrink back into himself.

“If you aren’t going to play we have to go home.”

“I don’t want to go home I want to play!”

“Then go out with the coach!”

He put the ball on the ground and sat down on it, “I don’t want to”.

“Then we are going home” she said as she grabbed his hand and dragged him off the field.  He started to cry, “I don’t want to go, I want to stay!”

She took him into a corner and had a very one-sided discussion with him.  She then dragged him back onto the field and up to the head coach.  “He wants to try it again.”  The head coach found another boy to work with him; the first one had been reassigned.

Then the coach tried to get the boy interested in the game by kicking the ball over to him and by feinting this way and that way around him.  The boy wasn’t having any of that so the head coach promised him a surprise at the end if he stayed and played.  But this was like a trigger, “I don’t want a surprise” he wailed.

Ok no surprise but it was in his head now: “No surprise!  No surprise!  No surprise!”

Mom said “come over here!”

“No”  “Come over here now!!”

Her son started to back off, “No, I don’t want a surprise!”

When she crooked her finger at him he backed off more “Don’t hurt me”.  She grabbed his hand and dragged him off to the car; all the while he wailed “I don’t want to go home!” over and over again crying bitterly.

My first thought as I watched this was “why is she doing this, the boy really hadn’t done anything wrong”.  But then I stopped myself.  Here was a situation I could learn from.  How many times have I been there with my son and felt embarrassed by what was happening?  How many times have I overreacted in situations just like this?

Just this morning on the way to the soccer field Max realized that he had forgotten his ball.  He escalated immediately “I need my ball!”  And I escalated too.  I had been calm all morning through each of his traumas but enough was enough and I raised my voice.  He cried.  I was reacting to an issue that was his, not mine.  Whether I was calm or angry I was still going home for the ball.

I stood watching him playing on the field with his coach.  He was having a lot of fun now, the upset from earlier apparently forgotten.  Rather than judging that woman I have to look at myself.  I have to learn how to help him through these situations rather than berating him for not having control.  Max is a great kid and he wants to succeed just like any other kid.  He doesn’t understand why he rages over the simplest things.  It is my job to teach him how to respond better even if I have to learn how to do it myself.

Max came home from his first trip to the hospital at the beginning of January.  Sadly, it seemed like we had brought a different child home.  Our happy-go-lucky 6 year old kid was now quiet, withdrawn, and anxious.  But it didn’t stay like this.  The anger that he showed before Christmas that resulted in several suspensions started to become more pronounced.  Unhappiness also began to emerge.  He seemed to spiral downward.

Looking back at it now there are things that we could have put in place to help him.  At the time we were into the first three months of these behaviors and we were stunned and didn’t handle things too well.  Other people continued to recommend spankings or more medication.  One person suggested he’d take my son away for a week and Sam would come back a changed boy.  He didn’t elaborate on what he would do in that week.

I went away at the beginning of February for two days.  By the time I came back the situation had gotten out of control.  The violence had become extreme.

We had to take him to the emergency room one day after he tried to hurt himself.  He became hysterical while we were there.  When the nurses tried to medicate him it was the final blow and he went wild.  As a result they locked him in a room expecting him to calm down.  But that didn’t happen.  My wife and I joined him to prevent him from smashing his head and body against the walls.  When he turned on us a security guard stayed in the room with us.

Later despite our protests they injected morphine into his inner thigh.  I had to hold him down while the nurses took care of the shot.  Late at night he and my wife finally fell asleep on a mattress on the floor.  I went home to collect changes of clothes, food, and toiletries.

What was the emergency room doing during this time?  Looking for a bed in a psychiatric hospital.  They first tried the place Max was in originally.  There was nothing available so they branched out, calling other hospitals in the state.  It took 36 hours for them to find a place for Max.  The whole time we were locked away.

An ambulance arrived to pick him up.  Psychiatric wards and hospitals don’t generally take walk-ins; you have to be transported by an ambulance.  Max and his mother settled in for the hour trip.  Max was calm now, I assume from exhaustion and morphine (though it had been about 20 hours since he had been given the injection).  I followed behind in my car thoughts running through my head about what a terrible dad I was for putting my boy through all of this.

It didn’t help that the emergency room psychiatrist working with Max told me to “suck it up and be a man” when I mentioned I thought Max would have a nervous breakdown when he discovered he was going back into the hospital.

We were admitted to the hospital but as we discovered from our first hospital visit our insurance didn’t cover any of this.  Not to worry Massachusetts has a health plan for kids who aren’t covered by other insurance.  The hospital helped us put the paperwork together and applied for us.  Max was covered within a week.

This wasn’t the only good thing about this hospital.  It turned out to be a “breath of fresh air” after the horrendous experience in the first one.

Max wasn’t thrilled about staying but he was a little more comfortable when he discovered that there were a dozen kids his age.  There were no older children.  He also had a roommate he liked.  The staff was wonderful and totally involved with the kids.  There was daily classroom instruction and they were very protective of the children.  We got to know the whole staff not just the ones that were assigned to Max.  They constantly gave us progress updates and we saw the doctors on a daily basis.

Even though visiting hours were from 6 pm to 8 pm they were very flexible. Max got to call us as often as he wanted but there was so much to do it wasn’t nearly as often as the first hospital.

What I found interesting and nice was the book the staff supplied us with included profiles, pictures, and phone numbers for everyone including the doctors.  It also contained any information that we needed about the hospital.

Did I mention that everything was clean?  Everyone took as much responsibility for the ward’s appearance as they did for the children.  It felt relatively good being there.  Home is better of course!

And the ward kept the parents involved.  We meet with the other parents once a week and talked about home life and got suggestions from the hospital on how we could change the structure here.  There were even sessions where the parents, kids, and staff got together and played games.

It turns out that some parents look at this as a place to dump their kids so they can take off on vacation.  Max’s roommate hadn’t seen his parents once since he got there.  He had been there before my son had arrived and was still there when Max left.  We visited my son at least once a day for 3 hours for the 15 days he was there.

Max was a little happier here but of course he wanted to come home.  And we wanted him home too!  He still clung to us and cried when we left at night but not as vigorously as before.  But he collected every little bit of trash he could find.  His hospital drawer was filled with elastics, broken toys, lint, and even the dose cups he got twice a day for his meds.

When he was released we didn’t go right home, we went to his favorite restaurant to celebrate.

Ever since we got home we have been working on procedures to help him.  We have a lot of retraining to do for both him and us even now over a year later.  In another post I’ll talk about them but for now he’s home and we are working to keep him from ever going back!

As a result of his stay we got a new med change that was much better than the last.  As far as diagnoses are concerned he still has pdd/nos, adhd, and sensory issues but three more have been added to the list: bipolar disorder, odd, and ocd.  Where will it end?

Parents, how many of us have been in a store picking up a few things when suddenly we are subjected to a massive explosion.  Our child wants this, she wants that, and we said “No”.  We see the people around us shaking their heads and we can just imagine what they are saying.

How many times have we gone to our child’s baseball games only to watch him lie down on top of one of the bases and look at the clouds while throwing dirt up in the air?  All the while the game is going on around him.  Have you been mortified?

I’ve had people tell me that if it were their child they would use a wooden spoon on them.  Others tell me about all the great and wonderful things their little Johnny does.  He’s captain of his kindergarten baseball team; he’s going to be a professional baseball player.  Becky is fourth grade valedictorian; she’s so smart she is destined to be the CEO of a huge company.

And what about our kids?  They can go on to be all these things.  Richard Branson has ADHD and is Dyslexic.  Jane Pauley has Bipolar Disorder as did Winston Churchill (though in those days it was called manic depression).

But we feel alone dealing with the meltdowns, the distractions, the exhaustion.

Then along comes a book that is upbeat and funny written by two mothers of children with disabilities. It is called “Shut Up About…Your Perfect Kid“  Gina Gallagher and Patricia Konjoian have been there and done that!  They wrote this book because they were “fed up with reading depressing books about our children’s disabilities”.

And it is impossible to get depressed even while reading about not only their issues but those of other parents like us who have contributed to the book.  Have you ever felt like this:

“I’m telling you Gina.  Things are so stressful at home.   I got on the highway and had this urge to just keep driving”.

“ARE YOU INSANE, PATTY?  Don’t you ever run away from home without picking me up first!”

How many of you have been half way out the door saying “I can’t take anymore?”  I hear that a lot in my house.

It’s time to get a different perspective on the trials we and our kids have.  Let’s not forget that these problems are trying for them too!

The book is easy to read.  The situations are definitely easy to identify with.  And it’s a great feeling to know there are other people out there just like us.  Each chapter covers a different subject including medication, school, and sports.  They contain stories by parents like us and comments by the authors that will have you rolling on the floor.

You’ve seen the bumper stickers “My honor student loves me”.  Well, Gina and Patty reminded me that “My bipolar kid loves me and hates me.”

Grab this book, read it, and enjoy it.  Then perhaps you will want to join “The Movement of Imperfection” because let’s face it, not every kid is “PERFECT”.

How many parents haven’t experienced their child concentrating on something so much that what they say falls on deaf ears? It is so easy to start escalating as you continue to repeat yourself before exploding, punishing, or both. In some cases they probably are ignoring you but I know for me personally if I am involved in something it is difficult to break away to respond to my wife’s questions.

When my son does it it seems like he has lost his hearing completely. Or perhaps he is really in a different room and we are speaking only to a photograph of him.

Just as disconcerting is when he talks to us or asks us questions while walking away from us and facing the direction he is going. “Max, did you say something?” He will repeat what he said. “Max, turn around I can’t hear you when you aren’t facing me.”

For the longest time I really thought I was becoming deaf. My doctor set up a battery of tests to see if this were true. Nope, my hearing is “normal” for a 50 something person.

So now it’s “Max, look directly at me. I can’t hear you when you look elsewhere.”

We do a lot of activities at home such as reading or working in his Cub Scout manual. My wife and I always insisted that he sit next to us and concentrate on the book while we go through the lesson. This has always been very difficult for him. He would be up, moving about the room, and playing with his toys while we attempted to continue. It was always a battle to get him to just sit and listen.

Recently I met an old friend whose daughter is leaving for college in September. He told me that the two of them had visited several of the schools that had accepted her. Each school would have introductory meetings where all the potential enrollees would gather. All would sit and listen attentively but his daughter could not concentrate. She would wander around the room and check out different things seemingly ignoring the presentations. Every once in awhile Dad would remind her to try and sit but he never bothered to make it an issue. She would try to sit for awhile but then would wander off.

Her father wasn’t worried; he knew from experience that she understood everything that was going on. In fact at the end of the presentations she knew more about what had been said than any of the ones that had been concentrating on them.

He says she has always been like this. She learns more when she is multitasking rather than concentrating on one subject at a time.

This reminded me of when we read stories to Max when he was younger. He would constantly jump around and play a lot. On the surface it seemed he was ignoring what we were saying but in reality he always got the story and could repeat it back to us almost word for word. I had forgotten…

I have learned that he doesn’t need to sit and stare at the book to hear what is happening. Wandering around the room is okay, playing is okay, as long as he gets what I’m trying to teach him. In fact he retains more and knows the answers quite readily even a week later. When we force him to sit and concentrate we are lucky if he remembers anything by the end of the lesson.

On the other hand we do have to work with him on looking at other people when he speaks so that we know what he is talking about. He doesn’t want to, he wants to continue concentrating on what he is doing. This is only a big deal when we are walking or hiking. If he gets ahead of us, we just can’t get it. This is another case where we repeat ourselves: “What did you say?” and “Look at me”. Lately if I don’t get it once I don’t respond until he repeats himself. This only works if he remembers to turn his head the second or third time he says it. But then he can get frustrated.

We’ll continue to work on this issue until we get it right.

I was coming out of the YMCA yesterday when I noticed a soldier sitting on a bench in front of the building.  He just seemed to be enjoying the weather.  But what was different about him was that his right arm was in a cast and sling, and his left arm was missing its hand.  I don’t know what happened to him but I thanked him for his service.

Last month I met an exsoldier who had been back from Iraq for about a year.  He told me that he had taken several bullets in his stomach and had been shipped home.  I thanked him for his service too.

Most boys seem to be struck by soldiers at an early age and dream about becoming one.  For hours they and their friends play war in their backyards while waiting for the day they can enlist.

My son Max (8) has his uniform and boots, and he received a real army helmet for Christmas.  He wears them proudly.  On Saturday we went out for our usual breakfast with my father-in-law.  When we were leaving the diner we ran into two solders that had just left their truck outside.  Max was fascinated and the men gave him permission to check it out.  It was a special flatbed truck for towing with the cab hanging out in front of the wheels.  The tires were taller than he is; he thought this was awesome.

Max had soccer after breakfast but, as a result of this chance meeting, instead of changing into his soccer clothes he put on his uniform, boots and helmet.  He actually played with the helmet on for twenty minutes even though it is very heavy.  He later took it off and finished up practice just in his uniform.

When I was his age I was just as fascinated.  My dad, uncle, and their dad all served in World War II.  I wanted to be like them but I also planned on going all the way to general.  When I was 9 some of my friends called me “Cap’n” for awhile.

Things changed in high school.  The war in Vietnam was winding down and the soldiers were coming home.  Problem was they weren’t getting any of their VA benefits.  As a result quite a few of them marched on Washington, set up tents on the mall in front of the Washington Monument, and petitioned the government for their benefits.  I was incensed.  My thinking was “how could they sell out the United States like this after they had fought for us?”

When I was in twelfth grade a group of students and teachers went to Washington to see the sights.  The soldiers were still living on the mall.  They made me nervous, big hairy men in their army jackets.  I didn’t know what they would do while we were around.  And then I met them, very nice men.  I came away feeling that they deserved what they were asking for.  I was proud to have met them.  When I got home I let my hair grow just like them, later I grew a beard, and I got an army jacket and wore it proudly.

I never had the privilege to serve but I always applaud those who did during the Memorial Day parades.  When I meet a soldier I thank him or her for what they have done or are doing for our country.

Whatever our political persuasion or whether we believe in war, we all have to respect the men and women who are willing to give up their lives to protect our rights and what we believe.

“Why?” is the first question I get when people ask me about Max going into the hospital.  But then they really don’t want to hear the answer.

We had noticed for years that there was something not quite right.  Max was a wonderful, happy-go-lucky 3 and 4 year old. He loved meeting people especially young women.  When I took him to the playground he would see a young mom, pick a flower and run to hand it to her.  He would pretty much know everything about her before he moved on.

He was very good one on one but had a very difficult time with groups.  He would hang on the edge and do his own thing instead of joining in.  When he started kindergarten things were devastating for him.  Not only was he in a classroom of 26 students but the bright neon lights and the clutter had a major effect on him.  There was too much sensory input and he began acting up considerably.  He had a wonderful teacher that worked with him, the special ed teacher, occupational therapist, and us to determine what he needed to survive.  She put together a program of breaks, occupational therapy, and rewards to get him through the day which became his individualized education program (IEP).  About that time he was diagnosed not only with sensory issues but also adhd and pdd/nos.  He started receiving medication for these conditions.  As a result of all of this he had a wonderful kindergarten year.

Things started going really bad in first grade.  First month was fine but it then went down hill from there.  The school refused to follow the IEP put in place the previous year.  They insisted he was older now and things had changed.  “Trust us,” they said, “we have been trained.”

And they kept saying this even though Max got worse and worse.  When the school tried to physically prevent him from doing things such as continuing one subject when the class would move on to another he would become aggressive.  To stop this he would be restrained by 4 teachers and was suspended several times.  Max was 6 years old and small for his age and my wife who is small as well has always managed to calm him without extra help.

Max’s pediatrician suggested we take him to be evaluated for a med change.  Though he was very experienced with helping kids with adhd and sensory issues the doctor believed that Max may have other issues.  He pointed us to a specific hospital and told us to bring our son to the emergency room because the psychiatric department was connected to it and they would be able to do an evaluation right there.   The idea was to get passed the 6 months to a year waiting period it now takes to schedule psych exams.

The day after Christmas when Max was 6 we took him to the hospital.  It was a Thursday.  As with all emergency rooms we had to wait, and wait, and wait.    We were finally seen by a psychiatrist who was more interested in letting us know what bad parents we were than checking Max out.

A short time after she left a nurse came in and started talking to us about our situation.  He told us that it was going to take a lot longer than a couple of hours to diagnose Max’s condition.  He suggested we admit him to the hospital’s psych wing for a week to determine what was going on.  He made the place sound very wonderful.  Great staff, a lot of kids Max’s age, schooling and playtime every day while the doctors examined him.

When would he need to go in?  We were informed it would have to be right now, there was a bed available and he could go right up but if we waited another child would get the bed.  This was not something we had planned for, when Max was initially diagnosed we had taken him to Boston over a three day period and he always came home at night.

When we both did a gut check my wife and I were very bothered by this.  While the nurse went off to see if we were covered by our insurance we started making our own phone calls.  We called Max’s pediatrician, who was out of the country at the time, he didn’t like the idea but thought it was the best thing for him.

We called a family member who is a social worker.  She hated the idea but thought it was the best thing for Max.  We talked to a child advocate friend of ours who was also against the idea but again, she thought it was best for Max.  And we even called my wife’s therapist who had worked with Max a little bit and she had the same reaction.

As a result we agreed that it was best.  Then the nurse came back to let us know we were covered by our insurance.  Okay, he’s going.  I asked for directions to the ward which it turns out is in another town.  Nope that’s not the way it works, to get into the ward he would have be taken by ambulance.

Max and his mother were loaded up in the ambulance, and with me in my car behind, off we went.  It was dark and I almost lost them a couple of times, or it may have been because of all the water on my face at the time.

When we got there, we had to go through two sets of locked doors.  On one door was taped a sign that read “watch out for elopements”.  I thought that was curious but found out several days later that an “elopement’ is when one of the children escapes from the ward.

We were given a tour and saw only one other child, besides Max, a teenager.  Where were the others?  The children had checked out for the day to be with their parents since it was the day after Christmas, they would be back later on we were told.

Max loved the idea of an overnight, he had never been away from home and we left after signing all the papers and promising we would see him on Friday.

We are only supposed to be able to see Max between 6 pm and 8 pm.  When we asked about this on Friday night they told us they could be flexible.  Well I sure hope so; there were still no kids there.  Max tells us that he plays with the one teenager.  We stayed the two hours; we read to him and had dinner with him.  This became the routine for the rest of the time he was there.

What also became part of the routine were the hysterics when we got there, begging to come home while we were there, and hysterics when we left.  While we were at home we would get constant phone calls from Max begging us to come see him.  There never were any kids his age the whole time he was there but more and more teenagers showed up.  There was violence and a lot of foul mouths.  It was not a safe place for him.

On Monday I told them I wanted him out.  I did not like what was happening with him there.  And as far as I could see there wasn’t much evaluation going on, no medication changes, nothing!  The doctors tried to reassure me they were working hard to help him and this was the best way to do it.  No, he’s coming home!!!  They then showed me a line in the contract that says that once a request like mine is made the doctors can take three days to decide whether they will let him come home.

And Max would still have hysterics as he watched us through the window go home at night.  And the staff kept telling us this was normal.  And his Mom and I knew in our hearts that this wasn’t right and we wanted him out.

On Thursday they informed us we could take him home on Friday.  We got him!  Their diagnosis?  Same as what we had before.  Medications?  Made some changes.  Recommendations?  None!

And the results?  This happy-go-lucky kid was now quiet, moody, and had very high separation anxiety.  He didn’t like to play.  His medications still weren’t right either.  Since then he has never picked a flower for a girl in the playground.

To add insult to injury it turns out our insurance didn’t cover the hospitalization and a month later the bills started coming in.

Today, a year and a half later, Max is 8.   If you ask him what the best memory he has of the last 8 years it is when they let him turn on the juke box in that hospital.  What is his worst memory?  Being there!!

Since I wrote my post on “Fireproofing the Family” I hadn’t planned on writing an update for awhile. Things are always changing. The movie, Fireproof, that prompted the post is about a man who uses the book “The Love Dare” in an attempt to save his marriage. Its purpose is to improve marital relationships. My wife and I are parents of a special needs child. Since divorce rates for parents like us is much higher than the 50 percent average statistic my purpose is to strengthen not only our relationship with each other but also with our son. The book has tasks to be completed for each of 40 days. In the movie it took the main character more than 40 days to complete them all. It now appears that it is going to take me quite awhile too.

I started task 1 on Monday. This appeared to be a good one since the book suggested it was an easy one to start with but it has proved to be difficult for me. What is a big problem in arguments? Anger and the things said because of it. The first day is spent working on letting go of it.

Um, okay but I have always found it difficult to control my anger when I’ve been “done wrong”. I’ve been trying to figure out how to stop it but I was convinced that it was just an inherent part of my makeup. Let it go? It comes on so quickly that I don’t have a chance and then I want to wallow in my anger once it has me in its control. I’ve been looking for years for a way out. I’ve been to therapy, tried meditation, considered medication but nothing helped. I’ve searched for road maps in books and on the web to resolve it. Something like: do step 1, then move on to step 2, etc; but I haven’t found anything.

The book, however, showed me a different way of doing it. Look at it as a choice. I can choose to be angry or I can choose to be patient. It reminds me of a course I took at Landmark Education. It suggested that humans tend to react to situations or choices that we have.

For example, you have a vacation coming up and you are trying to decide whether to spend it camping in the mountains or tanning at the beach. You don’t like the beach so you have to go to the mountains. Was this a choice? Not really, you are reacting to the fact that you don’t want to go to the beach.

Now look at it a different way. List the positives and negatives of going to the mountains. Do the same for beach. Based on your results what do you choose? In this case you are taking control of the choices and you are making a decision, you aren’t reacting. “I choose the mountains because this is what I want to do”

I remember going through all this “choice” stuff during the course but I didn’t think I could use it for my anger. Choose to be patient? I at least figured I would give it a try. So far it seems to have worked pretty well. “I choose to be patient” has become my mantra this week. I have been saying it over and over again when I get into a situation with my wife or son and have had mixed results so far.

I think it has confused my wife a bit. I haven’t told her I’m doing this. Like the main character in the movie I’m working on it on my own. In several instances she has reacted as if I am angry even when I am smiling and talking calmly. When I have not responded to her anger she has left the room and settled down. Only once have I almost lost it but I started repeating my mantra again and the anger eventually went away. It took awhile but as long as I concentrated on the mantra and not the things she was doing that were making me angry it didn’t escalate in my mind.

I’ve seen better results with my 8 year old son, he has had fewer explosions with me this week since I haven’t responded in anger to the things he has been doing. And last night he snuggled up against me and fell asleep watching television. This doesn’t happen too often.

I said that I think this program is going to take longer than 40 days. Today is the fifth day I have been working on task 1. I’m going to be ready to go to task 2 tomorrow. This doesn’t mean that task 1 is complete. I will probably be practicing it during the whole project if not for the rest of my life.

But you know what? I have no complaints.

39 book days left to go!!