Monday, March 7, 2011

Been a while, but I'm back

It's been over a year since I last posted on here, but I'm back and hoping to post more often. Then again, I always think that and say that, so I guess we'll just see what happens next.
It's been an intersting year. Lots of things have happened and it would take me forever to talk about all of it. For one thing Jordan spent about a month in the hospital in the fall of last year. It was so hard for us because it was the first hospitalization after he outgrew Cook Children's hospital. We ended up having to place him in John Peter Smith there in Fort Worth and that was a trial all by itself. The program there is very different compared to Cook Children's program. Very stark I would say. The rooms are stark, the workers are bored and annoyed by they their jobs, the other patients were not like the ones at Cook Children's. They were mostly runaways and young people placed there by the courts.
After a week or so there the hospital took it upon themselves to file with the court to have Jordan committed involuntarily. I understand that a lot of the people that end up in that place just want out and want to manipulate their parents to get them out, but Jordan just wanted the help. He wanted to feel good again and he wasn't going to leave if the doctors said he needed to stay.
When Jordan first got there they very abruptly changed his medication and it did a number on his personality. He became combative and defiant and rude. Just not like himself at all. I think they just didn't know that it was so far out of character for him and because of that they thought it best to gain control of his stay, so they filed with the court.
The problem there was that they made it seem like I was the one filing this with the court and that really bothered me. I knew Jordan wasn't going to understand how all this happened and that I wasn't trying to "get rid of him". They went so far as to serve him with the paperwork in that place...a Sherrif's deputy served him. He was all alone getting a bunch of papers that he wasn't possibly going to understand. It was not fair at all.
Anyway, when court finally came they were able to hear everyone speak about what we thought was best and Jordan got to talk to the court too about what he thought. After court the Deputy allowed me to speak to him for a few minutes and he seemed good. They held their decision for another week and even though the judge did eventually sign the commitment papers the hospital released him the day before Thanksgiving. It was a good Thanksgiving to say the least.
The other big change in this hospitalization was that they apparently finally diagnosed Jordan as Schizophrenia. It's always been Schizo-effective disorder/bipolar type, but now it's Schizophrenia, Bipolar disorder NOS...
Confusing.
The new medication finally started working for him and he's doing pretty well now. Last week Dr. Atkinson added Intuniv to his other meds and we have yet to see if that is going to help him at all.
Other than that Jesse is about to be three and Bethany is going to be two in May. Valeie just turned 23 and Jordan will be 16 on our birthday on the 20th of this month. Me? I'm going to be 44!! I'm excited for that. 4 is my favorite number so it's going to be a good year I'm sure of it.
Starting out a little rough. Justin has gone to a court ordered "cognitive thinking" program for three months and so I'm having to help Valerie foot the bills until he gets out and gets back to work. It's going to be hard, but we'll be fine I'm sure...pretty sure...lol.
Dana

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