Changes

I really try to update more often. When I finally get around to updating, there's so much to say, that I feel it's necessary to leave things out - lest you get bored and stop reading!

We've had some pretty rough times. Times I'd like to forget, but they did happen. We had to call the police for the second time. Holland became enraged with something Romania did and threw his brand new Nintendo 3DS and broke it. After trying to separate them, Holland ending up pushing me down the stairs. Super Hero got the phone for me and I called 911. The entire phone call, Holland was hanging on my back trying to get me to hang up. Two cars were here within minutes and the four officers were amazing. They talked with him and with the other two kids, holed up in Romania's room, but nothing was really done. He was calm by the time they arrived. They advised me on residential treatment and said to call them without hesitation if it happened again. For several weeks, I was considering residential and had called my insurance and several places to see the process for admitting him.
Hard to believe I actually got to the point of needing and wanting to place him somewhere, but I was feeling so unsafe.

While continuing to do school with Egypt and Romania, I would spend a lot of time online researching Reactive Attachment Disorder. I was led to website after website. Books, names of people, methods and researchers on the topic. I had pursued this before, but the only person I had found, was not on my insurance. And they wanted me to come in everyday for months. I could just not afford that - time or money. Then one day last week, I found the name of a website called ATTACh. I couldn't tell if it was for professionals or actually a resource for parents to find someone to help them. I found someone listed for Oregon and shot an email. Not even knowing if the list was current or not. The same person actually emailed me back that same afternoon and said she was the contact person and could speak to me and gave me her number. We played phone tag for a few days, but when I actually did talk to her, I knew she was the exact right person we have been looking for. All the things I described for her were exactly things she saw in many of her other patients. Nothing freaked her out - although she was worried for my safety. There were two glitches: the first was she was going out of town for two weeks to help out in Haiti with all the adoptions after the earthquake there; the second was, she's not an in-network provider on my insurance. After speaking with my insurance, I found out it was going to cost quite a bit to see her each time. I asked for an exception to be made since she was a specialist and I could not find anyone in-network that dealt with RAD. The insurance explained that the doctor would have to do that (I can see why doctors do NOT like dealing with insurances! She doesn't have time to do that kind of thing).

Well, the Lord moves in mysterious (and sometimes painfully slow!) ways. Every year it seems, Super Hero's insurance gets changed. We go through finding a new psychiatrist, finding a new therapist. It's just awful starting all over. I would get so irritated because, hey, I want to save money, but it's just so hard to find a doctor in the first place. But to find a NEW one every year that specializes in what we need is so near impossible! I found out two days ago that yet again, we are changing insurances. I was trying not to get upset. Praying that we would get to keep the gastroenterologist; the pediatric rheumatologist; the pediatric opthamologist; the psychiatrist. The person that helps read through all the insurance plans to decide the best coverage has been so nice to us - and emailed Super Hero to ask him specifically what were the doctors we needed on the plan. I emailed him a list and included the therapist that I wanted, that wasn't currently covered. I just found out, that she is on the new plan! I could hardly believe it. I almost don't want to believe it, in case it's a different Blue Cross plan or something! So, I might just wait until the new year to start up with the new therapist. Seems like a life time away, but might be easier with all the out-of-network billing.

The other big news is that finally Holland got a new school placement. We had been waiting since the beginning of the school year. I just went yesterday to a placement meeting. They are going to start slowly introducing him to the program and then by Thanksgiving week, he'll be there at least one day full time. It can't come soon enough! And the other good thing-the new school is about 3 minutes from our house. It's actually at the building where we did a homeschooling co-op several years ago. He's totally familiar with the building. No more hour or even half hour bus ride. I'll just have to shift things in my mind that my day ends at 2 instead of 2.45!