Teenager Trouble

So... this is frustrating. I worked all morning on a new blog, then lost it and it appears it was not saved anywhere. Frrrrustrating! Let's see if I can remember what all I had blogged about.

Before I get into how Julie is doing, I find it important that I point out again how I feel about Julie. I love my sister Julie with all of my heart. I feel that nearly everything she does is with a pure heart, no ill-will, and with good intention. I think it's important to keep that in mind as I tell you about things that happen. I try to remind the kids ALL the time that their mom really truly IS doing the best she can do - for the most part. With that in mind.....

I found out from someone else that Julie was in the ER the day after she ate dinner / birthday cake at my house. She went in for high blood sugar (her normal has been over 500, so I can't imagine how high it must have been for her to be concerned enough to go to the ER.) However, when she was there for her blood sugar, she asked for Morphine for something (I assume that pain I talked about in her feet last blog. I dunno) I hear they did not give it to her. Of course, the obvious question would be... did she really go in for her blood sugar, or did she go in looking for Morphine. Hmmmm. Anyways....

Last night I'm talking to Julie and she's talking about her headache and the EIGHT Vicoden she took for it yesterday. EIGHT. She said that she needed it for the headache. I told her that IF her head hurt her THAT badly... she should get on some medication designed FOR headaches. She said that Vicoden is what they gave her for it. I mean, she could get on something like Imatrex for Migraines. If it's not a migraine... how about Toradol, a non-narcotic prescription strength pain medication. But -- no -- they keep giving her HABIT-FORMING NARCOTIC PAIN PILLS??!!??!! I just don't GET IT! That drives me NUTS! Sigh....

The other big thing that happened in the phone call is that Julie still wants to get gastric bypass surgery. I should mention here first that I think the gastric bypass procedure is awesome. One of my best friends had it done and I am 100% in favor of people getting this done. however, Julie is different.

Julie doesn't want to watch what she eats now. She refuses to eat foods that are part of a diabetic diet. Refuses to eat anything healthy. She refuses to exercise even in the slightest bit. She INSISTS that - if she had the surgery - she would wake up the day after surgery and *BAM* She's be a changed woman! She would suddenly do whatever they suggested; eat right, eat small portions or the right kinds of foods, etc. Everything will just CHANGE suddenly overnight. Forget the 38 years or so of complete and utter non-compliance - all that will change overnight. ANY reasonable person will tell you that is nonsense.

Julie forgets things SO QUICKLY. She forgets that last time she was set up for the procedure. The surgeon told her that she needed to get a psych. clearance before he could do the surgery. She had to go once a MONTH to the psychiatrist who tried to prepare her mentally for the procedure and for what would come afterwards.

The family knows that Julie lied that entire year. She would tell the doctor she WAS eating well, that she was eating many small meals a day, exercising, whatever the doctor wanted to hear.... while she was truly doing whatever she wanted. I remember her calling me once on the way to an appointment. I asked if she was going to tell the doctor all the horrible things she'd done since her last visit with him. She said "Of course not, I'm going to tell him what he wants to hear. It's the only way I'm going to get the surgery done."

I don't know what happened, but I heard that the Friday before the surgery was scheduled, the Psychiatrist told the surgeon Julie was NOT mentally able to have the surgery. Julie was FURIOUS. She carved the words "Fuck you Dr. XXX" into her stomach as her way of "telling him off" I suppose.

But now Julie thinks the doctors will let her have the surgery. She thinks - again - that she can just "Change overnight". Sounds crazy, right?

In my opinion, Julie needs to do the following, if she is truly serious about getting the procedure done:
1) Start eating right. Eat ONLY foods that are part of a diabetic diet. No sugars, few carbs, no cokes, etc.
2) Begin exercising and taking good care of her body. Granted at her size she can't do much -- but she CAN go for a very small walk. She CAN start very small, making a change to become a little more active than she is currently.
3) Become a compliant patient. Right now her charts are riddled with the words "NON-COMPLIANT". She needs to do everything in her power to do exactly what the doctors tell her to do, each and every single time.

Sadly... the truth is that Julie COULD do all of this and still not be a candidate for surgery. The sad truth is that she really IS very mentally ill and that will NEVER change - even IF she makes the changes above in her lifestyle. But... it's a step in the RIGHT direction, ya know?

Yesterday when I was talking to Justin (and I was supervision the phone call with Julie) she talked about the surgery she wanted. She talked about her eating. Justin tried to tell her what she should and should not be doing. He told her that she needed to eat three times a day, and to eat healthy. That - if she did that - she could lose much of the weight on her own!

Julie was talking about that water cooler up in her bedroom. Much of what Julie needs to live on a day-to-day basis is up in that room. Computer. Fridge. Water cooler. Heck, she might have a microwave up there, I don't remember. It's like a little apartment within a home. Anyways... she was talking about getting the water jug upstairs and how she needed a refill. Arthur (the live-in boy-toy) was not there right now and would be gone for a while. She was debating on going to a neighbors house and asking him to come over and walk the jug upstairs for her. I told her she should be able to take her time and get it upstairs if she tried.

Long story short, she DID get it upstairs, and called me completely out of breath to tell me so. (She was going to get on oxygen after telling me all of this.) She mentioned how she could not possibly GAIN 50 more pounds because she could not IMAGINE carrying that much more weight around with her all the time. Of course, I quickly pointed out that if she LOST 50 bus, she would be carrying around that much LESS with her all the time. Sheesh.....

We had an issue come up with Kayla yesterday. She told us that she was going to go to Adventure Island all day Monday with her boyfriend and his best friend, George. Chris had a feeling yesterday that she was NOT where she was supposed to be. So... we began calling her.

When he finally reached her, he asked her: "Kayla, think about the answer to this question before you answer it. Where were you today?" She answered: "We didn't go to Adventure Island, we stayed at George's house all day."

First of all, we have to give credit to Kayla for telling the truth. However, for NINE hours yesterday we thought she was at Adventure Island, and she was NOT. She was hanging out at a house with two boys.

Chris and I have a couple of golden rules at the house. One of them is that we ARE to know WHERE you are and WHO you are with at all times. Or at least have a "reasonable expectation" of where you are and who you are with. I don't think that is too much to ask, and Chris and I have been good about letting the kids go places as long as we understand where and with whom they are going.

Kayla did NOT meet this reasonable expectation and Chris and I were pretty ding-dang mad about it.

Today I called the house and talked to Kayla - she was crying. She explained that she really didn't think she had done anything wrong. That... she was going to go to Adventure Island, but George's mom wouldn't take them so they ended up staying at his house all day. (I should note here that I did call and talk to his parents yesterday) She tells me that they did NOT purposely do something sneaky and that her punishment was unjust. (Punishment is that she is not allowed to go ANYWHERE right now.)

I told her that - even IF she didn't DO IT intentionally, she was still "missing" yesterday for NINE hours. She still broke the "reasonable expectation" rule.

She thinks we don't trust her . She thinks that we think that she's just out doing this really bad stuff. But - she says - she is just trying to do the right thing. I told her that if she kept her head up high, kept doing the right thing, took her punishment like a good girl, that eventually everything would be just fine.

You have to understand how hard it is when it's not YOUR kids. It's so hard being the Aunt and the parent at the same time.

Speaking of raising kids that are not yours... we had another realization Sunday of how vastly different these kids are from our kids.

Remember once how blogged about how Kayte had gone to the mall and a friend of a friend was there - in a gang - was stabbed and taken away by ambulance. Remember how I said how incomprehensive that was to us... how our kids would NEVER know people who did that sort of thing. Ever.

Sunday Kayte tells us that she is breaking up with her boyfriend because he cheated on her, he got high, and he got shot in the foot.

First of all, this boy is 13 or 14 years old. He's ALREADY cheating on his girlfriend? Secondly, he got HIGH? Smoking at such a young age??? Thirdly, he got SHOT in the foot?? WHAT?? I'm still not clear on that one... I don't know who shot him, with what, etc. But the great news is that Kayte wants nothing to do with someone who would do ANY of these things so she dumped him. Go Kayte!!!

Tonight Justin was supposed to have his Championship baseball game. They won and are in the final game of the championship However, it was rained out and moved to tomorrow. Julie was supposed to come over tomorrow, so she had a choice: come over tonight and eat with us or come over tomorrow and watch Justin's final championship game. Although... I can't imagine Julie on bleachers for 3 hours. Julie did decide to come over tonight, and she wants spaghetti. This means I have to go grocery shopping... grrrrrreat. UGG

The bad news is that Julie was slurring her words and I don't know why. Maybe she was just sleeping (yeah, it's 3pm now).... hopefully it wasn't medication related. Whatever the reason, I hope it's better by 5 pm tonight.

I should run. Please remember to praise God for your blessings.