Slicing and Dicing

Jonathan went to his doctor's appointment yesterday with Dr. Coniglio. The appointment went great. This guy really knows his stuff about kids and Aspergers, for sure. He remembered Jonathan very well, even though he hadn't seen him in a few years. He remembered he was a singer, in a quartet, and lots of other information about him personally. Jonathan felt right at home with him.

The doctor told us that, in particular as he gets older, he can have side effects from the Adderol he was on. One of those side effects: Anger issues. When I told him the doctor we just saw was going to up his dose to 30mg a day, he said that it was the WORST thing we could do. There is a new medication out that he wanted to try him on. This new medication has reportedly NO side effects. (One of the side effects Jonathan hates on the Adderol is that he is never hungry and thus he is skin and bones!)

He explained to Jonathan that everyone gets angry, and told him how to just walk away. He told him with the change of medicine it should be a bit easier, hopefully.

The hardest thing was fitting everything that has happened in the past 3 years or so in a 50-minute session. But we managed and he's going to follow up with him next month. Jonathan started the new medicine today, so lets hope it goes well. I'll let you know.

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We had some..... Problems... With Julie yesterday.

Julie has been "hearing voices". These voices keep urging her to cut herself. She called me yesterday to tell me that she decided to listen to the voices and cut herself, but that she 'hid it' so that the kids wouldn't see it. (She cut her stomach.)

Then she told me the cuts were pretty deep and that she was worried about them. Well, of course I thought she might need stitches, but more importantly, I was concerned that she was 'hearing voices' that were telling her to hurt herself. I told her that I thought she needed to go to the hospital.

She agreed and called Tampa General and they sent an ambulance.

She was sutured up at TGH and released, believe it or not. They didn't have any room in the psyc ward for her. They also knew that she had a follow-up visit with her regular doctor this Friday.

Personally, I just can't fathom hearing voices telling me to do something. I think it would drive me nuts. Uh, no pun intended.

Julie called last night and asked that I NOT tell the kids. I don't think that is the right thing to do. The kids need to know their mom is still not well, but in a nice way of telling them. They are nearly adults now and hiding things from them isn't going to make anything better. Then she wrote me this morning asking me to wait for her to come over and she and I would both sit down and tell the kids what she did together.

I don't think this is a good idea either.

I don't want the kids to think this is a "okay kids, sit down we have something horrible to tell you" kind of thing with both Julie and I there. This, in my opinion, should be a "your mom had a little setback" talk that I can handle with them - Julie doesn't need to be there. Frankly, she's mentally ill and totally NOT well at the moment and I don't want her there while I'm explaining it to the kids.

I told Julie that she pretty much lost the right to be able to dictate what or how I told the kids what happened when she picked up the razor and sliced a dozen or so long slices into her stomach. I don't mean that to be mean... But SHE is not the one here thinking rational. She is not the one who should be telling me how and what to tell the kids. Ya know?

Lastly I told Julie that if she had only gone to the hospital as SOON AS she heard the voices, this would have been a non-issue. Additionally, she had an option when she knew she was going to run out of medicine - she could have gone to Baylife and they would have given her more pills to last her through her appointment. But she chose not to do so because 1) she didn't want to sit there all day and 2) she thought they might want to keep her for a day or two (although at that time she was doing GREAT and wasn't off any meds, so I can't imagine that would have happened.) Again, she decided to roll the dice and go without meds.

The biggest thing is that I know that this isn't "Julie". This is Julie when her meds aren't right. This can be fixed. Easily. So... Jules, if you are reading this... No worries hun. It'll be better VERY SOON. Everyone in this blog is praying for you.

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That being said, Julie sent an email to me a few minutes ago:

"As I sit here and want to cut (myself) so bad....... It hurts my head to have these thoughts. I just want it to stop. I want it to go away. I should take a sleeping pill and go to sleep. If I am asleep I'm not thinking of cutting.... Not sure what I'm gunna do... Cutting is an addition for me."

Boy oh boy.

Suggested that she call the church and ask someone to pray with her. That - maybe she could find some STRENGTH in it. Instead, she managed to ask them for money to help pay her electric bill. I dunno how that happened. But she seems to feel some better.

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I received another email from one of Justin's teachers today. It's the same one who has been emailing me all year telling me that Justin keeps talking in her class and goofing off - not doing his work - and that the class ends up having to wait for HIM to calm his butt down so they can get started on classwork.

This email said that an assignment she gave to Justin on November 11th was due today and he DID NOT turn it in. It was worth TWO TEST GRADES.

Great.

Additionally, no surprise here, she still can't keep him from talking in her class. She says that every day she asks him no less than two times to STOP TALKING.

Needless to say when he got home today and called me I yelled at him about this. He said something about how he wasn't really "talking in class" he was simply "answering" other kids who were talking to HIM.

I told him to STOP TALKING.

If I didn't work all day, I would go to his school and SIT BEHIND HIM in every single class for a day or two to keep him humble and show him what it's like to behave in class. I can guarantee if I were sitting right behind him in class he would NOT be acting up. It infuriates me that he ARGUES with me about it.

He's not TALKING?

He's ANSWERING?

Is that a real argument that I'm really and truly supposed to buy? Seriously?

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We are going to Chris's mother's house tonight for "Christmas" since they won't be here on Christmas day, they will be in North Carolina. It should be fun.

Katie, Tony, Tatiana, and Isabella will all be there, as will Julie.

I'm not sure what to do about Julie. How do you act around someone who is hearing voices telling them to do things? To hurt themselves? Do I tell the kids before we go? What it it makes it awkward while we are there? Do I fight the urge to ask to see the cuts? I'm the curious type like that, ya know. But then if I see them, do I feel angry or sorry for her? Funny... I don't think EITHER of those feelings are appropriate in this case.

Funny thing is that I told Julie that I was going to be really rushed getting home after work, jumping in the shower, getting the kids 'ready' to go to Nana's house and out the door by 6:15 or so. She said something about them not being little kids, I didn't have to put out their clothes or anything.

I wish you could sometimes see what goes on here to truly understand how hectic it can be. I get home and of course nobody has done chores. Lunch and snacks are still out. At about 5:45 I catch Justin eating a huge Little Debbie snack cake (it's nearly dinner time, why munch now?). Kayla and Kayte are in bed sleeping when I get home. Jonathan freaks out when I tell him we have to leave by 6-ish and he tells me that he 'needs and hour to an hour and a half to get ready'. Yeah, whatever. I try to get Kayla, Justin and Kayte together to talk to them about their mom, but that entails getting the girls up. This takes a good 20 minutes or so, and I find out later that Kayla never really woke up anyways. I had to tell her the whole story again on the drive over to Evie's house.

After I break the news to the kids about their mom.... get Jonathan moving on getting ready to go... get all the kids getting dressed (they are in the pajamas already).... then I jump in the shower and try to get myself ready.

No, they are not kids, but getting them all out the door quickly by myself AIN'T all that easy, let me tell ya. (Oh, Chris was already at his mom's house waiting for us.)

----- Well, since that paragraph, I left home and went to the Christmas party. Evie's house was of course wonderful. Tons of food, family and fun.

Julie on the other hand was not so well.

She showed up with a towel held to her stomach as her cuts were bleeding on the way over. She had blood all over her shirt. She needed help 'hiding' the blood and the cuts so that it didn't freak out Tatiana (and everyone else there for that matter).

Folks, let me tell you - her stomach looked horrible. Additionally she cut up her arm. She doesn't have stitches on her stomach - she has staples. Yeah, she cut that deep. I quickly helped her into the bathroom and needed Evie to help with gauze bandages and such. She wanted to help... but I had to try to prepare her for what she was going to see when she opened the door to the bathroom. I told her, "Look, I know you read my blog and I've talked about her cutting before... but if you have never SEEN it, it's quite bad. Please prepare yourself." I thought she was going to pass out when she opened the door. She cried....

The kids all got to see what their mom had done. I wasn't expecting that. But, it was hard to miss it.... there was just............. so much.

I have to leave for tonight. I'm tired......... I have a headache........ and I've got to get the kids to go to bed. Please say a prayer for this family who --- is really suffering as a result of this mental illness. The kids just don't know how to feel about their mom - angry? upset? normal? Heck, I'm struggling with it myself. I try to blame it on her mental illness, saying it's 'not her fault'... but is it? Sometimes I am sure it's not.... then other times I'm not quite so sure.

My God you guys should have seen her stomach. It was horrible. Please............. pray for the whole thing.

I leave you with this for tonight. I just learned how to upload video's and thought I'd put Jonathan in here. This is him playing a song he learned from listening to a game. Remember... it's all playing by ear.