Friday, March 23, 2007

Fire woman your to blame.....

Last week I posted about the Prince being thrown out of his program. They will take him back if he goes to a short term residential facility for a few weeks. AH was off last Wednesday so I asked him to make the initial call to the place I decided on and to get the ball rolling. You know, I thought it would be nice for him to act like a f-ing father for a change, to MAYBE take just a little pressure off of me for once. So he actually made the calls. He told me they accept my insurance and they had to speak to the Prince to do an intake over the phone, and they needed to get some information from his day program and they would let us know.

The Prince readily agreed and called the place and did the intake. I asked AH if he had called the day program to get the info. He said No. Not yet. This was now Friday. It is sometimes hard for me to not be a spiteful b*tch and say F- it. I wont do it either, let him handle it. But of course, my maternal instinct thankfully always takes control and I do what needs to be done for my Prince.

So Monday morning, almost a full week later, I make a million phone calls, get the release forms faxed to me, get them notarized, have my son sign them and finally get them all back to his day treatment and they go about getting the psych evals, his records, etc. It takes them some time and they finally fa them to the residential place late Tuesday night. I call to follow up with the new place and they dont have them. Fifteen phone calls later and his program refaxes them Wednesday morning. A committee must now review his case and decide if he is a good fit for their program. In the meantime, anticipating needing it, I get his immunization records, get him to the doctor for a physical, etc. When the Prince was a little boy, he was exposed to tuberculosiss and will now always test positive on a PPD so he must go for a chest X-ray once a year. I had this done on Wednesday also. Well guess what, the lungs were clear for TB, but he has pneumonia!! Who knew?

So yesterday the residential place calls me and tells me after careful consideration, the committee has decided that based on the Princes history of family violence and aggression, plus his firestarting tendencies, they do not think his is a good fit for their program and they will not except him, and they recommend a long term psychiatric residential facility for him. I was floored. Family violence?? Firestarting? Are you sure you have the right Prince? Perhaps you have mixed up his file with another Prince? No, they are sure. Turns out the AH I am married to told them this!! Can you imagine? I mean, seriously... what was he thinking?? They had a fight a year ago that got physical when the AH came home drunk from work, and attacked the Prince. I had to throw myself between the two of to get the AH off of him. He left a mark on his neck and the school called CPS the next day. He neglected to mention these little details to these people on the phone. The firestarting was when the Prince and his friends made a molotov cocktail when he was at the height of his using. They never did anything with it thank G-d. Now I am not defending my son, he has alot of problems, substance abuse, depression, a possible mood disorder. But he is not a threat. When he was using, he was unpredictable and I didn't feel safe around him, but when he is clean, he is harmless.

So now I am back to the drawing board. I have to find a new place. Had AH done what was expected last week, he would have been rejected by last Friday and I would have had him placed by now. Or had he used his brain he would have been admitted this morning to my first choice place. I never thought I could be capable of feeling such hate and disgust for another human being.

4 comments:

Judith said...

I'm so sorry things went so poorly for you and your son this week. I hope that you are able to find a good place for him to get better. It sounds like your ex is not going to be of much help, but at least you know that for certain and can move on. My sister has a very resentful ex who just makes things worse when she tries to employ his help. It is a real shame.

My best wishes will be with you.

~Judith

Designer_NYC said...

Hi Kel,
Sorry to hear about this week's developments. I know what you mean about all the phone calls & paperwork & medical stuff that you have to amass, and how it all falls on the mom & we NEVER get any real help with that. When my son was being interviewed at his treatment center we were trying to be honest & responded to one question - that he did like to handle matches - I could tell instantly that they were thinking ARSON when he really was into much a smaller "playing with fire", not a good thing, but not arson, either. We were able to deflect that issue, but I was much more careful with everything I said after that, trying to think of what they were screening for. Sounds like your husband didn't understand the importance of certain answers and how your son could be disqualified as a result. It must make you feel that you can't relinquish any part of the process, that you can only trust yourself to do this work. That's a real burden.

I hope you find a good treatment center for your Prince...it will be so much less stressful when you have him in a safe place. You're a really great mother - he is so lucky to have you in his corner, as is your younger son. I wish you strength in your efforts to help them through this time in their lives.

Anonymous said...

Good luck Kel.

Trudging said...

My prayers are with you.