Out Of Touch

Tim comes home on Sunday for a visit.  While he's home, we are going to tell him that we are going on vacation.  Without him.  In Europe.  We're not taking any of our children.  We have spent 12 days child free in the past 22 years and, with Wonderboy all grown up, The Girl off to my sisters-in-law for the month, and Tim safely in his new RTC we figured we were due.

I'm worried about how he will take it.  Not only will he not be able to see us for 17 days, but he won't be able to call us either.  And we talk on the phone five days a week.  We will give his RTC an emergency number to reach us at, and his brother will be in town and can act as our proxy (reminder to myself to talk to the RTC to see if he needs to sign something), but I'm most worried about Tim being out of touch for that long and how he will take it.  I'll let you know how the talk goes next week.

RTFM

Tim is coming home this Sunday for a few days. This is his first home visit since his transfer to Allendale, thirty days ago. The honeymoon is already over at the RTC. Last week he hit a classmate, slammed a door so hard it hit a teacher's aide, and threatened a housemate. Sigh. But what really got me hot was Tim telling me he met with the pdoc and told him that his voices were particularly bothersome, and the pdoc told him he didn't hear voices, he was just angry.

Um, what?  Did he not read the notes that were sent from his last RTC? The 30 pages of history I wrote for them? His diagnosis, for jeebus' sake?  It's highly unusual for Tim to open up to anyone about his voices so quickly.  Telling him that he isn't hearing them is tantamount to calling him a liar.  It's a sure fire way to be positive he won't tell the doc about symptoms again.

I called his caseworker and was annoyed but polite.  I didn't even think about having to start over from scratch, bringing a new RTC up to speed on Tim and his quirks.  I figured that, as medical professionals, they'd at least read his file.  Why do they take so many notes if they don't plan on ever reading them again? Can someone answer me that?  We have a popular acronym in technology-land - ok, we have a lot of acronyms in technology-land, but this one is relevant.  RTFM.  Doctors would do well to follow that one.

Movie Sunday - Love, Ludlow

This afternoon I sat down, hell-bent on getting a blog post done. It's about five thousand degrees outside so I switched on the TV. Tom and I tend to record movies off Starz and Showtime to the DVR that have interesting descriptions to watch when we have time to spare. Today I snapped on Love, Ludlow, an independent film described by Starz as, "A bipolar man tries to sabotage his sister's budding relationship with a co-worker." So, now, you get to hear all about it! It stars Alicia Goranson whom you might remember as Becky on Roseanne back in the 1990's. She is Myra, a young woman from Queens trying to care for her younger brother, Ludlow, who stays home, paints, and leaves elaborate and creative suicide notes for her to find when she gets home from work. She works temp jobs and calls various government agencies to try and get services for her clearly emotionally stunted and mentally unstable brother, to no avail.

When Reggie, a shy guy at the office, asks Myra out to dinner, Ludlow isn't pleased.  He refuses to leave Myra and Ricky alone when they return from dinner, and Myra comes unglued.  "Five years, Ludlow, and you couldn't give me one night. Florence Nightingale I ain't!"  Reggie leaves and Myra gets smashed and passes out.  Reggie realizes he lost his keys in the shuffle and when he returns to Myra and Ludlow's place, Ludlow says he must spend the night to apologize to Myra in the morning.  After having breakfast with Ludlow - which includes flicking the blue Trix onto the ceiling - Myra tells Reggie that their mom died five years ago, leaving Ludlow no where to go.

Reggie shows up later in the day while Myra is doing all the neighbor's laundry for extra cash.  Ludlow is with her - plastic crown and all - and is invited as well to the adventure.  The night before Myra told Reggie that, while she'd lived in Queens all her life, she'd never been to the beach, so Ricky takes them there.  While Myra explores the rocks and collects shells, Reggie sits with Ludlow.  And Myra smiles.  They drop Ludlow off at home and Myra tells Ludlow she is going to dinner with Reggie.  Later she changes her mind, worried that Ludlow will feel abandoned, and they get take out and return to find that Ludlow has destroyed the apartment and is nowhere to be found. Hours later he returns from his hiding spot - the landing a single floor up - and Reggie comes unglued, telling her she coddles him, she lets him act this way.  Needless to say that doesn't go well, and Myra kicks Reggie out.  "The locks on this door make no sense," Reggie says as he leaves, "because I can't imagine who would want to get in here."

The next day is the five year anniversary of Myra and Ludlow's mother's death. After some time, Myra wants to leave and Ludlow teases her, saying she has no where to go. Myra unleashes a tirade of grief and anger and frustration at Ludlow and her mother's grave, and leaves Ludlow there, begging him not to follow. She goes to Reggie to apologize.  Reggie notes that at work, she doesn't take crap from anyone, but at home, she lets Ludlow steamroll over her.  He brushes her off, noting that he likes her, but she clearly doesn't have room for anyone but Ludlow in her life.  Myra cries and says she came to say the same, clearly hurt by Reggie's words, even though they were kindly delivered.

When Reggie gets to work on Monday and Myra isn't there, he tracks her down at the laundromat, telling her he wants to date her, no matter what.  Ludlow screams his objections as they kiss. They ignore him and, after Reggie walks them home, Myra notes to Ludlow that she didn't get his letter today.  "I know," Ludlow replies, "I don't write them anymore.  I've matured."

It's not the best movie I've seen about living with someone with mental illness, but it was cute.  It seems many of these movies are either about how dismal it is until either the mentally ill person or the caregiver is dead or abandoned (Pollock, Ordinary People, Revolutionary Road), or how a third person can help the caregiver get their own life, and the mentally ill person begin to stabilize (Benny and Joon, As Good As It Gets) .  If only it worked this way in real life, huh?

He's All Moved!

We got Tim successfully moved from OTDC to his new RTC the week after Memorial Day.  It was quite the Memorial Day Weekend.  I drove up Saturday and picked up Tim and a mountain of crap so high I couldn't believe he had it all in his room.  We checked him in to ODTC just shy of three years ago with an oversized duffel bag and an art easel.  He checked out with said bag and easel, plus fishing gear, a moving box of assorted bits, a bean bag chair, and SEVEN garbage bags of additional clothes.  I packed it all into my little car and we drove home without a view through the rear window.

When we got home I had him dump it all into the family room.  There was no way I was going to let him take that mess upstairs to his room to squirrel it away or, worse yet, spread it out all over the floor, bed, desk, and dresser.  I sat right there and sorted through all of it that afternoon.  One saving grace is that it was all clean.  Whether it was Tim having an epiphany of responsibility or the RTC staff who thought it was a good idea I don't know, but Tim did all his laundry the night before I got him.  That made the task a bit easier, since I didn't have to follow up the sorting and sifting with washing and folding.

So what in jeebus' name was in a box,  SEVEN garbage bags and a very large duffel?  Here's the rundown - Tim's commentary in parentheses ():

• 32 pairs of boxer shorts ('they kept giving me new ones mom, I don't know why.')
• 47 pairs and 9 loose single socks, all dingy and holey ('you know, socks. I need socks.')
• 6 pairs of athletic shoes, 3 of which were more than a full size too big ('I thought I wore that size shoe')
• 3 parkas, 1 rain coat, 3 other coats ('they're for different weather, duh.')
• 11 pairs of PJ pants
• 8 pairs of long pants
• 7 pairs of shorts
• 1 pair of boots ('you know, in case it snows')
• 5 zillion t-shirts, half of which were holey, stained, or both
• 3 hoodies ('I gotta have my hoodies, ma.')
• 2 sweaters
• 5 golf shirts
• Fishing pole
• Tackle box
• Easel
• 2 remote control cars
• 1 Bookshelf-sized stereo
• 1 pair of HUGE headphones ('I bought those. Cool, huh?')
• 2 sock monkeys
• Every card and postcard sent to  him over the past 3 years
• 3 notebooks ('so I can write stuff down')
• 2 popcorn tins ('I need those!')
• 1 Gameboy and assorted games
• 5 music CDs
• 2 DVDs of action movies
• 3 young adult fiction books ('I AM gonna read those')
• 1 pair long underwear
• 6 undershirts, stained and holey 

By the end of the day, Tim was back to one oversized duffel bag of clothes, and one small box (NOT moving sized) of stereo, books, gameboy, CDs, and we had several bags of items for Goodwill.  

And the best part is - there wasn't an argument.  

Tim and The Girl (and the back of Tom's head in the mirror) at the Cheesecake Factory

We had a nice rest of the weekend, hanging out with all three kids, which is a rarity.  Tim's been at the new RTC for nearly 2 weeks now, and we've talked to him on the phone five or six nights.  He has started summer school and is excited to study tornados.  He gets to cook and he's learning to make new dinner meals.  Today they will spend the day fishing on the lake.  He sounds happy, he says his symptoms are very minor, and for that, I am very, very grateful.  RTC rules state he can't leave the  grounds for 30 days while he acclimates, so we are going to go visit  him this Sunday.  The intention of moving him to this new RTC was for this to be a transition over the next 8-12 months to bringing him home.  It's too early to declare victory, but so far, he's handling this transition well.  Here's to hoping for a smooth summer!

Does your Child Have An ICG Grant?

Are you the Parent of a child that has been awarded an ICG Grant in the state of Illinois? The ICG Parents group is looking to make contact with the parents of all children in Illinois who have an ICG grant. Many parents aren't aware there is a very active parents group. There is! Not only do we meet quarterly, but we have a private Yahoo group where we share information and support. We are currently collecting stories from parents that have experienced innappropriate treatment decisions made for their child with an ICG grant by an administrative board or someone other than the child's treatment team. If you are just such a parent, or know a parent of a child with an ICG Grant, please email me at Chrisa.Hickey@gmail.com. We would love to have you join the parents group.