January 31, 2006

Driving in to work today I reflected on the last 12 month's of Hunter's life and how far he's come. Just over one year ago Hunter, 10, was discharged from his last hospitalization after 206 days as an inpatient. Hunter's diagnoses jumps from bipolar to PDD (pervasive development disorder, high-functioning autistic) and back again. Bipolar is a medically "billable" diagnosis whereas PDD is not. Yet anyway. My husband, Hunter's step-father, and I really don't care what the label is, we just need to know how to treat him to survive this world. It's been a long, hard fight.

This morning I was reminded of just how far he's come. Hunter was up, fed and dressed waiting for the bus. It was an easygoing morning until the bus pulled up and interrupted his morning show. He threw his hat and gloves on the floor, crossed his arms on his chest and told me, quite emphatically, that he was not going to school today. Without saying anything, I waited. (If I push, there is a HUGE meltdown.) He quickly pulled himself together, grabbed his backpack, kissed me goodbye and he was on his way.

Rewind 13 months...

Hunter would have handled the interruption with the grace of a hurricane; screaming at the top of his voice, throwing himself on the floor and either banging his head or punching himself. The meltdown would have lasted an hour or more. Usually much more. It would have been ugly.

Thanks to Lithium, Abilify and Lamacital we have been able to rein in the severity of his wicked moodswings.

The first time we admitted Hunter to a psychiatric hospital he was five years old. He was hearing the voices of a red and a blue elephant. The red elephant would tell him to do bad things. It broke my heart to leave him in the hands of strangers but he was not safe -- WE were not safe -- and we needed help.

Two incidents in particular stand out in my mind. One was of Hunter in a full-blown, red-hot rage chasing me around the kitchen of our apartment with a knife. He told me, quite graphically, how he was going to kill me and cut me up. The other was of Hunter standing over my sleeping body with a knife in his hand.

In order to prove to the "professionals" that there was REALLY something wrong with this child I created a Hunter binder. In it I put every medical and school assessment, progress notes from daycare and school. Everything that pertained to Hunter and his behavior was put into this binder. It became a joke, to me at least, after while. I would walk into a meeting about Hunter and place the big, black book on the table and open it up. It was quite a daunting site.

When Hunter was four I had him evaluated by our intermediate school to see if he qualified for special education and he did. So he was enrolled in what is known as the "Pre Primary Impaired" preschool for emotionally impaired kids. From there he should have gone directly into the emotionally impaired kindergarten but the teacher's and therapist's wanted to see how he would do in the mainstream. I think he lasted less than a week. He has been going to an EI elementary school ever since.