Discouraging

This morning Case Manager and I toured two group homes. In the first one, Daughter would have been the 5th resident: 3 men and 2 women. All the other residents were over the age of 60, and several were nonverbal. They had no activities or program. I was considering right up until I found out that 3 nights a week an African American male is the only staff member on at night-- a very powerful trigger for Daughter's PTSD. I couldn't do that to her-- or him.

So then we went to visit a larger facility about 30 miles away. It reminded me of a bad nursing home. There is room for 20 residents. The rooms are very small. The common areas are very small. The food is institutional food at its worst. Daughter will spend the night there next week while I go on an overnight retreat. I won't tell her it's a possible placement. Maybe, by some miracle, she'll like it.

Even Case Manager was discouraged when we were done. Program Manager is going to check out the residential possibilities on the mental illness side of the agency. She thinks that might be a better fit for Daughter.

Psychiatrist was back in town today. Nurse took the email accounts of Daughter's mood swings down to her. She read them over and said, "She's still going up and down. I'll see her on the 28th." I wanted to cry when I read the email.

Program Manager had warned me that she thought Daughter had grabbed some snacks when she was left alone in the office for a minute (Daughter wasn't the only one creating chaos at the program today). From 3:00 until she got home at 5:00, her blood sugar mysteriously jumped over 50 points. She insists she didn't eat anything. I know that's a lie. When I asked what she'd eaten, she stormed out of the house. She wasn't gone long, and when she came back in, she was still mad, especially at Program Manager for talking to me. She kept saying that Program Manager is dead.

That appointment with the psychiatrist seems like a very long way off. I think Program Manager would agree with me.