Memory Monday--Sisters

Annika 2 months-Kirsten 3 1/2 years

I was looking thru some photo albums today and I found myself smiling at many pictures of our two girls, Kirsten-17 and Annika-13.  When they were young, Annika followed Kirsten around almost everywhere.  Kirsten and I were laughing at her birthday party pictures--most of them had Annika sitting close-by Kirsten, the birthday girl.  She never wanted to miss a thing.  These two girls are about as opposite as you can imagine, both in looks--Kirsten has blonde hair and Annika has dark hair and personalities.  But, they also have a lot of similarities....I wanted to share just a few pictures of these two sisters.

swimming at Playa Los Gatos, Zihuatanejo, Mexico

viewing ancient ruins near Colima, Mexico

continuing...Loss of Health

We arrived back home and the house was eerily quiet. Those last few months we had felt as though we were living in a wind tunnel. That previous September, our oldest, Josh had started college in Seattle. In October, my Dad unexpectedly died. A week after his death, we had another health scare with Annika when, after complaining of vision disturbances, her Dr. ordered a MRI. We didn’t think too much of it until later that night when I received a frantic phone call from the nurse. She told me that we needed to immediately pick up the MRI films and take Annika to Seattle that night to be evaluated by a neurosurgeon at Children’s Hospital. After meeting with the neurosurgeon, we learned that Annika had 2 benign brain cysts that appeared to be slow growing. There was nothing to do but periodically do follow-up MRIs to check size of the cysts. These events were then followed by her cataclysmic emotional spiral of November and December. Now, here we were, returning to a house with only us and Kirsten, oh and of course our little ‘ball of hate’, our chihuahua Trini..

We took the spare leaves out to make the dining table as small as we could. It felt strange to sit there, just the 3 of us. Since our house has the master bedroom on the main floor, I could avoid going upstairs. I think it was a couple of months before I went into Annika’s room. I know it wasn’t even a minuscule fraction of what a parent must go thru when they lose a child, but for me it was still heart-wrenching. There was a constant feeling of self-doubt over the decision that we had made to put her in residential treatment. Did we do the right thing? Would she get better?

Every Sunday at church our Pastor would include Annika in the morning prayer. People would ask how she was doing. We really didn’t know how to answer. Our contact with her was limited to one 15 minute social phone call on Sunday afternoons. During those phone calls, one of the staff members would stand by Annika and listen to her so we could never really get a good read on how she was. On Tuesdays we would have a family therapy session, by phone of course. Her therapist would send us weekly written reports that told us nothing. In this blog, I have previously written about our perceptions of her time at Uinta, I won’t detail that part of it again. Bottom line, we still question if we did the right thing. We see definite progress, but was the cost too much? I’m not just talking about the financial cost, but the cost to all of us emotionally.

There was of course the related loss of financial stability. When we had moved out of our previous home, we were satisfied with the state of our finances. We owed no one, save a small mortgage payment and our basic living expenses. We purchased property with cash to build our new home on. After that purchase, we still had a nice cushion. The financial cushion first began to erode when I quit working to be at home to home school Annika. The elimination of almost 40% of our monthly income, while we were building a new home AND renting a condo, was not good on the checkbook. We reluctantly borrowed money to help us make ends meet.

Now, a year later, we were faced with extraordinary expenses. Kirsten was attending private high school. Josh was attending college at Seattle Pacific and Annika was 1,000 miles away in a residential treatment center with monthly placement fees of almost $8,000! We refinanced the house and took as much equity out as we could to pay down some of the debt we had incurred the past year. We started dialing for dollars to find sources for the treatment costs. It was an interesting time. The credit market had frozen up. After living years without ever having a problem obtaining credit, we were actually turned down for a couple of small loans. We were shocked. Finally, we were able to pull enough together thru various sources, including a generous low interest loan from dear friends. We were also blessed by anonymous donations that helped cover almost two months of placement. But now were now saddled with tens of thousands of dollars of debt that would be difficult to pay back. We were in a house ½ the size of our previous one, but we owed more than we had ever owed in our lives! How would we ever pay it all back? How would we balance the needs of all of our children. We didn’t want Josh and Kirsten to be deprived of their schooling and become resentful of their younger sister. They had already endured so much as our focus and attention had been so unevenly distributed at times. They had already endured living with parents whose emotions were so frayed that they often were unaware of what was going on around them. They had already endured a loss of relationship with their little sister, who was unable due to her illness to really participate in building of real relationships.

I kept reminding myself on a daily basis, that God wanted us very close to him in those days. We needed to trust in Him that he would provide for our needs. Not necessarily our wants, but always, always our needs.

to be continued...

Happy 20th Birthday Joshua!

May 25, 1990, our first child, Joshua Michael Haan was born.  We had almost seen his appearance 5 weeks earlier, when I was hospitalized for a week due to pre-term labor.  After that, he decided to hang tight until 2 days before his due date when he made his appearance.  He was a endearing child from the moment he was born.  This first picture of Joshua, he is 3 months old, his first formal portrait.

Joshua was an inquisitive child, he still is.  He was also quite meticulous...as a toddler he would walk around and pick up little pieces of lint off of our dark grey carpeting and deposit them into the garbage.  He has always been VERY observant, he loves to sit quietly and soak it all in.  As a baby, I remember him sitting in his infant seat, or walker, just watching me do things, like paint a room.  When he was 2, his favorite movie was Disney's 'Fantasia'.  He would sit quietly, or lay on the couch, and watch the 3 hour movie.  I remember a friend of mine being blown away at his attention span.  He also knew where the cookies were kept at anyone's home that we would frequent.  He would toddle over to the appropriate spot and wait patiently for his reward.  Hah!  Kind of reminds me of our dog Trini that way! 

(Josh when we were in Colima, Mexico)

Today he is a sophomore at Seattle Pacific University.  He came home last night, so that he could be home for his birthday dinner--a family tradition--on their birthday, each child picks a restaurant and we go out to eat, just the 5 of us.  It is always great to have him back at home.  While some know him to be very quiet, he actually will talk your ear off, sharing his insight and observations.  He has grown up into an amazing, loving, caring, intelligent and humble young man.  His discernment never ceases to amaze me.  His compassion and patience for others often puts me to shame.  He is passionate about learning other languages and cultures and has truly found his niche as he studies linguistics and sociology.  I am excited to see where this path will take him.  Happy 20th Birthday Josh! I'm proud to call you my son and I love you with all my heart!

 
 

 

(Josh and Evy--the girl who a friend once told me to be

really nice too, because one day she might make me a Grandma!)

   

Memory Monday- The Button Box

I love buttons. I know, it’s a little bizarre. Ever since I was a little girl I have been completely enamored with buttons. I think it stems back to spending time in my Grandma C’s sewing corner.

Her sewing corner was quite the site. She and Grandpa lived in a very old house with a long narrow lean-to on the back that housed her washer and dryer and sewing area. The floor of lean-to sloped terribly and was made of wood planks of varying widths that creaked and groaned when you walked over them. It was a dark space, with a row of small glass window panes along the upper part of one wall. The ceiling hung low and had also assembled with scrap boards that had aged to a dark brown over the years. My tall Grandfather had to duck to walk into the crowded space. The beloved sewing corner was at the end of this narrow lean to.

Grandma had a cheap accordion folding door to partition off her obscure corner. The problem was that sewing nook was piled high with anything you could possibly ever need for sewing, so much so that when you tried to close the foldable door, it would bow out. She used a thick, strong rubber band to bind the handles of the door together. Stacks of patterns, tape measures hanging by pins, pictures cut from magazines with ideas she hoped to try (I think she invented 'tear sheets'), scraps and scraps of fabric, some small, some large, all stacked and shoved here and there. Remnants of old articles of clothing overflowed boxes. There was a window in her little stitching cranny that flooded the space with daylight. A bare bulb hung from a wire with a pull chain. One of my favorite things kept behind that vinyl foldable door was Grandma’s box of buttons.

Grandma didn’t believe in throwing anything away. Cupboards lined the lean-to filled with all sorts of treasures, most wrapped in heavy plastic bags to protect them. I wonder how many mice scampered upon those treasures over the years they were stored there? But one of my VERY favorite things to do was to sit and go thru the big box of buttons. The colors and textures and shapes of all those fasteners mesmerized me. She rarely threw anything away, and always shopped sales. At fabric stores, and dime stores, she would purchase deeply discounted cards of buttons and throw them in her sewing cranny. If an item of clothing was worn and could not be re-purposed in some way, she would cut the buttons off and throw them into her treasure-trove of buttons. If she recovered a piece of furniture or a seat cushion, she would cut the buttons off and save them for another project.

I learned how to sew from my Grandma. She taught me well. She taught me not so much how to follow a pattern, but how to create things when you didn’t have a pattern. I first learned how to ‘re-purpose’ items from her. It’s a skill that I have put to use many times over the years. When Grandma died, I became the proud owner of her box of buttons. I still enjoy looking thru that box. I often pull buttons out of that box and use them. There are many buttons that invoke memories. Some are very old, some will probably never be used again, but I can't part with any of them. A few weeks ago, when I was altering a satin shrug for Kirsten to wear to prom,  I selected a beautiful vintage button and sewed it on to camouflage the alteration. It was just the special touch that Kirsten needed for her outfit. Coincidentally, the vintage evening purse Kirsten took that night had also come from my Grandma’s belongings. It had been stored in those lean-to treasure cupboards for years, and then stored in a trunk after she moved from the house until her death. I didn’t tell Kirsten that perhaps a little mouse had run over it years ago!

continuing Loss of Health

Continuing where I left off...Christmas time that year was less than joyous. I remember struggling with how to write our usual Christmas letter and cards. I can’t remember how that one turned out. We were sleepwalking thru our lives. Emergency appointments with Annika’s mental health providers, holiday parties, Christmas shopping, work, church obligations, family therapy. Our psychiatrist and psychologist both recommended seeking residential treatment. We were referred to an educational consultant. During our initial consultation with the ed consultant, we regurgitated Annika’s entire life/health history. It made our heads spin as we relayed all the highlights (or should I say low-lights?) from being born 7 weeks early, to the recent discovery of benign brain cysts (which was another grueling period of time a week after my father’s unexpected death). We talked about the inpatient stay a few years before, the different alternative treatment paths we had gone down–biofeedback, the visits with a naturopath physician and prescribed diet changes, the years of therapy and the series of providers. The interview took 3 hours and the consultant filled many pages with notes. I remember her stopping several times and looking at us and shaking her head. Repeatedly she would utter things like ‘WOW!’ or ‘this is unbelievable’. There was something about ‘wowing’ this consultant that was sickly comforting. This woman made a career out of finding the best intensive treatment options for children with severe emotional and learning issues. If we were overwhelming her, then maybe it was ok that we were completely exasperated with the situation.

The consultant reaffirmed what the psychologist and psychiatrist had told us, Annika needed residential treatment. So, we paid her $3,500.00 and hired her to evaluate and give us recommendations. It was December 30, 2008. I remember sharing a little with my boss and his wife about the steps we were taking. I remember her criticizing our psychiatrist for referring us to an ed consultant–‘how can you pay $3500 for that? What kind of a Dr. are you seeing that can’t help you with finding an appropriate placement?’. Helpful. NOT. I remember her telling me she was going to talk a Dr. friend and ask them what they thought of the situation. As if it wasn’t bad enough to be having to make these decisions, we were already facing criticism of our choices before we had even MADE our choices.

After the consultant compiled all of the records, conducted a series of interviews with people in Annika’s life, she concluded that her needs warranted placement in a residential treatment center. For background, there are different tiers of treatment. The ladder goes like this: outpatient treatment/day school, therapeutic boarding school, residential treatment center, institutional treatment (which includes inpatient psychiatric units–IPU). We felt the impact of another violent blow to our hearts. She had 2 facilities in mind, both in great state of Utah! Utah??? How was this going to work? Annika was only 12.

We conducted phone interviews with the owners of each facility. We ultimately chose Uinta because their therapy model was one of the few options we had not tried with Annika. The owners seemed genuine in our phone conversation. They were parents of 4 grown children. They assured us that we would be able to see Annika frequently. There was an opening if we wanted it. It was Saturday, January 17, 2009. We booked plane tickets for that next Friday. That night Dean and I went to a party. Again, we went thru the motions that night. We had just decided we were going to take our 12 year old to Utah and leave her at a residential treatment center. We had no idea what we were in for. I remember one party-goer asking me if Annika thought putting her in treatment was punishment for the CPS incident. I tried to explain that we weren’t punishing her or sending her away, we were following several professionals recommendation for a more intensive course of treatment. I don’t think this person understood. How could I expect her to understand when we weren’t even sure what we were doing..

(Annika's new home at Uinta)

That week I was on auto-pilot. Buying her some new clothes, sorting thru her entire closet, following a recommended packing list, labeling every item and article of clothing that she was taking. That next Friday, Annika woke up in our Seattle hotel room. She was excited to go. She told us that she felt something she hadn’t felt in a long time, hope. We flew to Salt Lake, rented a car, and drove about 2 hours north. We drove thru a mountain canyon. I remember the fog, so thick you could hardly see the road let alone anything along the side of the road. We found the house that would be Annika’s new home. We stayed for a couple of hours and then left. We drove back to a town about ½ hour from Uinta. I remember wanting to have a glass of wine. Guess what? Utah has some of the most stringent liquor laws in this country. Only beer is sold in the grocery stores. To buy wine you have to go to a liquor store–C-L-O-S-E-D. We tried several different restaurants, no luck. The next day when we flew back thru Denver, I remember spending our layover in an airport lounge. We were numb and relieved at the same time. We started a new chapter in our lives of living with loss of mental health.

Wish Lists

Time for a break and something a little more light-hearted. I was at the mall last night doing a little birthday shopping for our oldest. I love it when I ask my kids for their birthday or Christmas lists. This year, Joshua’s birthday list was sent to me by e-mail and it went something like this:

“Amazon gift card—I could put it towards books for next quarter and workbooks/fun things for the summer. Also money for when I go over to Evy’s memorial day weekend. We’re going out to dinner. Also a black dress shirt to go with my black pants (glad he clarified that one–I was worried he might be trying to pair a black dress shirt with his brown slacks). And a new black belt. If you need more ideas, let me know. I can prolly come up with more.” And yes, he did spell ‘probably’ just like that...doggone texting–people are forgetting how to really spell!!

I was thankful that this list didn’t require me shopping on Ebay for something obscure and REALLY random. I had THAT problem at Christmas. I found the ambiguous item, paid for it, waited weeks for its arrival, only to discover days before Christmas that I had been scammed. Another last minute trip to the mall at Christmas–JOY! JOY! JOY!

Kirsten always comes up with some interesting lists. Her birthday list this year went something like this:

“Llama, Alpaca, money, Jeep, money, fainting goat, money, clothes, stay in a castle.”

Very helpful. NOT. She received clothes, half of which she took back...but hey if you aren’t going to be specific.

Annika tends to be a little more, well, literal. Her birthday list last year went something like this:

“cell phone, allow me to be on Facebook, cell phone, money, cell phone, money, lots and lots of clothes, itunes, a tv of my own for my room, ihome, money.”

While she is definitely more literal, she can also be extremely unrealistic! We have caved on some things, like the cell phone (but that had a therapeutic reason behind that one!), but I think if she thinks she is getting a TV for her room, she will have a very long wait.

Now, how about me? No one ever asks me for my list. Sure, as special events are on the horizon, I might hear ‘so I hate to not figure it out on my own, but what do you think we should do for ?’ I generally tend to make it easy and lay out a specific thing that won’t put too much pressure on the checkbook. BUT, what if I could make a real list? Hmmmmmmmm, I think it might go something like this:

1 case of Cougar Crest Estate Grown Viognier

Gift Certificate to Sole Obsessions Shoe Store

½ case of Cougar Crest Anniversary Cuvee

Gift Certificate to Zappos shoes

½ case of Woodward Canyon Chardonnay

Gift Certificate to Macys

½ case of Ryan Patrick Estate Chardonnay

Gift Certificate to Lowes.

You see, I am a well-balanced girl!

Loss of Health, continued

Today is a day when I am really tired. Bone-aching exhausted. I have these days often. I understand that everyone else has their own gauntlet to run, but sometimes I need affirmation that it is alright to feel overwhelmed by what has been served onto our already full plate. In spite of the weariness, I am gaining strength in my written processing of the losses that I have endured.

I left off in my dissertation on loss at the point when I began to home school Annika. To say that was a difficult time is a gross understatement. Annika did very well with her studies, almost too well. She cruised thru her daily assignments and constantly complained of boredom. During this time she seemed to make great strides in her therapy. We started a new medication routine that seemed to work well for her. We moved into our new home, and began to feel a little more settled again.

That fall, Annika started 6th grade (back at school) and I went back to work on a more limited part-time basis. We felt confident that her teacher was going to be a good fit for her. The teacher had a depth of patience with her that we appreciated. However, the problems started quickly. First, it was the constant day-to-day issues with classmates. Again, while we could understand that Annika’s need for constant reassurance from her peers was excruciating for other 11 & 12 year olds, we still hoped that it would be better. I understand that there was another side on this issue, but for purposes of this essay on loss I need to focus on our side of things.

Daily she would come home with another story of someone being mean to her. We would sit every night and hear the play-by-play of how she had been treated unfairly. A fear began to set in that if things didn’t change, the burgeoning narcissistic tendency would overtake her beautiful, loving traits. Each night I would talk her thru the mantra of ‘treat others how you like to be treated, no matter what they do to you’. I would pick apart, line by line, her retelling of situations where she felt persecuted. I still believe that there were a handful of classmates that were horribly mean to her. One little girl took things from her and flushed them down the toilet. Some would call her names and tell others to stay away from her because she was crazy. Others would ask her to please go away and leave them alone when they were on the playground. Still others would send nasty e-mails to her or make repeated phone calls to her saying they hated her. More would tell her that her clothes were weird, her hair was ugly, or that she was stupid. It was the typical middle-school drama, only on steroids.

That fall, we saw her need for attention become insatiable. She began to lie. We had never encountered this from our children. The older two would always tell us EVERYTHING, even when we would scratch our heads and go ‘I can’t believe they just told us that’. At first it was a manipulation of the truth. Upon hearing these manipulations, I tried to re-direct her statements in a more truthful manner. Things just continued to spiral downward.

By December, Annika was refusing to go to school on a regular basis. It became a daily skirmish, where we were each determined to take no prisoners! Crying and screaming became a habit. Often I wanted to hang her by her ankles out the second story window! I would finally get her to school, arrive at work late and frazzled, only to receive a phone call from the school saying that she was in the office grumbling she was sick. We tried everything. Reward systems, threats, everything and anything that we could think of, or that which was suggested to us. Relief from the situation was non-existent. One day she feigned a sprained ankle–the staff babied her with ice packs and called me suggesting I take her to the Dr. Within hours of getting her home she was hopping on the injured joint. Another day, she told the office staff she was dizzy. She lay in the nurse’s office until I was again summoned at work to come and claim her. I thought I was going to lose my mind during all of this, I honestly did. I would daydream about running away from home, not because I didn’t love Dean and the kids, but because I was feeling so completely lost and overwhelmed. I was suffocating from the stress.

I did what I thought was best and I went and met with the school principal. I tried to explain what we were dealing with. Again the series of ‘what is her problem’ questions were asked. If you have not experienced crippling anxiety, or lived with someone who has, it is almost impossible to understand. I tried to convey the realm of overpowering emotions that Annika experienced on a daily basis. I expounded in limited detail her developing voracious appetite for attention. I asked that he and the staff help us as parents to keep her in class and on task. I walked him thru steps that we tried to employ to get her thru an anxious moment. I tried desperately to get us all on the same page. I requested that Annika not meet with the school counselor without our knowledge because it could undermine the therapy that we were spending hundreds of dollars on.

A few days later, I was at home. My doorbell rang and there was a stranger on my porch. She told me she was from Child Protective Services and asked to come in. I was flooded with an involuntary impulse to vomit. The memory of that wave of nausea combined together with cold sweat is still with me. I knew immediately what must of happened–Annika had made up a story about us abusing her. My fear had come to fruition. Her repeated threats during her many rages to call 911; her recurrent cries of ‘how can you abuse your child?’ when we would discipline her–were now something that we had absolutely no control over. None.

Two days earlier, Annika had refused to go to school. I called Dean and told him that I could no longer deal with her and I was going to work. My stress level was full tilt and I felt the best thing for me to do was to remove myself from the situation. Dean drove the 45 minute return trip home and tried to reason with her. He gave her 5 minutes to make a decision: a) go to school or b) stay home and be grounded from tv, computer, music and the phone for 5 days. Within two minutes she announced that she wanted to stay home. Dean left and went back to work. End of showdown. Later that evening, she told us she had made the wrong decision. She hoped we would reverse the punishment. We stood by the penalty--she was enraged.

The next day she returned to school. Later, she told us she had wanted revenge. She hatched her plan–she gathered together a group of girls and told them that she was worried her dad was abusing her. One of the girls, a girl who Dean had taught in Sunday School, immediately told Annika that she knew the story was false, she knew Dean would never abuse anyone. The girls notified the teacher. The teacher talked with Annika and the girls and tried to dispel the myth. Annika refused to let it die–she relayed her fabricated fear of abuse to anyone who would listen. The story took on a life of its own. The teacher went to the principal, the same man I had spoken with days earlier, and told him that while she knew there was no way that Dean was capable of doing what had been suggested, she needed his assistance in calming the situation down.

Annika was pulled into a conference with the principal and the school counselor. From what we understand their ‘investigation’ into the matter consisted of them asking Annika only a handful of questions. Annika stuck by her story and displayed a bruise on her thigh as evidence of the alleged abuse. That was it. End of story, end of investigation. They could have called a handful of other teachers in to discuss the matter, teachers that we have attended church with for years, teachers who were aware of all of the background. They could have called the superintendent, who was also very well aware of the struggles that we had endured. Or, at a minimum, they could have spoken to our oldest daughter and asked if she knew how Annika had gotten the bruise on her leg. Kirsten could have easily answered that Annika had run into the kitchen cabinet the night before and shown her the bruise. None of these things would have violated procedure. None of these things would have revealed that there was an ongoing ‘investigation’. No one took a step back and looked at the entire situation–a child with a history of serious emotional issues, including hospitalization in a psychiatric unit, an accelerating pattern of attention getting, a recent conversation with me concerning my fear of what she might try next. Cooler heads did not prevail. Instead, I honestly believe that the school counselor felt she had found the reason for Annika’s emotional struggles. I think she had an ‘AH HA!!!’ moment. She must be abused. They phoned CPS and filed a report. Thus leading to my doorbell ringing the next morning.

The CPS worker was kind. By the time she landed on my doorstep, she had already interviewed Annika and photographed her bruise. During the interview, Annika admitted that she had been out for revenge and had fabricated the entire allegation. If only that would have erased everything. It didn’t, in the interest of children who ARE being abused, it can’t. The permanent damage was done. The social worker told me that she understood that there was no basis to the complaint, but she had to complete her file. We spoke at length about ways we could protect ourselves and different steps we should think of taking. She left me with her number for Dean to call. He had to meet with her and go thru various paperwork concerning proper ways to discipline your child, as well as other helpful handouts. She walked out the door and I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t tell Dean. I didn’t want to break his heart. This loving man, who wouldn’t hurt anyone now would have an open file with Child Protective Services for 6 years! I think I waited for him to come home to tell him, I’m not sure–those details are a blur. He had recently become an Elder at our church. He had to go and speak with Council and explain what had happened. It was a humiliating experience.

At that moment, we experienced the loss of reputation. We endured a loss of community. If people within our Christian school community could think, even for an instant, that we could abuse our sick child, how could we ever feel deserving of membership in that community? If they didn’t trust us and instead questioned our integrity when we had done nothing wrong, how could we ever feel worthy of being a part of that community? So while you might want to categorize what I’m talking about as a ‘loss’, the reality is that we had instead gained a whole host of challenges. Our daughter was ill. Our daughter needed help. Our daughter needed more than we were currently able to give her. It was time to take another step in our quest for effective treatment.

to be continued.

Memory Monday

These pictures were taken on our first trip to Mexico.  We were working in the Cancun area on Betania Reformed Presbyterian Church.  The church had been destroyed during Hurricane Wilma in 2004.  The first picture gives you a perspective of the height that we were at in the second picture (we were on the top of that wall).  The man in the picture with us was our Host Papa for the week.  He was a wonderful man who worked hard, carried his Bible in his bag along with his cement working tools, and always had a smile in his eyes.  I remember him being on top of the wall and shouting for 'Deam and Kim' to come up with him.  Dean, who hates heights, didn't dare tell him no.  He wanted Dean and I with him up top to do a concrete pour (the kind where you make a line and everyone passes up buckets of concrete).  I remember standing on this make-shift scaffolding several feet up in the air.  Everyone down on the ground was asking us if we were paid up on our life insurance.  The plank we are standing on was very wobbly.  I still remember being up high and looking out over the impoverished neighborhood., the rutted dirt roads, the beating of music in the distance, the warm sun beating down on us.  And the smells--kind of a mix between sewage, rotting garbage (there was the neighborhood 'dump' across the road) and food cooking.  I wish I was there now!

 

Loss of Health continued.

We began to settle into a new ‘normal’ routine. Honestly, we thought we were thru the worst of it. Spring break that year we went to Maui to celebrate. Our condo overlooked the beach and we spent our days doing nothing but soaking up the sun. Even that was stressful at times. The lack of routine was unsettling for our daughter. Patience would wear thin. Annika would be fearful at times and want to just sit in the condo. When we were back home, we continued our weekly therapy visits and hoped for improvement.

Therapy continued during her fourth grade year. I arranged my work schedule around appointments. My day off would consist of driving her 45 minutes to her appointment, sitting in the lobby for most of the hour-long appointment, then driving 45 minutes back home. What is it about the mental health profession that thinks its ok to decorate their waiting rooms with furniture that looks like it was collected during a dumpster diving excursion? Seriously, I have sat on more stained chairs and sofas than you can imagine. I digress, back to processing.

At home, things were always up and down. Annika required a lot of time and patience. She was finally sleeping alone in her room again, but not without a lengthy bedtime routine. I have a problem with that one, I still do. I’m one of those moms that likes to kiss them goodnight and then let them settle in on their own. Even as infants, I would always put my children down in their cribs awake and let them go to sleep on their own. She would still periodically wake at night and want to be taken back to bed. My sleep pattern was disrupted for years. Only now can I finally sleep thru the night without being awake for hours on end, thanks to some helpful medication!

The problems with friends continued. drama, Drama, DRAMA all the time. My heart ached for her as she never seemed to find that certain someone to be a close friend. I don’t think she was capable of sustaining a back and forth friendship. Her need for constant reassurance would burn out anyone. She would pronounce that so-and-so was her new ‘best friend’, only to have that person never invite her over. Again, we could understand on the one hand, but it was still hurtful. The toughest times were always the birthday parties or sleep-overs. The ones where all the girls would be talking about it at school and Annika would be very aware that she was not invited. We still often felt that she was labeled by many. We would have teachers ask ‘so what IS her problem?’. We never knew how to respond. Socially she struggled, but she did seem to be emotionally maintaining better than she had in a long time.

With Annika showing marked improvement, it was during this school year, that Dean and I felt that we were being led in a new direction. We had found our passion, to serve in a mission-related field. After a lot of prayer and searching, we were led to Wycliffe Bible Translators. Wycliffe had/has a huge need for support staff with our administrative backgrounds. We started the application process and put our house on the market. Annika’s mental health providers recommended that living in a third world country, with a slower pace might be very beneficial to her. The application process took several months. The day that we finally received our acceptance letter, was the very day that we received an offer on our home of 13 years. That was the longest I had ever lived in one place! We had to vacate and close within two weeks. It was a whirlwind experience, but we were excited to begin planning to go on the mission field.

Then, the bottom fell out. Wycliffe came back to us and said that they would not mobilize us to a foreign assignment because of Annika’s health issues. At the time, Annika required regular blood testing, something that was nearly impossible to do accurately in a foreign setting. While we had been up front from the very beginning of the application process about her needs, no one was really listening. We were cc’d on a series of e-mails between stateside administrators and those on the ground in potential sites for us. It was demoralizing to read e-mails from people stating that while they needed people with our experience, they felt it would be too arduous to accommodate Annika’s needs. Maybe we could put our plans on hold for a year? The answer was no. If we didn’t take a step forward, we had to resign.

At this point, we were living in a rented condominium. We moved forward with building a new house. Annika started 5th grade. I continued to work part-time. Annika began to slowly spiral downward. By the middle of the school year, her mental health provider again had a discussion with us. She was concerned that Annika needed a slower pace. How could we do that? We had two teenagers in the house (one preparing to go to college in the fall), we were building a new house, we had several committee and volunteer commitments, not to mention that I was trying to work a full-time job in part-time hours so that I could be home one day a week for her therapy. The suggestion was made that we look at home schooling.

We didn’t know what to do. How could we even afford to do this? My income made up about 40% of our total income. We were building a new house, albeit a house half the size of our previous one, but we had rent and construction loan payments, not to mention private school tuition for our other two in high school. Another difficult decision was made and I gave notice at my job that I would only be able to work 1 day a week. I needed to home school Annika.

I have to say that I have always been dead set against home schooling for my children. I was much happier working and writing out a check to cover their tuition. That worked for me and frankly my 2 older children preferred it that way. The idea of giving up my work position that I had taken years to build caused me grief, serious grief. There was no choice, our youngest was suffering and something needed to be done.

As luck would have it, someone I had met a few years before (when she had temporarily filled in at our office) had just moved back into our county. She was looking for temporary work. We were able to immediately hire her. This was a relief for me because our office is an odd place, full of Q-U-I-R-K-Y individuals that require a lot of patience. I knew she had the humor that was needed to survive. I knew she was smart, and I knew I could work with her. Our Pastor’s wife and friend, offered to home school Annika one day a week so that I could go to the office and continue my administrative duties. Again, we fell into yet another ‘new’ routine.

This started a miserable period of time for me. We were in the middle of building our new home, something I had always dreamed about doing. I L-O-V-E to plan and decorate. I love to spend hours looking for the items necessary to incorporate the look that looks expensive, but isn’t. Unfortunately, due to the change in circumstances, loss of income, and loss of doing a job that I had enjoyed and that filled me intellectually, and loss of control of my own daily schedule, I was wretchedly unhappy. I was racked with guilt that I wasn’t enjoying the extra time at home with my children. I still remember someone telling me that she was happy to see that I would do the ‘right thing’ with regard to being home with my children when they needed it. Couldn’t they see that by me working, I was providing for my children and my family? I was nurturing myself which in turn benefitted my children? Benefitted my husband? Again, that dark feeling of others judging me and our situation reared its ugly head. Were there people out there that thought I was to blame for Annika’s illness? Were there people that thought and said, ‘oh if she wasn’t working her daughter would be fine’?? Again that feeling of being on the outside looking in grew inside of me.

to be cont.

Loss of Health

There is another aspect of loss which I need to tackle. It is probably the hardest one to acknowledge. Somehow there is comfort in that old D&D–denial and diversion–when it comes to this one. The loss that I am now referring to is the loss of our youngest’s good mental health.

Previously I have touched on this a little, but I haven’t delved into it. Recently, someone asked me if I had ever acknowledged the loss I’ve experienced due to her disabling anxiety disorder. I could honestly answer no to that one question, but it got me thinking. I have always felt that I didn’t have the right to say that; to say that we had lost something. After all, we had decided to bring her into the world, so how dare we say that she has taken something away from us. We generally try to focus on what she has given to our lives. I see now that approach was less than honest.

For the last 5 years we have struggled for a clear-cut diagnosis and a clear-cut treatment plan. We have gone down many different paths, with many different doctors. We have experienced more sleepless nights than you can count. She has endured a lot, from a 2 week hospitalization in a children’s psychiatric unit at age 9 to a 9 month stint in an out of state residential treatment center at age 12. I keep her medical history in a huge file, tabbed and labeled. Her medication history sheet lists 13 different drugs to date, all detailed with the varying dosages tried until we found the current winning combination. We have laughed over the gallon Ziploc bag that I have in a drawer which has all the failed prescription regimens–we joke that maybe we should sell it on Ebay and make some extra cash. We have heard phrases like ‘well we are pretty sure she isn’t schizophrenic, but...’ or ‘she is reacting to this medication like a person who is bipolar, so we should treat her as such’ or my personal favorite ‘only time will tell’.

When she was little she was full of life. Fearless. She always liked routine. At age 3 we first started to notice obsessive compulsive traits. We hung a calendar in her room and I created a symbol system, stars for days she went to preschool, circles for days she went to Grandma’s, squares for days I worked, triangles for days she went to the babysitter. Each night she would cross the day off and plan ahead for the next day.

At age 8 we started to notice other changes. She became extremely fearful. Sleepless nights started. She would wake during the night and need us to put her back in bed. Later she was so afraid of sleep that she started sleeping in our room in a sleeping bag on the floor. We tried everything. We even bought her new bedroom furniture and re-decorated her room in the hopes it would be a ‘happy place’ for her to be again. No such luck. We tried inching the sleeping bag out into the hall and slowly down the hall to her room. This process went on for months.

During this time, the vivid hallucinations began. She would scream and run and hide. It didn’t matter if I would sit and hold her, she would be overcome by terror. Visions of people coming to kill us or the dog would consume her waking hours. We began making trips to the ER to document that she was in a downward spiral, with the hopes of getting her a bed in an inpatient psychiatric unit. While in the IPU she started a new medication routine and the team of doctors again scratched their heads for a diagnosis. Finally, they decided that the hallucinations were a form of panic attacks and sent her home. The insurance company would only cover 2 weeks and they couldn’t get authorization for more if she wasn’t an immediate threat to herself. After her return home, for a long period of time she had no hallucinations and we felt that we were thru the worst of it.

She returned to school. The first week back at school, a parent called Dean. He said he had heard our daughter had been hospitalized for emotional issues, so he was wondering if maybe she was the instigator of the latest round of ‘little girl meanness’ that had happened at school the day before. Dean assured him he would check into it. The parent went on to say that perhaps we could use it as a ‘teaching moment’ for our daughter, he was so sure that she had to be the culprit. To say we were frustrated doesn’t even touch the myriad of emotions that coursed thru us. Later we learned that it was this parent’s OWN DAUGHTER that had been the instigator of the bullying. When the truth was exposed, the man never apologized to us for his accusation. The dye was cast. It became apparent to us that our daughter was now viewed by some as damaged. It was the beginning of not being invited to birthday parties or on play dates. She would play at recess with the same group of girls, only to have them often tell her they didn’t want to play with her, or they needed a break from her. Many times she would be the only one in the little group that wouldn’t get invited for the sleepovers. It was heart-wrenching. We understood on the one hand, but on the other hand we were devastated. This was our community. We began to feel more and more like we were on the outside looking in.

to be continued...

Memory Monday

Our family used to enjoy all skiing together.  We aren't able to go that often, but Kirsten and Josh have become pretty adept on the slopes.  Annika was a little more cautious and never really enjoyed it.  She and I would usually ski in the morning, then hang out together in the afternoon while the other 3 got their fill of runs.   The past couple of  years she hasn't wanted to go at all.  This picture was taken in the lodge at Whistler.  It wasn't until much later that someone pointed out to me that Annika has a straw stuck into her lemon wedge!  Always a character! 

This was one of the few long weekends we have spent at  Whistler.  It was the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend 2004.  Whistler is not far from where we live but we never manage to get there as often as we would like.  We might need to change that!  I love the ages the kids are now, but it was a lot of fun when they were this age too.  I miss those long weekends together. 

Why is everyone so mad?

I’m tired of the anger. Lately it seems that a lot of people have a short fuse. Tempers flare at just a few spoken words. Fewer people seem to buy into the philosophy that if you want to have others respect your right to have your own opinion, you need to acknowledge someone else’s right to have an opinion contrary to yours. I am the type of person that loves to discuss things. I love to share ideas and thoughts. I appreciate when someone has an opinion and they have put actual thought behind that opinion. I enjoy listening to others views and sentiments.

There are several ‘hot bed’ topics in today’s society. One of these, health care reform (I still don’t know what that really means), generates controversy no matter what your personal appraisal of the matter reveals. People get hostile. Conversations about health care reform have a way of turning ugly quickly. Name-calling has ensued. Violence has erupted. It seems more and more people have dug their proverbial heels in and refuse to let anyone have an opinion contrary to their own.

Recently my son got into a debate with a former classmate regarding this subject. My son questioned why enabling access to health insurance for some who can’t currently obtain it was the equivalent of ‘flushing our country down the drain’. Things turned ugly quickly. The classmate began calling my son names, telling him he was brainwashed and confused and didn’t understand anything. Finally, my son told his classmate that he was ending the discussion, that as long as his classmate refused to respect his right to have a contradictory opinion the conversation was going to go nowhere. I was very proud of him and the way he handled the situation. He remained calm and rational.

This type of exchange, between the young man refusing to acknowledge my son’s right to a differing opinion and the resulting name-calling, is systemic in our country right now. Most want things their way, even if their way may be harmful to others. Most are disinterested in relinquishing anything. Most don't want to give anything either.  The 3 Musketeers doctrine of ‘all for one and one for all’ is alien to most. Some might even call this Musketeer Doctrine socialist or communist. I don’t understand when we became a society that views helping others, and sharing the extra that we may have been blessed with, as wrong.

Now, don’t misinterpret what I am trying to convey. I am not a ‘Polly Anna’. I understand the economic fears and potential realities of the proposed changes. I know that there are flaws in systems and ideas to change those systems. What I wonder is why can’t more try to see the other’s perspective? When did we become the society that does only the things that we want to?  How will we ever begin to bridge the gap between the two sides if we aren't willing to take a step toward each other?

I know that our family is going to consider factors that others haven’t encountered when it comes to health care reform. We have been blessed to always have health insurance coverage. While we bemoan the insurance company often, at the end of the day we still have coverage. Even with that insurance coverage, the last 5 years our family has been faced with tens of thousands of dollars in uninsured medical expenses. We have experienced our insurance company tell us we have coverage, only to later be denied subsequent claims because we failed to send in a form, or make a phone call, they neglected to tell us we needed. That little denial cost us big time. We will be paying that off for years. These experiences have led our family to wonder what would we do if we didn’t have any insurance? Where would we be? What choices would we have to make? We once had someone tell us that his family didn’t really need to ever go to the doctor, so why should he be penalized, thru perhaps higher taxes or higher premiums, for our family’s chronic medical issues. I was saddened and hurt by the coldness of his statements. I don’t think he understands that it is merely by the grace of God his family isn’t touched by chronic health issues. They may be in the future. No one chooses this path for themselves or their families.

I’m not sure what the answer is. I just know that I will continue to work at respecting others’ right to have an opinion that may be contrary to mine. That doesn’t mean I have to back down and agree with them. That doesn’t mean I won’t think that they are dead wrong. I will remind myself that if I want someone to respect my right to have an opinion, I just have to be willing to listen. Because if I show I can listen, maybe they will listen to me too, and maybe we will find common ground.

Loss-Part 2

I need to get back to processing the loss that is part of my life. I would rather engage in what a friend calls ‘denial and diversion’. It’s less painful that way. Lately, exhaustion seems to be a big part of most of my days, so I’m not inclined to fill those days with things that drain me further. However, I was again reminded that if I plow thru it and acknowledge the loss, I can start to put it behind me. Not sure I completely buy into that theory, but enough ‘D&D’.

For now, I will delve into loss of family relationships. I’m not sure that ‘loss’ is the proper label. As an adult my interaction with my siblings has been extremely limited. Blame can largely be placed on our lack of proximity to each other. I think there is more to it. I know other families who are spread across the continent like mine, but yet they still communicate with each other on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Families that try to plan being together for holidays and special events. Families that actually remember each other’s birthdays, on time, as well as the birthdays of nieces and nephews and spouses. Our family isn’t like that. As adults, we never have been.

It’s not that we don’t care about each other. It’s not that we don’t get along. We all have the same wicked, sarcastic sense of humor. My older sister has probably one of the darkest humor streaks I have ever known. At the end of our father’s life, I was so thankful that she was able to come and sit with me during those last few days keeping vigil at the hospital. I honestly don’t think I could have endured our Mother if she hadn’t been there with her black wit. When we ARE together we seem to enjoy each other. I honestly cannot remember the last time we were all together that didn’t involve a death. As an adult, we have never all celebrated a Christmas together, ever. As I write this, I realize it has been 19 months since we were all in the same room together. So what is it that keeps us away from each other, keeps us in our own corners?

I understand that we all have our individual lives. I understand that we each have careers, and spouses, and a whole host of commitments. Some of us have children that occupy our waking hours. For years I had a habit of writing to each of my siblings on a regular basis. Just a short ‘hi, hope you are well, here is what is going on with us, let me know how you are’ kind of thing. Rarely would I get a response. Never would I get the same sort of thing initiated by one of them. Finally this past fall I decided to stop being the family crier. It didn’t seem to matter to anyone and frankly not getting a response most of the time began to eat at me. Major pet peeve, writing to someone and not getting a response. A-N-N-O-Y-I-N-G. I also wondered if it annoyed them. Seeing as no one really ever responded, maybe they were happier not having updates. I wasn’t sure, I’m still not sure.

With the exception of my mother, who attends about ½ the time, extended family events are also rarely attended by my siblings. There are always legitimate and understandable reasons given. However, I still wish that at least one of them would make the extra effort once in a while. I’m left explaining where they are, what they are doing, making excuses for their perceived lack of interest in the family. It sucks. No other way to put it, it sucks. I have 3 siblings, but I often feel like an only child.

I must give credit where credit is due. My siblings send gifts and cards, and make periodic phone calls to my Mother. But, they have rarely been physically present for my parents’ birthdays, anniversary, Mother’s and Father’s days, etc.. I understand that its more convenient for me. My parents moved to where I live 17 years ago.  This doesn’t erase the fact that when these events are coming up, I have to be the one to plan them. I don’t even bother to ask anymore if anyone will make it. I know they can't.  I know they won’t. It’s these times that I miss close relationships the most. This weekend is Mother’s Day and my Mother’s birthday. I will be the only one with her. The logical part of me understands that it is inconvenient for the others to make the journey here and that the others have commitments, some of which they cannot get out of. But I still will be wishing they were here.

When did THIS happen?

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror the other night. I was shocked. I stopped and stared back and really saw myself. When did this happen? When did I get old? When did I stop being a size 3? HOW did this happen? I became a little despondent--am I really 42? Is it really true that I can only get a size 3 jeans up to my knees, on a good day?? Why didn’t someone tell me??

I think it was such a shock because in my mind I am still a young, rail-thin girl. It doesn’t help that my oldest daughter, Kirsten, is built exactly how I was at her age. I was the kid that the high school boys would tease ‘why don’t you gain some weight!’. I was S-K-I-N-N-Y. The person staring back at me from my mirror definitely was NOT this same person. Another wake-up call was when Kirsten could barely fit into MY senior prom dress.

It has been a gradual thing. The usual progression that happens after you say ‘I do’. First, the honeymoon stage where you are cooking actual meals each night. Calorie counting doesn’t factor in, you just cook what sounds and tastes good. You are young, cholesterol and fat and sugar counts are inconsequential. Then came the child bearing phase. Those were each good for a few extra pounds that didn’t seem to go away by the new child’s first birthday(s). Suddenly your ass has spread a little wider and you can’t fit into the molded plastic child swings anymore.

I was oblivious to those warning signs that should have made my plight obvious. In hindsight I realize I should have paid attention when my belts got smaller. When my clothing felt tight and I thought the clothes dryer was the culprit. When I looked at pictures and thought, the shot was taken at a bad angle.

Dean asked me yesterday what weight was listed on my driver’s license. When I told him, he just looked at me and said, ‘uhmmm, don’t you think you should update that?’ I was incredulous! No I will be that weight again, why change it? Then we started laughing, my driver’s license says 120! There is NO WAY I will ever be that weight again, nor would I want to be. It was then that I realized that my response to all of this is clear cut D-E-N-I-A-L.

Currently, Jenny Craig has an ad campaign featuring Valerie Bertinelli modeling sacks of potatoes strapped to her. She drops the bags of potatoes and proclaims that she feels amazing after shedding the equivalent of those 40 pounds of potatoes. It’s a visual that I can’t seem to shake. I don’t have THAT much to lose, but when you step on the scale and start thinking of that added weight in the terms of sacks of flour, or bags of potatoes, it sends a chill down your spine.

My biggest problem is that I can’t seem to get motivated to stick with any kind of diet routine. I am by nature a very disciplined person. I can tackle a lot in any given amount of time. I don’t back down or get intimidated by very many things. But this!?! This idea of having to work to lose weight is kicking my enlarged butt. So why is it that I can NEVER seem to stick with any kind of diet and exercise regimen? I know I will feel better if I do. I know I will be happier with myself if I do. I know I will be healthier if I do. The last 6 months I have started 4 new medications, all of them related in one way or another to my poor condition of health. When I go to the doctor and the nurse asks me to step on the scale, I usually try to con her into letting me skip it that time. My nurse understands me and usually lets me slide. Its time. No, correction. It’s PAST time to face the music and do something about it. I just hope that I can find the inner motivation and strength and patience to start and stick with it to see real results. I just hope that I don’t lose too many cup sizes in the process!

Now the aging thing, I think I’m stuck. Who knows though, maybe I will find a fountain of youth somewhere..