Awlful night - fear it won’t get better

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	I was at the hospital until 2 this morning.  Dorian lost it yesterday.  He has a habit of stealing and eating the entire box of any frozen desert and hiding the remains in his room. Yesterday, we noticed a box of cookie dough was missing.  Of course, he denied knowing anything about it – even when we found one cookie ball in his room. The carton and crumbs was hidden in a dresser drawer.  I calmly handed him a trash bag and asked him to put the entire contents of the drawer in trash.  He lost it because some of his comic books were in the drawer.  We could not reason with him that because they were ruined with cookie dough, they had to go in the trash.  When he would not pick the stuff up, my DH attempted to do it.  Dorian was about to hit him.  My DH asked him to go outside while we clean his room.  He destroyed EVERYTHING ON THE FRONT PORCH, flowers, address sign, lights, landscaping.  And then picked up 11” landscaping bricks and threw them at the house.  The brick on the front of the house is damaged and both of our garage doors have huge multiple dents.  When the police got here, he still had bricks in his hand.  They called for back-up and we had 4 police cars at our house.  The police did not want up to come outside because Dorian was so angry.  They took him to the hospital in a police car. And all the other cars followed – no knowing what he would do. We were there for 5 hrs.  By the time, he was admitted to the psy ward.  He was sleep.  He just shuts down at the end of the day.  Even when they woke him up, he would not respond to them. They admitted him for the night.   Now the doctors say he will come home today.  Even though we said we were concerned for his health and ours.  He writes dialogue from Freddy’s movie about I will kill you and your children.  He draws pictures of adult material, with the girl always in handcuffs.  I am afraid to leave him at home with my 17 year old daughter.  He has open wounds on his arms and hands from biting himself.  He tried to hit a police officer at school, over being asked to leave the candy machine when the bell rung.  He has skipped class to go to any empty classroom to look at adult material on the school computers.    I am at my wits end.  I am so sorry. I can't imagine the stress you are going through. Can a dr. have him admitted to the hospital for a little longer term, maybe to try some medication? I sure hope you get some peace and rest. I hope being home is helping him.  I am so sorry this happened.I hope Dorian is calm and secure at home today. To Dorian's Mommy, I have not been reading and posting often lately but have just now caught up on your story... Please know that my thoughts and prayers are with you. I also wanted to let you know that a good friend of mine is a medical malpractice attorney.  I do not know what the law is in your state, but perhaps a consultation is in order.  I would be happy to get a "curbside consult" for you from my friend who is excellent.  Also, I am a family doctor, and I am not quick to even think of the idea of suing for malpractice, but we must protect our children.  A broken thumb is a serious injury...Unlike a broken toe or or a jammed finger...Please PM me if I can be of ANY assistance... Good luck and God Bless! Dear Mom to Dorian: Hopefully things will get better. I know what you are feeling as my son has Aspergers he is seven years old and has written letters to his classmates that his life is over and everyone hates him. He has not yet gone so far as your son but am sure it will get there someday. Keep fighting for him as he needs you Will keep Dorian in our prayers, This must be terrible for your family, Your doing a great job mom. So sorry for what you are going through. I will keep all of you in my prayers.I am so very sorry. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. This is a horrible nightmare - is there something social services can do I am sorry. This is really beyond what a family should be expected to handle by themselves. I am surprised that doctors are discharging him since he clearly seems to be a thread to himself and others. The only thing I can think of is that thy feel that their psychiatric unit is also not equipped to handle his behaviors on their children's unit. How do they expect you to handle them? I would at least request a meeting with the unit social worker and make them give some referrals. I would also be sure that your safty concerns for yor son and your family are in their charts. They open themselves up to a lot of legal trouble to discharge someone who is a safety risk. I assume your ds has been tried on medications and that that was reviewed. My heart goes out to you, keep us updated. I am so sorry.  No, your family should not be left to handle this alone!  I hope the hospital social worker can help. micki has some terrific advice. Let us know how it is  going, please. ((((HUGS)))) So sorry you are going through this.  I hope you get some help soon.   I too am so sorry you are going through this now.  There has to be some medication to help with some of these issues.  Prehaps call your family doctor and ask for a quality referal.  I will pray for you.Sorry to hear about this I hope you can get the social worker to help you so that you don't have this worry anymore.  You are in our prayers.  Dorian is on medication. He takes 4 different things, Strattera, Provigil, Abilify, and Lexapro.  Last week the doctor added one for aggression.  I got it filled, but was not going to start it until this weekend.   The hospital called and said that our primary insurance would not agree to let them keep him.  They can transfer him to an in-network ward, about an hour from us.  My concern is that we have taken him there before, after going to the emergency here, and they did not admit him.  They hospital here would send him by ambulance and I can’t see getting there and being disappointed.  Our primary insurance will cover just about all charges if his was admitted to the in-network facility.   Our secondary insurance will partially cover his stay at the current place, after we pay a $2500 co-pay. After that I don’t know how much of the bill they will pick up.    I have a 3:00 appointment with the social worker.  How drained you must be!  I would recommend finding a mental health facility and asking for "severe emotional disturbance" services.  My son was evaluated and diagnosed with conduct disorder on top of the autism and was assigned a social worker.  You sound like you are going to need some back up.  Good luck and I hope you can find some help. Sorry you had such a hard long night...when I was reading your posts I was tickled he was so clever at hiding what he did(sorry)..but the rest was unbelievable!          I truely hope now that it is on record and the police and hospital is now involved you get some help..I feel for your little guy too..hormones are rough at this age..Hope you get some good advice & some relief:) Peace to you both:) I really do not see how the hospital can refuse him -he needed 4 police cars to be detained and his aggressive behavior has reached the level of being a thread to self and others. The way transfers usually work is that they don't just sent someone of with an ambulance and than good luck. Usually the discharging doc will have contacted the new hospital and they should have agreed to take him and be holding a bed for him. The social worker you are talking with this afternoon should be able to clarify this for you. You can also call the new hospital (ask for A&R (Assessment and Referral) Behavioral Health) and they should already know about him coming in and give you some information. Sometimes hospitals refer patients because of insurance issues and sometimes a hospital can not take someone because they have no beds available. Here it sounds like he will be transfered because of insurance and they should know if there is a bed in the new hospital (and if there is not your insurance needs to find something appropriate for him that they will have to cover). Arranging all this is the social workers job. When you talk to them be very clear and specific about your son's behavior and in which way he is a risk to himself and others. I think I would also really stress how his behavior relates to asd and that someone with asd experience should be brought in at least as consulting. Hospitals tend to follow their own rules and procedures and they are not always appropriate for our kids (too much overmedicating, to little consistancy and behavioral management). While in general I don't believe a psychiatric unit is the best place for anyone with a developemental disability, this is different. They should be adjusting his medication under supervision, this seems to have reached a point where it is too dangerous for you to have be doing at home by yourself. They also should be helping you set up services for your home. When you discribed how the police cars descendet on your home it really had me worried because often police do not know how to deal with this without escalating the situation. Some cities have a mobile behavioral health unit where specially trained nurses come to the home to assess the situation and initiate an admission to the hospital if necessary. Addressing all this with you should be part of a discharge plan when his stay is over. Be friendly, be persistant - the squieky wheel catches the grease. Hugs to you. What you are going through is our worse Nightmare,(((HUGS))),I hope things get better soon. God bless,Linda Dorian update.     I am so relieved that the hospital kept Dorian for a couple of days. He didn’t want to follow instruction at first, but has not been angry or violent.  They are going to check his thyroid, increase the Abilify, and add an anti-depressant.  If all goes well, he will be home in a couple of days. I can't imagine how hard this is for you.  I am glad to hear that they kept him to work on his medication.  I hope when he comes home things are better for you.   How awful!  I'm so glad they are keeping him, and hoping that things level out soon.I'm glad that something is being done. Keep us updated. Press them for a good discharge plan that includes referrals and a plan on what to do if he looses it again. I hope you are catching up on rest and get a chance to treat yourself. Keep us updated, I've been thinking of you. I am so sad for you and dorian. I hope the new medication helps. It has got to be so hard to stay strong-you are a great mom and you are getting your son the help he needs. Best of luck. Dorian called last night to say that they broke his hand while trying to restrian him.   I went to the hospital this morning for a scheduled visit with the social worker.  They did not want me to see Dorian.  He did come out to give me his dirty clothes and i glanced at his hand.  I didn't notice anything amiss and he didn't compliain. Later, the hospital called and said they were taking him to x-ray.  I went to the hospital tonight, and they did not want me to see him.  They claimed they were going to call me and a doctor was coming in later to put a cast on Dorian's hand.  The thumb is fractured.  They allowed me to visit Dorian in the isolation room,  where he was separated from the other kids for refusing to follow instructions. He said on of the guys at the hospital pulled his thumb back and broke it.  The hospital admited to restraining Dorian at the time the thumb was broken, but game no other details. OMG! I am so sorry this is happing to your son and you.  Restraining does not involve pulling back a person's thumb.  I'm sorry.  Things will be better soon.  I know the law varies from state to state but I could not see how they can withold information from a minor's legal guardien. That is all wrong. I think you could demand to view his file and the incident report. They should have given you a paper on patient's rights - what does it say in there. Find out what the state rules and parent's rights regarding minors in hospitals are. Does the hospital have a patient advocate - get her/him involved if needed. Really the secrecy would put me off big time and leave me suspicious. Call the unit, ask for the charge nurse and say that you understand that patients will be restrained when they are posing a danger but that as his mother you NEED to know what happend. I know I sound kind off bossy, but I think you have a right and duty to know what happend here. I am not necessarily assuming that this was an act of abuse but I think a typical psych unit and it's staff does have little experience with asd and they probably are going the wrong way about controlling his behavior. So I really urge you to find someone receptive to find out what happend and get a feeling for his situation - do they understand his issues and how to approach them? I would also be concernd that they just sedate him whenever he is agitated, which of course is no permanent solution in his case but it happens a lot in the hospital. So really - do not feel intimidated, show up every day and keep asking until you get answers. Call him and ask him. He is not a prison inmate, he is in a hospital to get help. I really don't see how they could not let you look at his chart. If you get it, read the daily notes, look at the doctor's orders for medication and look at the daily medication page to see have many prns he gets. Ask questions. All of you are supposed to be/work as a team to make sure that your son gets the help he needs. Okay, I'll stop being bossy. I'm sorry this happend, it shouldn't have.Dorian is home.  He is a lot calmer.  He had to have surgery to put pins in his thumb.  The hospital would not give me a copy of the accident report and would not tell me what it said.   They told me to call tomorrow.Thinking of you all--glad he is home & I hope you can get some help for him via social services or other. From personal experience, psych hospitals keep A LOT from families, unfortunately.
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