DD got arrested.

It was all set:  DD was going to go to a "prom" for special needs kids on Saturday night.  The program that was putting on the prom was also providing donated dresses etc. to all the girls, and the cost would be minimal (about $10.00).  Since this would probably be the only prom that DD might be able to attend, it quickly became a big deal.  The foster mom helped DD select a dress and shoes (this had to be done at a time when I had to be at work, or actually, on my way home from work)....and I was going to chaperone up until I had to leave for my part-time job, and then the foster mom would take over.

I got a call from the foster mom on Friday, while I was still on my way home from work.  The first thing she says, in a very kind and sad way, was that DD was not going to be able to stay there any more.  Apparently, DD had been disruptive three days in a row, and was currently in the midst of a full-blown tantrum.  I could hear DD screaming in the background.  Apparently the tantrum was because DD asked the foster mom to take her to town so that she could look at more dresses.  Foster mom said (and rightly so), "We've already spent quite a bit of time looking at dresses, and you've already picked one out.  So let's just try to be happy with that..." and DD didn't like that, so the screaming began.

I think the foster mom thought the worst was over when she called, because they had finally succeeded in getting DD to go into her room (after many belligerent refusals).  But I could tell, from the sound of the screaming, that it was actually still escalating.  Since I had gotten a kind of "you didn't handle this quite right" once, when DD's therapist and social worker had suggested that I call the area mental health crisis line and instead I called 911, I advised the foster mom to call the crisis line.  Unfortunately, they won't deal with a crisis involving a person who has exhibited self-injurious or assaultive behavior.  While she was making this call, though, DD came out of her room and began to assault the foster mom in front of the other kids, so foster Dad called 911.  DD tried to escape out of her bedroom window, but failed to take into consideration that her room was on the second floor.....The police came, and tried to talk to DD and calm her down, but she was "mouthy" to them and very disrespectful.  She shoved the foster mom while the police were there, so DD has now been arrested for Domestic Assault, and also "Public (something--I'm not sure what)" because she did it in front of the other kids.  So she's been in jail.  I could not find out any information beyond that, as she's now 18 and we are not her guardian(s) yet--the court hearing is actually on Monday, May 16--now it sounds like they are going to try to combine the guardianship hearing with her first court appearance for these charges.....

DH, when I told him about the first phone call, the one where I could hear DD screaming, wanted to go over there and try to calm her down.  I told him not to.  After all, this was a foster home that was supposedly very experienced, and I tried to remind him of all the times when neither he nor I had been able to calm her down in this situation.....so he didn't go.  But when he found out she had been arrested, he had some unusual type of breakdown.  He was sobbing about how scared she must be, and how if only he had gone over there, he could have calmed her down.....and all that kept flashing in my mind was DH saying "Call 911--I can't take this any more!"  And the mental picture of DD attacking DH with the bicycle pump.  It was clear to me that his thinking was "weird".  But he couldn't calm himself down.  He was just distraught, and I was at a loss as to how to handle it.  He said it felt like he was having constant panic attacks, and he was so upset....I suggested he take a Lorazepam, but he hasn't needed to use them very often, so when he ran out recently, he hadn't called in for a refill.  He couldn't stop crying, and he couldn't sleep, and he completely blamed himself for DD ending up in jail.  I ended up suggesting that he take an extra dose of Seroquel--he takes 100mg nightly now, but also used to have an order to take an extra 50mg as needed, although he usually chose not to, because it made him so tired.  So I figured it would be ok if he took that.  And he fell asleep and slept all night.  But it was very weird/scary.  His thoughts haven't been so disorganized, and his emotions haven't been this out of control for a very long time.  When he woke up today, he seemed somewhat better (no more crying), but he was still wayyyy off....really lethargic, mopey, very sad.....he did go to work today, though, so I'm hoping that once he gets into the routine there, maybe his brain will do a little bit of a "reset" and he'll feel better....

DD called collect from the jail today.  I asked her how she was doing and she said "Mom, I'm fine.", in a rather disrespectful tone of voice.  I told her that Dad and I were very worried about her, and she said "Well I'm SORRY!" in a way that clearly suggested that she was not sorry.  So that ended a lot of my direct sympathy for her at the moment.....

I'm really sad for her.  I'm sure jail is quite a shock to her, and like nothing she's ever experienced before.  Unfortunately, I don't believe that the experience will cause her to rethink her actions in the future--I still think that she is not properly medicated.....

And then there remain a lot of questions.  This foster care arrangement was kind of a last-resort thing, because group home funding was not available.  The foster home will not take her back, for sure.  DD's social worker had not been planning on attending court on Monday, she felt that there would be no opposition to us being guardians, so she was not going to clear her schedule for that.  Now I'm really hoping that she recognizes that this is yet another crisis, and that I/we really need her help.  If DD is released from jail after the guardianship hearing, she will have no place to stay.  She could probably stay at our house for a couple of days, but beyond that, we cannot and don't want to be dealing with these tantrums again.  All of her belongings are still at the foster home, but it really doesn't make any sense to pack all of that up until we know what the plan is.....

So once again the situation with DD involves "flying by the seats of our pants"--we weren't expecting this so soon, we certainly weren't expecting the foster parents to give up so quickly, and I am afraid for DD's future.

Well, it's been a while, but Mom has another UTI. She's back to the delusions about being shot/hung/hunted and she is once again refusing to eat. They did a UA and the bacteria in the UTI is enterococcus faecium, which is a very resistant bacteria and different from the last one she had (although that one was VRE also).

We've been presented with some options, none of which are good. There is only one oral (pill) antibiotic that is effective on this bacteria, Zyvox(?)....anyhow....the problem with that one (aside from the fact that it is not covered by insurance and costs $100 PER PILL<--not a typo--at 2 pills per day for 14 days) is that my mom is on two antidepressants that can interact with the antibiotic and cause a very bad side effect, "seratonin syndrome". Even if they take her off the antidepressants for 3-4 weeks prior to starting the antibiotic, there is still a chance that the interaction could occur.

Or....there are 4 or 5 antibiotics that could be given intravenously that would probably be effective. The problem with that is that the NH has several times now informed me that they WILL NOT administer IV antibiotics at the NH, so Mom would have to go to the hospital, which could make any improvement caused by the antibiotics a moot point, because she always gets so confused in the hospital...and even if some of the "hospital confusion" cleared up when she made it back to the nursing home, some of the confusion ALWAYS remains as yet another cognitive step down...the nursing home has also expressed doubt about whether my mom would pull out the IV or not, because she wouldn't remember/understand what it is. Yesterday, I talked to the nurse practitioner (a new one who has only been working there a month) and she said that if I insisted, they could do the IV antibiotics at the nursing home, but....so I'm clear on the fact that the nursing home does not want want to do the IV, but not clear on whether I could actually force the issue or not. And with any antibiotic use comes the possibility of C. Diff., which is a very bad infection where the antibiotic(s) basically kill all of the "good" bacteria in the gut and cause life-threatening diarrhea.... also...not to mention that if we did the IV antibiotics, she might get another UTI next week again and we'd be in the exact same place, except potentially broker and wiser....at this point, since it has really not appeared to be an option, I'm not sure if Mom's insurance would cover the IV/antibiotics or whether it would be out of pocket.

Or...we could do "nothing" and just try to support her and see if she can fight it off for a while....I asked the NP (who I do not like) what kind of prognosis we would have if we chose this option and she said "well, if/when it moves into her kidneys....about 2 weeks..."

I need information. But I don't even know who to ask....

Also, though, I have to add, that the RN's and LPN's at the nursing home--they have been so amazing--I cannot believe the support and understanding I've been getting during this--two nurses even went to the director of nursing to plead for the chance to do the IV at the nursing home (and were told no)....they are very upset that there doesn't appear to be anything "doable" and one of the nurses teared up when she told me how upset she'd be if it was her mom in this situation....If my mom has to be in a NH, and even though the higher ups aren't on my list of favorite people, the folks on the front lines (the aides and nurses) could not possibly be more compassionate and caring....


I called my brother to get his thoughts and he said "I guess I need to get working on...." and I thought for sure he was going to say "coming up to visit more often".....but you know what he said?  "all the funeral arrangements..."!--guess I won't be getting a lot of support from him....but I was hoping....


I honestly don't know what to do.  If anything.  I strongly suspect that this will be the last Mother's Day that I share with my mom.

Property Line Issue

Well, first a little background. DH and I moved to our 15 acres in 2000, and one of the main reasons that we selected that particular run-down shack was that it was very much in the "middle of nowhere" and that was my dream. Woods and cornfields surrounded us, with one neighbor a quarter of a mile away and that was the entire neighborhood.

Then, in 2003, the farmer that owned the cornfields sold 10 acres to this guy and his wife. Lucky us, the 10 acres that were sold butt right up to our property. Not only that, but the guy chose to put his double wide etc just as close to our property as could be imagined. Several people stopped by during the excavation just to say "I can't believe this!"

Being as the land had already been sold by the time we learned about it, we really had no choice but to grin and bear it. We've tried to be good neighbors. But they have clearly moved to the wrong place, because they don't like anything we do! Some of their complaints are justified, like the time I left our dog outside (warm summer night) and didn't realize that I couldn't hear her barking outside when I was in the bedroom. But they have also complained about the roosters crowing, the length of the grass, and the guineas (in another attempt to try to be good neighbors, when the guineas were eaten by a predator, we opted not to get more because we knew they disturbed the neighbor). It appears that the more we try to make them happy, the more they complain. They called one night at 9:30pm and asked us to put the dogs inside because they (the neighbors) were out in their yard and the dogs were barking at them (remember they are only feet away from our house now)--ok, we put the dogs away. Then the next night they called at 8pm and asked us to put the dogs away for the same reason. It's gotten to where we are afraid to leave the dogs outside unsupervised, for fear of being bad neighbors.

We now chain up our dogs because they have asked us to. We are afraid to complain about their cat that comes into our yard at will because we are afraid the cat would be killed if we did.

Last fall they complained to the county about (I'm not even sure) the way rain water ran off from our driveway into the street(?) (I'm still not even sure what the exact problem was). The county told us that it was the neighbors that "suggested" an "improvement" and that it would make things better for everyone at no cost to us. The county came and made a holy mess out of the bottom of our driveway in an effort to please these people....now there's a big mudhole there that extends 1/3 of the way into the road....that really fixed the "erosion" problem. Oh--and I didn't mention that they did not opt to discuss the "erosion" with us before going to the county. Oh--and did I mention that the wife works for the county?

I still want to be as good a neighbor as I am able. But frankly, I'm getting fed up with trying to please them. We have never complained about anything to them, as we prefer to "live and let live". Not even the fact that we believed that their driveway was way too close to our property line--why make a big deal out of something......

About a month ago, he (the husband) notified me that he was going to have his land surveyed so that he could put up a better fence than the one we had put up. (The fence we had put up was just T posts & chicken wire, and we made sure it was quite a ways away from where we thought the property line was, in order to avoid any type of dispute or complaint...) Fine, whatever.....put up your fence....I have a few other things to worry about....

Now. Surprisingly (or not), his efforts have led him to an embarrassing conclusion: the property line is not where he thought it was. His tool shed is sitting smack dab on the property line. His propane tank is on our property, as is his electric service. The distance between the edge of his driveway and the property line is about 1 inch. Really.

So they called me out tonite to "talk" about this. I really didn't know what to say, since they were the ones wanting to be precise about the boundaries....I told them that I/we wanted to be good neighbors. So right away they suggested that we do something called a "line adjustment" where the property line(s) are redrawn but no money changes hands. But the fast way they suggested that made me instantly cautious, because of the driveway thing--"Oh yeah, it's going to be better for everyone...." and really....nobody can even drive down the road without worrying now.....

I want to be a good neighbor (despite my frustration it's not my nature to be very spiteful), but I feel like they're asking me/us to give them some land because they messed up. And they haven't exactly made me feel excited about doing that. On the other hand...."do unto others as you would have them do unto you...." And I know we aren't the best neighbors. DH has struggled with his mental illness during this time and I have been working the two jobs to make ends meet. I have not told the neighbors why our yard is a mess or why we can't afford to fix (whatever), because DH's issues are private, so I'm sure they just think we've turned into the trashy people that nobody wants to live next to....and maybe we have,  I don't know......I'm not sure I'd really want to live smack dab next to us either.....but of course I wouldn't move next to us to begin with.  I don't like having neighbors and moved to a place without them for a reason.

I'm sure some of you have thoughts on this or similar experiences....We don't have the money to get an attorney, and I don't like to make waves anyhow....but I don't want make a bad decision in an effort to be a good neighbor, either..... __________________