Why Friday Was Horrible

I'll start off by saying that my son doesn't do well in the car. By "doesn't do well" I mean, he will frequently hit or kick anyone within reach for the duration of the trip. That little nugget lets you know why we don't travel to the midwest to visit my family. As I am not http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croesus, I am not going to fly 6 people there. As I am not certifiably insane, I'm not driving there either. On Friday, I took my eldest son to see a behavioral specialist in Baltimore. That's an hour plus in nice weather. Add freezing rain and it's even longer. For added fun, we were about 20 minutes late in leaving which put the pressure on to get there with all possible speed. Oh, and did I mention that half an hour into our journey I realized we didn't bring his mid day dose of his medication (the one that keeps him balanced)? No, well, throw that into the mix too. Gas? Meet Fire.

We've been working with his teachers and therapists at school for 6 months now with no measurable progress to show for it. We've seen no abatement in negative behaviors, especially hitting. I don't know if I've talked about it before but my oldest (7 yrs) has a pretty serious hitting behavior. He hits out of frustration and/or retaliation. It may not sound like much but for a 7 year old he's pretty big and once or twice he's rung my bell. One time in particular, I was kneeling down to console him and he slapped me hard enough to turn my head and give me a bloody nose. I had to take a minute to figure out if it was broken or not (it wasn't). I'd be less concerned if it was just me but he hits his brothers and I've even caught him as he was about to hit the baby which set off WWII era klaxon noises in my head. That, as they say, was the last straw. Not to mention if we don't get this under control now, I'm going to have very serious problems in 5 or 10 years.

We've been trying Applied Behavioral Analysis as well as medication which is supposed to help but lately it's been getting worse, not better. ABA has, quite simply, not worked. We're as high as we can go on this particular medication so we contacted a specialist and Friday was our second visit. She's made some recommendations and we had to bring him for the first visit so the doctor could meet him and evaluate him and give us some options. Fine. No problem. It was a horrible appointment. He wanted to leave after about 5 minutes and then spent the rest of the appointment hitting me. Literally the remaining hour and 25 minutes was non-stop hitting me.

For the second appointment, the doctor requested we bring the 4 and 5 year old as well. Ostensibly, so she could talk to them about their brother and his behaviors etc. This visit was lather, rinse, repeat but with two more kids in a ever shrinking room. There was a two way mirror normally used for observation and this time may as well have had boxing judges.* (Frankly, any referee would have awarded the kid a win based on TKO as I was just taking a beating after the first 5 minutes.)

Basically, we talked strategy for behavior as well as dealing with a school. Additionally, she suggested and Education Advocate. I've looked into this option before. That means $$$$. The one she recommended I am familiar with as I've seen her on 60 Minutes and CNN. I can't imagine what this is going to cost me. Oh, and did I mention that neither my insurance nor Medicare (my son qualifies as he is disabled) is going to pay for the specialist? So that's more $$$$. Thank God I don't have any hobbies or a social life or any other bills for that matter that would eat into my health care spending. The worst part of it all, however, was that the visit was unnecessary. We really could have had a 15 minute phone call and accomplished as much, if not more.

Eventually the bout/appointment ended and we left (read: fled). Eldest was beyond consolation at this point and was unable to wait for the BS wrapup/next appointment scheduling. I had the genius idea of getting our parking validated and then taking him to the car. Got in the elevator and downstairs to the Validation Lady. Elevator doors open and the janitor is vacuuming. Ah, I can see by your non-plussed expression that this means nothing to you. Well, to Eldest, the vacuum is Evil Incarnate. It is the one thing I cannot do at home while Eldest is around. He goes into full Bezerker mode. After an hour and half in a small room this is just about the last thing I needed. As per normal, he had a full blown meltdown. So much so that the Archbishop O'Brien dispatched a team of exorcists. Eventually I was able to shout to the woman in the little kiosk that she need to validate my ticket right@#$@ingnow if she wanted me to take this screaming child with me and go. She eventually figured it out and I wrestled my son back on elevator like a fisherman boating a marlin.

Now is about the time I should mention that I was fasting for the day on Friday. I think AO had the right idea but that was really really not the best day for me to do that. By now I have a pounding headache and an am feeling faint. I get to the car, get in and we leave. Let the Car Combat begin! Now it's back in the freezing rain to get to 95 only there's construction and somehow we get routed around to the Inner Harbor which puts us to the Harbor Tunnel. No problem, right? Wrong. Forgot the EZ Pass in my car. (Don't ask, long story).

I give my last two dollars cash to the theives M-DOT employee and we go back the long way. And now, we need gas. And the kids are starving (to say nothing of me).

Next sign says "TRAVEL PLAZA" with glyphs for gas and food. I get off and pull into the gas station which is for trucks only. That is, they only have diesel. Fabulous. Well, let's go over to that hotel and get directions, cash from their ATM and get going. The Hotel Lady gives me directions to the gas station and helpfully points me to the ATM immediately behind me. The one that says "OUT OF ORDER/ CALL FOR SERVICE". Uh...thanks.

Finally find gas station < 3 miles from my original starting point (meaning I've just made a mighty big circle). Get gas and back on the highway. Up the ramp and....to a dead stop. Traffic that would make Job weep.

Got off and start up route 40. There has to be a McDonald's. There isn't. Not for 13 miles. I didn't know it was possible to be anywhere on the Eastern Seaboard and be more than 6 minutes from a McDonald's. Eventually, we make it and everyone orders. Except, me and fasting quickly turns into corporal mortification. I start to think about ordering a cilice when I get home. They probably have them on Amazon and with free shipping. Maybe I'll do that next time instead.




* Judges awarded the win unanimously with scores of 140 - 135, 138 - 135, 140 - 135.

Comments

Geez - I feel really bad now.

When you take a beating from Eldest, isn't that penance enough?

Sorry :-(
The Last Ephor said…
Not your fault AO. I agreed to this as a spiritual exercise. I wasn't the best day but in the end it was a good thing because it makes me appreciate what I have. Difficult as my son may be, I still have food on my table every night and for that I am blessed and thankful.

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