My life as a short order cook

Yes, it is sort of flattering that Hyrum eats whatever I make but this is getting ridiculous. He is constantly hungry. He eats dinner with us and then when we visit grandma or aunt Rachel or aunt Jan's, he begs for food there. Just for lunch today so far he has eaten a whole BK chicken nugget kids meal and two peanut butter sandwiches!

His size 8 pants no longer fit and when we tried the size 10's I had waiting for him to grow into, the waist was too small and the legs were too long. This is the same trouble I ran into when he was a baby. I had to get pants big and then sew them shorter so that they would fit both his waist and leg length. I'm thinking that it's a side effect of one of the medications because the kid is definitely active!

Snow Snow Snow

The winter break is offically here and Hyrum and Porter love the snow. They think sledding in the back yard is the greatest fun! Their enthusiasm is so fun to watch as they roll around in it and do snow angels etc. What a miracle the snow is.

Inspiring Thought

Jason found this and put it on our computer as a background. I thought you all might enjoy our warped sense of humor too.

Up in the air again!

Do ya ever get sick of being an adult? I just want to be a kid and not be required to make hard decisions every day.

The director of the Children's Unit at the hospital called us last night and said that the psychiatrist that will be working with Hyrum will be out of town on the 29th. So would we like to choose another date. To push it back may take me over the edge to where I need treatment too. We've been living in crisis mode for about two months now and desparately need some semblance of normalcy. So, today we told him that even if that person was out of town we would still like to do it on the 29th. Well, he nicely told me that that was not an option. So the first that we would be able to get Hyrum in down there would be January 5th.

Jason starts his new additional job teaching at LDS business college that day. Talk about stress! I guess that we just take it one day at a time. Lord give us strength! Thank goodness for great friends and family.

State Hospital on the 29th of December

We've been on an emotional roller-coaster trying to do what's best for our little Hyrum. We visited Wasatch Canyons and felt confused and reluctant to send him there. When we finally made the decision not to send Hyrum there, we felt like a burden was lifted. So that left two options;

1. to take him back home and just do the best we can until next time we have to admit him to UNI or
2. to send him to the State Hospital for longer term treatment.

Our preference would be to have Hyrum at home but we decided to pray about it. In the midst of this decision a further factor was added to the equation. We found out that Hyrum has been hearing a voice. The voice is a little girl and she doesn't tell him to hurt anyone she just tells him he is stupid etc. According to Dr. Susan Wiet at Kidstar there are a couple of reasons Hyrum could be hearing a voice (which evidently has been going on for quite awhile at least a couple of months.)

• Untreated severe anxiety (I take exception to the untreated part, what exactly have we been doing for the last 3 years!)
• Untreated severe mood disorder (ditto on the untreated part)
• the onset of Schizophrenia
• the side effect of one of the drugs he is taking

We decided to visit the Utah State Hospital in Provo to see what it was like. It's located on a beautiful campus with lots of grass at the base of the mountains at the top of center street. Evidently Utah is one of the few states that has a separate unit just for children.

We entered the children's building and saw hundreds of stuffed Santas of every description lining both sides of the halls and main office. Someone collects Santas and decorates the Children's unit every year for Christmas. It was enchanting.

We toured through the bedrooms (like a dorm) and the bathrooms and social room. There is a separate building for school and a playground right outside. They believe in recreation therapy and the kids get to fish is the fishing pond on campus, learn to ride and care for horses in Park City, and learn to ski. The kids are also encouraged to visit home regularly and practice what they learn in group and individual therapy.

Hyrum's treatment team at Kidstar highly recommended the State Hospital as a good fit for Hyrum. They would like to see them remove all drugs from his system and see what his mental illness looks like without any meds. Then they could re-build the meds from the symptoms that they see. There is no where else that you could do that but up there are the state hospital because of the time required and the medical attention necessary.

We felt so good after having visited. Even though we would like Hyrum home with all our hearts, he is not getting better at home and we would like to give him a chance while he is young to do the best he can with the cards that he's been dealt.

So the paperwork took a little while and then we didn't want him to miss Christmas with the family so today we learned the date that he will be admitted is Monday, December 29th.

Hyrum doesn't know yet. He tends to obsess about things like this. It's going to be hard to explain why he needs to go there. It's not that he's a bad kid or something we just want him to get better. Now that we have a date, we can decide when it's best to tell him.