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.