Possible Hope

I expected our biggest struggle to be with the Insurance Company (isn't it usually) and it still may be, but we now have the authorization for the second step, which is to have her admitted to an in-patient psych eval (1-5 days). I doubt they would keep her more than 24 hours, if at all. She is not in a psychotic rage, and doesn't really need to be observed to that degree, right now. There is the possibility that they may not want to admit her at all, but simply do a quick eval based on the evidence we present (her two-foot high stack of files from the foster system, full of previous evals and behaviors) and based on a consultation with her. The timing is a bit off, as we leave for vacation on Monday, so we will wait until we return before pursuing the evaluation. Hopefully she will be OK while on vacation with several extended family members. She sometimes gets a little wound up when there are lots of folks around and she thinks we are not paying attention.

So, the Insurance Company assigned us a Case Manager so we can talk to one knowledgable source and not have to start over from the beginning with a new employee each time we call. She is a clinician and was extremely empathetic and supportive and totally agreed with the plan to get her help NOW before things get worse. She almost made me cry with her understanding. (OK - so I did cry, but I was at work, so I choked it down.)She advised me on what to take, what to say, what to ask for, etc. to get the help we need. I was amazed and so relieved.

We are hoping that maybe we can get her settled before school begins--so that she isn't the kid who started school then disappeared for a while. I think it will be easier for her to return later if she doesn't make an appearance now.