Congratulations Mr. Wohlgemuth, You Have Sludge
Unfortunately Wal-Mart can't remove this for $19.95....
Official diagnosis is that I have sludge in my gall bladder. More details on that later, will see the specialist in a few weeks apparently.
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July 30, 2008
July 29, 2008
FUN!
Spent last night in the ER from what looks to be a gallstone. Various reasons on why it probably happened, but going to the doctor shortly to get the happy pills and an ultrasound is scheduled for the early morning tomorrow.
More later...I'm just waking up from the Demerol shot they gave me last night...
July 25, 2008
Must Control Fist Of Death.....
Since I declined to give permission for the hospital to give Tyler an anti-depressant (they make him psychotic), they have decided to discharge him. I have to go pick him up. Thankfully I found this out while I had Tyler's new therapist on the line. She stated "this isn't shocking for these people".....
So, Tyler will be home in the next few hours. Time to have a family chat.
July 24, 2008
Tyler, The Dark Knight, and Everything Else
Not much news on Tyler, I've made a bunch of calls and we're starting to get some feedback from various groups/therapists/quack organizations and we're sorting through the material. There is a LOT of stuff out there, but most will be outside our spending range. Went to "therapy" with him today and it's the same old Tyler, only more drugged up. Parkview isn't the answer, but it is respite for the family and hopefully the doctor will call me back at some point to discuss Tyler's treatment plan.
Took the girls to the "The Dark Knight". Echo everyone else's response...WOW, Ledger/Oscar. One thing that did come to mind is how cheesy the entire Batman series has been, and how this was a "grown up, sadistic" version that, well, I liked. I also imagined Kevin Smith directing this...no offense to Kevin, but a Batman full of d*ck and f*rt jokes would have sucked compared to this. :-)
It's starting to look like Tyler WILL come home, but on a very short leash and with a definite plan in place after consulting with, well, everyone we can think of. New therapist, new doctor who KNOWS RAD as opposed to the ones who don't believe it exists. And we're being coaxed into a program out in Denver which has had great success in turning these kids around. They are sending me their DVD's and book so that we can understand what they do. Some of it is, well, against what I have always done (that whole personal responsibility thingy...) but we apparently need to build trust with Tyler before we can do anything else. I have tons of questions, and we're going to a talk about these types of kids by the person who created the program in mid-August.
Other than that, we're still working on what will be the best for him. Obviously, home is the best place, but we have to balance that against our safety. Good thing lawn mowing season is almost over. :-)
July 22, 2008
$Miracle$ for RAD
Frak, not much to report today. Tyler's therapist at the center told us that he may be beyond help, most of these things are his choices. He's also the perfect patient while in their care, which is not surprising. We talked about a couple of long-term facilities, unfortunately the only facilities in Indiana are surprisingly good at taken damaged kids and transforming them into sociopaths!
When you Google Reactive Attachment Disorder Treatment, you get page after page of doctors and therapists who can "CURE YOUR KID NOW!". Unfortunately, the success ratio for some of these places ranges from "miracle cure" to "he's holding us hostage". And since most of these places want money up front, my BS detector is in full alert mode. There is one person that keeps coming up as "she really does work!", but after two e-mails and voice mails and no response, I am losing hope here. She's in Denver, so hopefully we can at least get some more information when we're out there next week for my meeting.
I'm hitting up the state tomorrow for any more information they can provide. Everything seems to be out of state which means the state insurance won't cover it. I'm calling the insurance group as well to see what else can be done. I highly doubt they want to pay for another long term hospitalization (the last one cost almost $100 large) where it does nothing for anyone. The one guy in state is off our list when he was deposed and called all mental illness "a myth". Ugh, he also does the "rebirthing" thing which ranges from creepy to illegal.
More Pics
Dennis & Lisa have uploaded their family pics from our cruise as well. Enjoy!
July 21, 2008
Tyler Non-Update
We're no closer or farther to what is going to be done with Tyler. One of the facilities I spoke to said the best thing would be to get him relisted as a ward of the court through DCS, which means we would lose him for good. This is not exactly a great option, we are still searching around to see what else can be done. No decisions need to be made today, we're still trying to make sense of what our family will be like in a few weeks.
Thanks to everyone who is praying, thinking, sending smoke signals, etc....we really do appreciate it.
Your Moment Of Zen
Summer is in the air...and our lovely nest of robins have finally started to stretch their wings. And other orifices as well.
Talk about scaring the crap out of him....
Last Night and Tomorrow
Well, we had an interesting day yesterday. Here's a quick review of the events.
Tyler, mad because he had to mow the lawn in order to pay his debt to the family, got even more mad when his brother would not move away from the lawnmower which was situated under his swing set. Instead of walking away, moving the mower, getting me, and a myriad of other choices, he starts yelling at his brother and decides the best way to handle this is to start the mower and chase his brother (and his cousin as well) from the swing set with a running mower. It wasn't the fact that he started the mower, or even yelled at him, he actually started chasing them away from the swing set with the running mower.
This sounds like normal kid crap, something you would expect to see from any 12 year old. But after my previous posts, along with the other high jinx on the boat, we had to do something. The police in Huntington were, according to their own officer in charge, completely useless. He really didn't "commit a crime" and statements from a five and eight year old are completely useless according to him. HIs recommendation was to hospitalize Tyler, something that has not worked in the past. He also said our probation department would not help either, since he was "too young, and there were more important cases ahead of him".
The second place I called was a residential facility in Marion who was quite helpful, but couldn't take him unless he was in the judicial system. Obviously since the police could not/would not help...strike two.
Strike Three almost took place when I called Parkview Behavioral (our last choice....this place is famous for drugging kids up and sending them back out to the world without any help). Apparently there is a doctor with a grudge against my family there (we have had a few issues with one of the kids docs) and he stated they "would not take any kid from my family".
Now most of you know me personally, I'm not a hot-headed monster. I'm a negotiator, find a solution for the problem, get it worked out, all happy. But apparently one of the doctors for the hospital has "something" against my family and has black-listed us from his practice (no I wasn't asking for him, I was asking for one of his colleagues, the best in the area with attachment disorders). But at 10:30 on a Sunday night, I couldn't get any traction with that genius. So we settled for a doctor who has seen Tyler before and (unfortunately) will drug him to oblivion. Parkview's executive staff will be getting a call from me this afternoon (too much going on with work)
There's a lot to do today. Thankfully school is out so there's no homework to worry about for Tyler. Giving up on him is obviously an option, one that DeAnn and I have been struggling through for months. It seems like the "obvious" and "easy" choice. But this is our son, someone who we see struggle with his disorder and sometimes offers you a glimpse into his fragile, convoluted world. And what you see is a scared, sad little boy who has never gotten over the fact that his biological mother never loved him.
More later, work beckons again (four and a half hours of sleep....yee haw!).
Home
Yes, I'm home. Yes I'm exhausted. More later, Tyler is in a safe place and so are we.
And for those of you that have e-mailed, that is the hard choice we are facing....
July 20, 2008
For Dessert: The Funny Farm
Well Tyler had another entertaining day which was capped by him trying to run over his brother with a running lawnmower. Not sure what will happen, will know more once I get out of the hospital. Thankfully everyone is OK except Tyler is showing some remorse.
And Finally.....Dinner
Five hours and thirty minutes later, Tyler finally finished reading the paper out loud. Did he get anything out of it? Probably not. But we held our ground and he now is eating the pancakes and sausages DeAnn made at 11:00.
Lunchless With Tyler
A good morning went horribly wrong by about 11:00 when Tyler got into one of his defiant moments. In the end, we're all in tears on the living room floor listening to him recount the abuse he received from his biological mother. An hour later and a brief nap and we're right back into it again.
Thankfully Emily has figured it out a bit, I think the time on the cruise with the Geraghty/Welch/Schellbaum boys really did put her on the right track. Last night after we got back from Fort Wayne, she was able to spend some time with her old friend outside and for a walk down to the gas station.
But back to the story. Tyler has been asked to read a document about Reactive Attachment Disorder and he's blatantly refused. He's screamed for deliverance and we're holding our own, preventing him from doing anything other than sitting down in the living room. I'm feeding everyone else, but he has to read this aloud to us to understand what is going on. I know it sounds cruel, mean, etc; but dammit it gets back to us asserting our parental authority.
Sorry I'm blogging a bunch about this....I know there are a few interested in reading about it and some who could care less.
Breakfast With Tyler
DeAnn and I have been reading more and more about RAD over the past few months, and everything is starting to click, at least for me now. Let's talk about breakfast....
Tyler woke up early this morning (thankfully after I did) and after a half hour of TV decided to feed himself. For the most part, we let the kids feed themselves breakfast (except Nathan of course, but he's getting about 60% self sufficient on that as well). Tyler, after much deliberation, decided on frozen waffles with enough syrup to feed the neighborhood. He promptly tried to eat them in the playroom, but I stopped him before he hit the carpet asking him to sit at the table. He had a mild fit about that, since there is a rule allowing food in the playroom, but then I turned the question on him. Why would I stop him from eating in there, what are the properties of syrup. When he refused to answer, I told him to stick his finger in the syrup, which then provoked the proper response.
While eating breakfast, one interesting thing Tyler said is that he doesn't want ANY friends. When I pointed out that his rather disgusting eating behaviors (shoving an entire syrup-encrusted waffle in his mouth with a fork) would not do him any favors with the new kids in junior high, he proudly told me several times that he doesn't want any friends. In trying to read between the lines, friends only lead to trouble since they may want things from you at some point in time. Most of Tyler's "friends" are usually younger kids who keep giving him things (like GameBoy, games, money, etc). Hopefully this year will at least keep those issues at bay since he's now the quite low on the totem pole in Junior High.
But once again, it gets back to this damn disorder. No friends, no authority, always in control, always looking for ways to manipulate the system, starting fights between me and DeAnn. We won't know all of Tyler's teachers until school starts in four weeks, but I'm quite sure they will see all sides of Tyler.
July 19, 2008
The "A-HA!" Moment - Living With RAD
A good chunk of people who know us know about our son Tyler and the havoc he causes to this family. We have spent almost six years cajoling, hospitalizing, begging, fighting, etc in trying to get him to function reasonably within this family.
I also know there are many people who think we are too harsh, or who need to just "shut up" and let Tyler be who he is. And I know for a fact those people are idiots.
DeAnn was looking around tonight and found this letter from attachment.org which absolutely captures Tyler perfectly. For those of you who think we may be too harsh or not caring enough, please take ten minutes out of your lives and read through it. Then feel free to call us back and tell us we're bad parents, or at least have your name removed from the idiot list. :-)
July 16, 2008
Home & Work
Lots of stuff going on here today....
On the home front, we went to a support meeting last night to talk about Tyler. We unfortunately knew more about what could/could not be done than they did. Also, I wasn't impressed with the idea of "just letting him rage" for the next six years. That does not seem like a solution to me. I got some more video of him raging again (this time, because he wouldn't stand and talk to us in a respectful manner). Ugh....we're making calls and he's up in his room right now, probably asleep since it's been quiet for over thirty minutes.
Work has been kicking my butt for the last couple of days. Not getting a decent amount of sleep because of being paged out or having crap to do well into the evening. Hopefully will get a good night's sleep tonight.
Nathan, DeAnn and Hannah are all over at Betty & Jerry watching a groundhog get evicted. Wish I could have seen that, but with Tyler raging....yeah, you get to read this. Emily has been doing really well, she handles longer term goals pretty well. There's talk about someone getting their driving permit if this continues....we will see.
July 14, 2008
Picture and Video Updates
Well, here's the first pass on the trip video....
I've got some more from Maho Beach and other places, that will be added as time allows in the future. Most of the pics can be found here. More later....
July 13, 2008
Last Day
Well, it is the last day of our vacation. Right now I am sitting inside of a McDonalds playplace in north Orlando watching Tyler and Nathan play a bit. It has been a rough vacation overall, but I am still glad we did it. Of course the girls did great, they had their moments but they are slowly evolving into young, intelligent women. Nathan is a typical five year old who is happiest when he is haning upside down on a nice sunny day.
Then we get to Tyler, who is sitting across from me now because he was egging Nathan and another little boy to eat an old, stale French fry inside of the slide, far from parental interference. I do not know what his future will hold, his behaviors on this cruise coupled with his growing size and sense of entitlement are making life impossible for this family. His behaviors seem trivial at the surface, but they never, ever stop. We will see what happens.
No more big vacations for the forseeable future. DeAnn and I will be heading for a weekend in Colorado Springs at the end of this month when I head out there for a meeting. Looking forward to returning to normality very soon........
July 11, 2008
Day Eight & Nine: Liars, Thieves, and Tourists - Which Are Worse?
Blogging is a great tool, since it allows me to cover so many facets about life, the universe, and everything and be able to get it to all of you in such a short amount of time. Today was our day at sea, and we literally covered every conceivable emotion in the Wohlgemuth family between the kids, the ship, and the various fun that comes with a large family.
Had a great morning sleeping in until 10:00, took Nathan up to get some breakfast on the Lido deck. DeAnn joined us later and Dennis and Lisa joined up as well. Plans were made to swim and after a few minutes, little Emily and Nathan were kicking it up in the pool with yours truly. DeAnn, Lisa, and Dennis were able to spend some quality time together while I served as a swimming/diving platform. :-)
DeAnn had a massage scheduled for 3:00, which she says was worth every penny (that I demanded she take....we're on a cruise darnit...) :-) Thankfully Nathan was getting a bit tired, and I was able to take a nice nap with him back in the room. About three hours later, DeAnn came into the room with a nice surprise dinner for me and we were able to get Nathan up to spend some time with his friends.
However, things took a turn for the worse when I found some money missing from my wallet. 20 seconds of thinking traced the thief to one of the kids. About a minute of questioning of the guilty party and, well, I'll let you guess which Wohlgemuth kid decided that dad's wallet was an ATM.
After dinner, we finally let the guilty party go (after he did all of the laundry for the family) and DeAnn, Dennis, Lisa & I spent the evening together suffering through Karaoke
Day Nine finds us at our last day at sea. DeAnn and I have come to the conclusion that:
a). A week long cruise is almost too long for this family.
b). The next cruise will be just us.
c). Some kids will never be happy....no matter what you do.
More pictures and stories when we get to shore.
July 9, 2008
Day Seven: The Dutch, The French, and Near Misses
Today was our last order of call, St. Maarten (or St. Martin, if you are a snooty French person). This was our "big day out" with the combined Wohlgemuth/Geraghty/Welch family and our visit around the island.
St. Maarten is an island divided, one side is Dutch and the other side is French. We met our tour manager Bernard who led us to our tour guide Thomas. After some haggling, we were able to get a fully private tour (with 13 people, we're already larger than most tour groups). :-)
First stop was in and around Phillipsburg, a quick souvenier stop where we literally found trinkets and that was it (sorry Deb, we must have hit eight different stores....zero for eight). A quick drive through the rest of Phillipsburg brought us to Maho Beach. For those of you that aren't aviation geeks, Maho Beach is at the end of Princess Juliana airport which is the second busiest airport in the Caribbean. The planes literally clear your heads by 20-30 feet. As you can see below. Video of a 737 landing which we were lucky enough to witness will be uploaded once we're on land.
After we left Maho, we spent lunch on the beach where the kids (and one adult) had a great time in the sand. After a lunch to forget, we spent the rest of the afternoon touring around the island, seeing it's wildlife as shown below....
Great tour from our guide Thomas who really customized the tour for what we wanted to see. We're all getting ready for dinner, etc and most of us are pretty wiped at this point. Looking forward to a quiet day at sea tomorrow....
July 8, 2008
Day Six: St. Thomas
Full day today taking the kids around St. Thomas. Did lunch at Hooters (Tyler's idea....what a shock) and we dod get some time at Magen's Bay. Beautiful place, but I think we're getting tired of the heat and such. Lots of pics, too many to upload now so this will have to suffice.
Day Five: Late Nights, Hallways, and Hormones
Taking nine kids on a ship is better than any soap opera on this planet (yes, even better than the awful Japanese ones DeAnn and I suffered through in Hong Kong). Not many pictures today, here's a good one I got earlier of Hannah, Emily & Nathan.
Been nice for Dennis, Lisa, DeAnn and I to spend some time chatting and catching up on the world and everything that has happened. For those on the Geraghty/Welch side...yes, they are having a good time!
I'm up now, literally in the hallway in front of our rooms as we go through six foot seas waiting for Hannah, Justin, and Steven to get back from their time with their friends. Tomorrow is St. Thomas and I will try to upload some nice pics from that little excursion.
July 7, 2008
Day Five: At Sea & A Bit Woosie
We're on our way to St. Thomas today, spending a day at sea today. Took Nathan and little Emily swimming in the pool today, both kids went down the big waterslide twice. Will upload pictures from that sometime later.
The ship is getting to St. Thomas late tomorrow due to a headwind and 6-10 foot seas. Makes you feel drunk walking down the hallway without investing in alcohol. We're all having a good time, not many pics today but I'll try to make up for that tomorrow.
July 6, 2008
Day Four: Yeah, Forget About Day Three
Internet is quite expensive out here at sea, so I'll try to blog as much as I can in as little Internet time as necessary.
Day Three was....interesting. Attitudes and fears and whatever have thankfully evaporated away into a fun time for all.
Today we stopped at Nassau for a brief tour of the city. Spent a few hours visiting Atlantis, the largest, best, etc, etc, etc resort in the world. We were done in an hour. Had Steven and Justin with the Wohlgemuth Crew while Dennis and Lisa went to Senor Frogs. We're all a bit beat, but we're having fun. Kids are doing a good job now that they have made friends, sorted out each other's habits, and are now playing well and having fun. This is a good ship for families, but we're all now talking about an adult cruise sometime next year. Australia looks to be pushed to 2010 for sure....
More later, hope you enjoyed the highlights for the last couple of days. Due to bandwidth and wallet restrictions, these are all the pictures I can share at the moment! More later!
July 5, 2008
Day Three: Breakfast & The Boat
Nice buffet breakfast this morning at the hotel/surf shop. We're packing, getting ready to get on the ship shortly. Running Dennis back to return his rental car in a few, then I'll shuttle the group over to the port just after the shark feeding. No, the kids aren't being volunteered as chum, they have Caribbean Reef Sharks in the surf shop connected to the hotel. More later....
July 4, 2008
Day Two: Dinner, A Whimper, and Bertha
We all met up for dinner after getting cleaned up from the beach. Sorry for the lack of pictures from that, but most of the time was spent taking Nathan and little Emily out into the ocean. After a quick dip in the pond pool this hotel has, we all met downstairs and headed out to TGIFridays for dinner.
After a decent meal, we had an our to kill so we headed to the only open store in the area (Books-A-Million) and promptly discovered that it was possible to finish a novel inside of the store before paying for it due to the snails pace it took to get checked out and asked if we wanted twenty-seven different magazine subscriptions.
Finally it was time to head to Cocoa's fireworks display (since Cocoa Beach cancelled their display to national fanfare). A quick drive around the place was where we found people parking on the middle of bridges, on sidewalks, in front of bank doors; pretty much anywhere you could put a car. Instead of risking the rental cars, we went back to our side of the bridge and parked on the side (along with everyone else) and walked up the causeway to be underwhelmed by the fireworks display. Luckily, everyone in our party had the same thought to vacate before the finale and we beat out the traffic back toward the hotel.
Finally we crashed at the hotel and after a quick search of the weather sites, it looks like the Caribbean's first storm of the year is heading close to our ports of destination. Wednesday is supposed to be our visit to St. Maarten, so hopefully Bertha has decided to make a more northernly move. We will see.....
Day Two: Rule One
Don't play with jellyfish. Even if they are dead. Tyler learned this rule today....
A dose of Benadryl and Benadryl cream later....hopefully he will be OK.
Day Two: Airports, Swamps, and Inflatable Sharks
Decided to flip for the extra room at the Caribe Royale which gave everyone enough room to stretch out and relax. Got up for a quick breakfast at Ponder-Grossa and we hit the road to meet up with Dennis and his family.
Met up with Dennis this morning at MCO, took us a while to fine each other since Orlando's rental car place is one level below arrivals. Finally grabbed Robbie and loaded up the van with some of their luggage for the hour drive to Cocoa Beach.
We're in the hotel, spread out among three floors. Here's a pic from the room....
Spent the last 15 minutes blowing up a shark. Thankfully, the air inlet was on the side.
We're all heading down to the pool (except the boys, who are going to troll for girls in the Surf Shop). More later!
July 3, 2008
Day One: Part Deux - Boating, Shopping, and Other Stuff
Yeah, that was one of the happier moments..... :-) More pictures below.
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| Florida/Ca |
Rented a boat for $45 and drove/tootled/whatever you would call it around the lagoon by Downtown Disney. 30 minutes of something new for this family for $45 is a bargain. Kids had a blast, I have more pictures but left the damn cable at home. Heading up to WalMart shortly to remedy that situation.
Had to pick up a pair of "fancy" sandals for the cruise, also hit the Big Dog store and grabbed a bunch of new polos for almost nothing. Happy daddy. :-)
Ended the day in the pool at our hotel and we decided to flip for an extra room. Talk about peace....should have done this before. Was able to get the room next to use for a steal and it has a King Size bed to boot (along with a hot tub).
Kids are getting hungry and the pizza is on its way. Looks to be an early night tonight.
Day One: Downtown Disney And Not Much Else
Internet in the hotel is pretty shoddy and expensive so no pics this morning. I am blogging by iPhone again, apologies on advance for any spelling errors. The boys are playing in the fountain and the girls are shopping while I steal away a few minutes to blog and relax at The Earl of Sandwich restaurant. Tyler is being a bit of a pain as usual, he would rather go home than do anything that someone else wants to do. It's really tough to understand how someone can be so damn miserable in a place like this. Most of you know how much trouble we have had since adopting him five years ago..... Oh well, we are trying to avoid his crappy attitude for now and concentrate on relaxing and such.
More later, we are not hittng any of the theme parks while we are here, this whole trip is about relaxing and having a bit of fun.
July 2, 2008
Waiting
Well, it's that time of year when the family abuses our suitcases and heads off to parts unknown. I will upload pictures later tonight when we get to our hotel in Orlando. Right now we are waiting for the darn plane and I am blogging from my iPhone.