Not great

The last couple of weeks with Oksana have not been good.  At all.  We've had a lot of firsts.  First time she had a significant issue at church.  First time she has had issues severe enough to require restraint at respite (4 of them).  First time I had to call Larry home from work to help me.  Those aren't the kind of firsts I want to be writing about.  After consulting with her therapist I called psych.  She was shocked we hadn't hospitalized her yet.  She told me if I need to call my husband home again she wants her admitted.  In the mean time she increased her mood stabilizer.  Larry and I disagreed a bit on what warrants hospitalization so we had lunch with our friend who is on staff with NAMI.  She gave us some wonderful insight into the pros and cons of hospitalization.  Well basically there was only 1 pro.  We ended up making the decision together that we will not hospitalize Oksana on a whim because of her behavior, unless it is blatantly dangerous.  Had we hospitalized her the day Larry came home she would have been perfectly fine by the time we got there and we could have sat literally for days waiting for a bed to become available.  Not happening.  We can still manage her fine, we just need an extra set of hands sometimes.  We ended up deciding that because the hospital is the only place we can safely do a major med change, that is the only way we are going to hospitalize her at this point.  In that case we will make that decision with our psychiatrist who will then put her on a wait list for a bed.  When one is available we will take her in.  They can do major med adjustments in short periods of time there and monitor her 24/7.  As soon as the med change is complete we would bring her back home.

So we increased her mood stabilizer on Thursday and last night she had a significant episode.  Quite frankly if our psych knew about it she would want her admitted now.  We have decided to watch for a few more days and then see if she levels out or not.  If not we are going to be facing our first hospitalization.  I have already prepared her for it.  We talked quite a bit about why people with mental illness sometimes need to be hospitalized and what it would be like there.  We even called a friend whose 9 year old son has been in and out of the hospital since he was 5.  They gave us a good picture of what the days look like.  I can't say she's thrilled but she understands that it might be necessary. 

I'm not ready for this, but I'm getting there.  I have no choice.  At this point her med increases are coming fast and furious and a hospitalization seems to be inevitable.  Her therapist said to be prepared for a lifetime of this.  Maybe they get easier but I'm dreading the first.  For now I'm going to see if we can hold it off longer and get this med increase to kick in.