Hospital

By the end of fourth grade, even the BOCES self-contained school let us know that Marcus would not be welcome back for fifth grade. Of course, they didn’t say it like that. It went something like, “We don’t feel like we can serve him well anymore” or some other similar cover for “we don’t want him”. The main point was that he had nowhere to go for fifth grade. Our options were residential placement or day treatment. But, as was par for the course, there were no spots anywhere and no one to help us. The no help thing was by far the most frustrating part of raising Marcus so far.

Dr. Mink, again our hero, suggested getting a consultation from Dr. John Walkup at Johns Hopkins. We were desperate so made an appointment to see him. I hoped that he would help us avoid residential. We packed Marcus up and drove down to Baltimore for an overnight stay. Meeting Dr. Walkup was like coming home. Here was someone who worked with kids like Marcus everyday – nothing we said surprised him. But what about the time he took a broken table leg and smashed up a car in the school parking lot? Or when he cold-punched a teacher’s aide and knocked him out for a second? He was totally unphased. Plus, he “recognized” my husband Morris immediately. It was the first time Morris was treated with respect and talked to in a manner he could understand without being demeaned. And, more impressively to me, he “saw” me and knew exactly what I needed to hear and know. We left this meeting with hope for the first time in years. We left with an appointment to come back for a possible hospital stay.

That July Marcus was checked into the Child Psychiatry Unit at Johns Hopkins. I was a wreck. I had experience with locked psych wards before with my older son Eric. We ended up spending a month as we tried desperately to find out what was going on with Marcus. Why was he so violent? Why did he have so many scary tantrums?

Institutional rules and expectations, behavior plans, etc. are set up to deal with 80% of folks. Marcus is in that other 20%. So, while I learned a ton and we came up with a more detailed diagnosis and medication regime, Marcus had an awful time. A mother should never have to watch her child being dragged by four security guards into the locked quiet room to be given forced Haldol injections. It remains one of my more painful experiences. Especially since, in my opinion, it could have been avoided. Marcus had a tantrum when he learned that he wouldn’t earn the full 100 points for that day’s behavior chart. His OCD had kicked in and he was determined to get 100 points. The floor nurse decided to ding him a couple of points because he forgot to raise his hand before stepping out of his room. She tried to tell him that he would still be “gold” level and get all the privileges but he was inconsolable, resulting in the locked quiet room episode I witnessed (one of many by the way). How hard would it have been to give him a point?!

A month went by with me driving into the hospital everyday from my hotel, visiting with Marcus during visiting hours and trying to find something to do in a strange city while being traumatized. I felt like a zombie walking through my days. I started smoking again. Finally the day came for us to go home. I took Marcus to the aquarium and for some ice cream. That night at the hotel was a harbinger of the next few months. He had tantrum after tantrum where I had to restrain him multiple times. I was surprised the hotel didn’t call the police. Finally at 4 am he went to sleep. I tossed and turned until he got up. The long drive home was pensive for both of us. Little did we know that we would be doing the tantrum dance for the next few months until he was placed in residential placement (turns out we needed it after all). But that is another chapter.