Scary Episode

Monday morning dawned with as much hope as a Monday can muster. Primero had plans to return to the community college to complete his testing and get officially enrolled into his college classes. I was hopeful, after so much procrastination, to see he was finally completing the last steps. I worried he might just blow it off, deciding to push it back to the next semester which would turn into never. I was feeling pessimistic, you could say. But, in true Primero fashion, he got it together and managed to take the placement tests last Friday. He had trouble with the written portion and was allowed to return on Monday for another chance. He was one point shy of not needing remedial classes, so it made sense to try again. He had the van for the day. He returned for me at work and we went to pick up the kids at daycare. I had planned to stop at the grocery store on our way home because I didn’t go the day before and we needed something to eat for dinner. Instead, here is where our ordinary Monday turned manic.

When Primero and I got upstairs to the kids room in the daycare, Love Bug came running at me grinning. Before I could ask if he had a good day, I heard the teacher calling to Chica Marie, “Give this note to your mom. Show her what you wrote.” I held my breath, thinking she had written something rude or offensive about the teacher. This was her favorite teacher, the one she tried to convince other kids was her mom. Still, if she got mad at the teacher I could see her writing something upsetting. Chica Marie was already clearly agitated. She was hiding in her cubby, refusing to come out and refusing to pass the piece of green construction paper to me. I asked her to leave with us but her energy and movements said she would run. I asked her to hold my hand and she refused. The other teacher tried talking to her. She ran and hid behind some toys, then ran past me and flopped on a chair. She glared at me, saying she was not going home with me, she hated living in our home. I tried to hold back because often times if I engage with her, it makes things worse. Plus, at this time Love Bug was getting worked up. She was throwing off the schedule and he was not having it. He asked to go say good-bye to his friends. He does this every evening. He returns to his pre-school classroom and says good-bye to them. I asked Primero to take him downstairs, thinking it would take the pressure off of Chica Marie and she would comply and decide to leave. Instead she sullenly ran into another room. The original teacher followed her after handing me the offending note. It wasn’t clear, but it seemed the note was asking another boy to have sex with her. Primero returned with Love Bug and I asked him if he could help talk her into leaving. Sometimes she will listen to Primero. He was in the game room with her and the daycare teacher but not having any success getting Chica Marie to agree to leave. She was insisting she did not write the note. Love Bug was getting clingy but I felt I needed to step in so we could leave the daycare. The teacher distracted Love Bug and I entered the room with Primero and Chica Marie. Her face was red, her arms were folded over her chest and she was pacing rapidly from wall-to-wall. I asked what was going on and she screamed that she did not write the note. Primero suggested we go home and she write a similar note to prove she didn’t do it. I suggested we just go home and chat about it. She refused. She said she was going to run out. Primero said he would run with her. Seeing no other options and counting on Primero’s lithe quickness, I agreed. She took off with Primero on her heels. I gathered Love Bug, said good-bye to the teachers and walked downstairs. When I reached the exit I saw Primero grabbing Chica Marie in a bear hug and dragging her to the van. She had tried to run away. We managed to get her into her car seat and headed for home.

I thought perhaps the car ride would calm her down a bit. It did not. She screamed the whole way home and threatened to jump out of the van. I told Primero how I needed to go to the grocery store but she was in no condition to go along. He agreed to stay home with her and I would take Love Bug with me. I thought being home with just Primero would help her calm down. When I talked to Love Bug during the car ride to the grocery store, he said he was shaking because he was worried his sister would jump from the moving car. She did leap out before I stopped the van at the house, but luckily Primero was faster and caught her before she got out of the van. Love Bug wanted to go to a specific grocery store and he was angry I went to Aldi’s. He wanted candy. I promised to show him the candy isle and let him pick out a bag of M&M’s. He asked to eat them on the ride home. I said he could have some after dinner. He got angry and ran away from me. I left the cart with my purse and the few items we had collected and chased him to the sliding doors. I grabbed him before he got all the way outside. He was angry and fighting me and I really, really had to use the bathroom. Just before I left work, I checked a notification on my Facebook. It was a post in the local autism support group for a young boy who had been missing from his home since early in the morning. It was weighing on my mind as I coaxed Love Bug into the bathroom with me. Having never been in the bathroom, I thought it was one stall and could be locked. It was not. Fear gripped my heart as I tried to decide to use the bathroom and risk Love Bug running out or just try to hold it, which was becoming increasingly more difficult. I tried to hold Love Bug’s hand. “Please stay with me, Love Bug,” I pleaded. I started to cry, begging my child to stay with me in the bathroom. Seeing my tears seemed to soften his resolve. He asked why I was crying and I told him there was a little boy missing from his family and his parents were so scared and wanted to find him so badly. I said I worried the Love Bug might run away and I would be that scared mommy, just wanting him back in my arms. Thankfully, I saw last night that the boy is home safe. And, Love Bug stopped trying to run away from me for the duration of our shopping trip. After paying for our things and trying to hastily pack them into bags, Primero called me and I feared the worst. He said Chica Marie had calmed down momentarily but that now she was acting up again. I promised to be home asap.

When I got home, Primero helped carry the groceries inside. I was dismayed at my poor selection because I planned on making spaghetti and meatballs, but I didn’t have any spaghetti noodles or pasta sauce. Trashing the idea of spaghetti, I thought we would just have breakfast for dinner, so I took the hash brown potatoes out of the freezer. Chica Marie was sharing grapes with Love Bug and asked for jello. When I told her no, she flew into a rage. She was flopping around on the floor, screaming, punching herself, kicking furniture. She pulled the cushions off the couch, punched herself. She grabbed a fork and tried stabbing it into her arm. I sat with her in the living room, while she laid on the floor kicking the front door. I suggested she take a bath to relax. She refused. I said maybe she should just go lie in her bed while I prepared dinner. She refused. I told her if she wasn’t able to stop screaming and thrashing about I would need to call the crisis hotline. She dared me to do it. I realized how helpless I was in that moment. If Primero had not been there and I was alone with both kids, we would have been in a very precarious position. I could not handle them both spiraling out of control at the same time. I could not chase Chica Marie and leave Love Bug behind or vice versa. I called the crisis hotline. Chica Marie yelled and growled and gripped her waist, pulled her clothes, and flopped around on the floor. The therapist on the phone offered to come to our house to talk to her. Chica Marie refused. I said it was either that or she would need to go to the hospital. She screamed, “take me to the hospital!” The crisis therapist on the phone worried if I would be able to get there with her safely. Primero and I devised a plan. He put Love Bug in his car seat and took my things into the car. I shuttled Chica Marie from the front door into the back seat of the van. I put her against the window and sat blocking her exit to the door. The crisis therapist called ahead to the ER to expect us because I thought she might try to run when we got there. She cried the whole six minute ride to the hospital, telling me her ribs hurt. But, she was more compliant. She walked into the hospital, clinging to me. After checking in we were ushered to the pediatric waiting room, which was a blessing because the ER was standing room only.

It didn’t take too long for us to be seen by the triage nurse. By this point in time, Chica Marie had reverted to acting baby-ish. She used a little baby voice, stuck her fingers in her mouth, clung to me, and kept asking if they were going to give her a shot. We were shown to a room just across from the nurses station and Chica Marie was changed into a gown, her clothes deposited in a plastic bag. I worried about my phone battery dying, so I turned it onto battery saving mode and tried to use it as little as possible. I notified the mobile therapist of our current situation and also a co-worker friend just in case I wasn’t able to come into work the next day. Chica Marie settled in quickly, relishing the attention and ability to choose what games to play and watch without her little brother’s interruption. When the triage nurse asked me what had brought us there, I hesitated because I didn’t want Chica Marie to start acting up again. She sensed my reticence and said she would note I would like to speak to staff in private. When the doctor came to see us, I asked Chica Marie if she wanted me to talk in front of her or if she wanted to share what had happened. She didn’t want any part of it, so the doctor found a nurse and then took me to the family room to talk. I tried to tell her as much as I could in a short time. When I told her Chica Marie and her brothers were adopted, she said how great it was. I was already exhausted at that moment and I wasn’t feeling the greatness of it all.

After a urine sample and chest x-ray, plus two containers of macaroni and cheese and apple juice, it was time to leave the pediatric ER and head to the psychiatric unit. Gone was the interactive TV with kids movies and games. Gone the extra chairs for guests, My purse and phone had to be locked up by the security guard. Anytime I left the room, I needed to go through a metal detector to go back. There was a TV but only one remote, so once we set out channel that was it. A new nurse spoke to me about the troubles we had been having, once again because Chica Marie was not cooperative and wouldn’t speak to him. At this point, Chica Marie should have been getting tired, but she was still wired. She had more juice, another snack and they tried to distract her with a puzzle, but it was a very long, long wait. We were finally interviewed electronically by the psychiatrist around 1:30 in the morning. He decided, since she had calmed down, we could go home. He also suggested we invest some time in re-evaluating her diagnosis and adjusting her medication. He feels, based on the increasingly more prolonged and severe episodes, the limited help her current meds seem to give, the sexual acting out, and potential biological contribution to her mental health could mean a bi-polar diagnosis masking as ADHD. It is something for us to pursue.