keeping my fingers crossed

I'm feeling hopeful. It looks like we might be able to get my daughter started in an outpatient treatment program as early as tomorrow. She should have started a week ago but we weren't ready.

It's a long story.... She was in the behavioral med unit for two weeks initially after the suicide attempt. Then she went into outpatient Partial hospitalization the first day after she was discharged. Partial means you spend 7 hours a day in an outpatient treatment program and that typically lasts a week or two. (I use that word, "typically," loosely. How the patient responds determines how long they stay.) In Partial, they were assessing my daughter to determine if she should go to the Eating Disorder Partial program or to what they refer to as Dual Diagnosis, which is for patients who have two or more problems such as drug use and depression. They decided Eating Disorder (ED) was more appropriate so they discharged her on a Wednesday with the plan that she would start ED the next day.

ED is eight hours a day, five days a week, and lasts typically six to eight weeks, longer if the patient is not responding. It is held at the hospital which is 25 miles from my home (and 50+ miles from my ex-husband's house), but the commute can easily take 30 - 60 minutes one way during rush hour traffic for me (and 3 hours for him). It is also expensive. I have very good health insurance and they were going to cover the bulk of the cost, but even the daily co-pay was more than I could afford without going into serious debt. When they told me about the decision to go with ED and what all it entailed, I shut down. Literally. I refused and took my daughter home.

To their credit, the people at the hospital were very kind. They told me they might be able to work out transportation with a van service. That they might be able to work out a program where she would come in fewer days in the week, maybe even shorter hours, and all these things would bring the cost down. But as I said, I shut down and could not begin to discuss options. I remember telling the staff, "I really can't afford the ED program" and the nurse asking me, "How much can you afford?" The first thought that went through my mind was, What are you? A used car salesman? Fortunately I did not express that thought out loud.

It's amazing what a good night's sleep can do. I woke up in the morning and was able to think clearly; I was able to verbalize the fears that were paralyzing me.

I talked that morning with my sister on the phone, and was complaining that I could not afford the cost of treatment. She was very encouraging and supportive and said, "These things always come to an end. Don't feel like you will be paying that money forever. It's just for a set time." But my fear was that this might never end. Most addicts relapse. A woman in Al Anon told me she had sent her son to rehab 20+ times between the time he was 14 and 21. She mortgaged her house to send him to a camp in Utah for a year and when he came home, he was using again within two days. I said to my sister, "I feel like I am in this for the long haul and I can't afford to go with luxury treatment programs. This hospital ED program feels like a luxury. I feel like I have to be economical about this. It's the not-knowing what the future will be like that is killing me."

And as far as the driving issue, I realized that a treatment program that was closer to my ex-husband's house would work better for us all around. I could set up shop at his house while my daughter was in treatment and he would be able to help drive. If we drove together, it would give us time to talk not only to her but to each other. It would also be more convenient for him to participate in therapy.

I began looking online for treatment programs and found one that sounded really good. (The Parents' support group that we went to a couple of days ago was for this program.) It has taken us a week to get to the place where we are emotionally and psychologically ready to send her. Now we're working on paperwork and insurance.

This may not work out and I'm ok with that. I know now what I am looking for and that I will eventually find the solution that is best for my daughter AND that is within our means and abilities.