Is there a doctor in the house?

If you've been reading me for a while, you know that one of my children has some serious difficulties. The intercranial hypertension , the biochemical stuff, the psychotic episodes , the hospitalization. You will probably remember what it was like before we had our first diagnosis. Then our second...and third, fourth, etc. The wrong meds, the weight gain, the psychosis worsening. Not being able to see, not being able to hear, almost dying. Wrong schools, no friends, home schooling...

You know I've been fighting for years to figure out what was going on with her and to get help for her. Everytime we think we have one thing dealt with, another pops up. The drug that fixes one thing makes another worse. Some she's allergic to, some made her sick, the last one turned her, literally, into stone.

She has spent years terrified she would have to go back to the hospital. Try to imagine being a 12 year old, or a thirteen or now a fifteen year old dealing with all of this. The constant terror because you got sent to the wrong psych hospital and when your mom got you back, you were covered in bruises. The guilt you feel because, in your psychotic state, you end up covering your mom in bruises and scratches and bite marks while she tries to restrain you.

But up until very recently, I had thought we had the bi-polar stuff controlled. The psychoses had stopped, the violence was gone, and she was mostly the same kid most of the time. I don't know what changed. I don't know if it is that she is getting older and her chemistry and hormones have something to do with it, but it's back. The violence, the fear, the terrors.

One minute it seemed like things were being controlled, the next I'm having to hold her down again and my arms are bruised with her teeth marks. She insisted the people from the psych hospital were coming to get her, that she could hear them and I couldn't reach her, I couldn't make her see there was no one there.

Finally, I gave up telling her they weren't there at all and I said 'Go away! You aren't taking her with you, you aren't taking her anywhere, you can't have her', etc...then I told her I had cast a protective bubble around her that only I could see into. That's when she started to calm down.

I'm convinced it's not schizophrenia. I don't think it's anything new at all. I think her bi-polar-ness is getting worse and her OCD isn't being controlled. That's why when she gets to thinking about the psych hospital she can't stop, and it just gets worse and worse... The thing that she is most terrified of is having to go back to a hospital. Now I'm watching her every single minute so I can be there to keep her from doing anything on an impulse that takes it all out of my hands.

I honestly don't know how much more I can stand... the violent psychoses again, the constant hyper vigilance and being afraid to let her out of my site in case she trips over and I'm not there to help. Her brother and sister who she gets so rabid about one minute and then hyper lovey dovey the next and the effect on them. My terror that she will do something stupid on impulse before I get to her and the issue of hospitalization is taken out of my hands.

And let's not forget the guilt. The guilt that I have not been able to fix it yet, the guilt that I lose my temper and wish it would all just go AWAY for a while. The guilt over not being a perfect mother or even a tolerant one, sometimes.

I've had to stop writing this four times as she goes back and forth, back and forth, ultra rapid cycling . I thought it was dealt with. I thought...god, I think I tried not to think at all anymore. I realize now that I need help controlling my manic depression as well, that if I don't get help, if I don't find a way to do more than survive every day, I can't help *her.

Her current doctor doesn't seem able to figure this out. I know of a new one. He's a specialist and is supposed to be the best. He helped the child of someone I know who was much like my daughter. But he's hideously expensive and my insurance won't cover him. To evaluate my daughter and I it will cost approximately six hundred dollars that I do not have. Nor do we have the money to pay her current doctor to keep treating her while we raise the money to see a new one, and on and on we go.

I have sold everything I can. Even if I do not buy one, single Xmas present for the kids, the money isn't there. We live paycheck to paycheck as it is. The kids' medical costs and everything that isn't covered by insurance (including many of their meds and the current doctor) and my recent surgery have killed us financially. I can't work because I have to be available for the kids at a moment's notice. I never know from one day to the next if I will be called to the school, as I was two days ago when my daughter's therapist called to say she needed to come home.

My husband recently took a second job at night as a medical courier, but even that will only cover the current expenses. We're not drowning, but there just isn't anything extra, nothing to save, nothing left to sell. And my kid is sick and she needs help.

So - If you are a psychiatrist specializing in adolescent biochemical disorders located in Los Angeles, and would be willing to waive your fee or take payments rather than all of it upfront, please e mail me. I'm determined to keep my child at home, not palm her off on a hospital or residential treatment center, etc. She is my baby, and she stays home here, with us.

Someone, please help me save my kid.

Thanks