Thankful!

Thank God! We finally got a new psychiatrist for Kaitlyn. After countless phone calls over several weeks, and being told no one had any availability, Josh and I finally decided that Kaitlyn would just have to "take one for the team", and see a male psychiatrist. So, I called Bradley hospital to see if there was anyone taking new patients (outpatient). There was only one doctor in the entire hospital who was and wouldn't you know he wasn't in our insurance provider's network. So, I compiled my list of doctors in the area and called the first name on my list. According to my information there were two male doctors at this office. I learned immediately that there was indeed a psychiatrist accepting new patients and Kaitlyn could be seen on Friday, Jan. 13th. Oh, and by the way, it's a woman. Ha ha ha! I hung up the phone and shouted loud enough to scare Alexa to tears. Naturally I had to explain I wasn't angry, but extremely happy. She took a bit of convincing, but we're good. I don't care what anyone says about Friday the 13th. In my book it's going to be a very good day! I feel like I was carrying a couple of 18 wheelers around on my shoulders and someone just lifted them off. Funny how once we decided to stop looking for a female psychiatrist one just kind of fell into our laps. 

Kaitlyn has a lot of support at school from the psychologist, social worker, her teachers etc. We are so very thankful that she's in the school she's in. With only about 240 students in K-6, the staff are fairly easily able to keep an eye on her and make sure she's ok. They care about her and want to help her to succeed as a student. Academics aren't that difficult for her. She actually managed Bs and one C on her last report card, her best report card since we moved to RI. When you consider all that she has going on internally, and the fact that she's struggling and working so very hard to compensate at school, she is doing phenomenal! If she was able to perform to the best of her ability (unhampered by schizophrenia), you can just imagine how well she would be doing.

We have a lot of learning and adjusting to do, and so does Kaitlyn. There are so many uncertainties, but we are trying to get plugged into resources to help us adjust to our new life. There's a family support group called NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) that has a 12 week course for families. This teaches you about mental illness,  

http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=Family-to-Family&lstid=605

There's also a support group, Parent Support Network of Rhode Island, http://www.psnri.org that provided services such as teaching you how to parent a child with mental illness. Both sites also provide education on mental illness, instruction on how to cope and help locating services etc. Better still, they have locations you can go to in order to receive support. The next best thing to finding the help you need, is knowing you're not alone and having someone to talk to. I'm looking forward to getting linked into this community so we can have support on this level. To be able to talk to people who really understand what we're going through will be so good for me (us). Taking that first step won't be easy, but I know it will be worth it.

Little by little, step by step, making my way every day.