Let the New Year Begin.....

I texted that to Scott as we arrived home from our trip last Sunday night. He texted back that the new year had started for us with a great trip. It was a great trip...but the "real" New Year of 2013 starts now as we get back to "real" life. I haven't even made goals or set plans for much yet. And that turned out to be a good thing since some of "real" life has been a challenge.

Good thing that we had a Early New Years Eve Party as New Year Eve turned into a complicated day for us but even more for Ben. He had been working on making a change in medication due to some side effects which were bad for his health. Often when he switches medication there is a space for a few or more days when he feels better less sedated and more feelings. We have guessed that this is due to not quite having enough medication on board. However this time despite going slower down and up with the new medication quicker, he has gone "down hill" for the past 4 weeks. It has been very sad. There were some unfortunately events which also played into the whole thing as well. It came to a head on Dec. 31. Gary and I had wondered about possibly that he might need to be in the hospital even though in the past we had not done that for a variety of reasons. This time, Ben made the decision himself that he needed to go to UNI (University Neuropsychiatric Institute in Salt Lake) help with medication adjustments. And so he was there for 10 days until last Thursday. We are very proud of him and for his willingness to seek help when it was needed. He actually had a good experience there, but has struggled as he came home so has stayed with us since then.

Of course these things are never at a great time for the rest of your life (there is probably never a good time to have a child in the hospital). Gary, his mom, Jena and I had a trip plan to San Fransisco from Jan. 3rd through Jan. 6th. However, with Ben's support and his doctor's okay as well, we headed off for our trip on Thursday. Scott and Chantel stepped in and took care of our dogs for us while we were gone since Ben had been planning to do it for us.

It was hard to leave him even though we talked often on the phone.  In addition it was hard to manage conversations with medical personnel from long distance.  One call I had to take by leaving the small diner we were eating lunch and go to the street to hear her......then a fire truck and some police cars went blaring down the street.  Ben handled it very "matter of fact" and even said that he didn't know why we needed to call him everyday.  Well, I needed to talk to him so I guess that was for me instead of for him.

I will post each day by itself.  However if you don't want to have a picture tour of the area you can skip those posts.  Just know despite everything we had a great time.