Back to Back Tender Mercies

Since I don't keep a journal, this is a spot where I record some things which are slightly more personal than family history stuff that I usually write about.  Please feel free to skip reading and move on---

As anyone who lives close to me (or whom I might have frequent phone calls with--my sister, Valerie), I have been very frustrated with the lack of communication between us and Ben's doctor at the State Hospital.  It has been ridiculous. Finally after trying to be "cooperative" and "part of the team" for several months, I set a deadline for mid-July and decided that things needed to change by then or I would "officially get mad"---whatever that means.  For several months I have been asking to have a meeting with the doctor in person without any luck.  That need intensified when Ben's medication was abruptly changed at the beginning of May and Ben took a "nosedive".  I spent 6 weeks trying to get an answer on why the medication was changed and why they changed it to a medication which had never worked for Ben in the past.  No answers.  Although the social worker was very supportive, he wouldn't discuss medications.  He had suggested that I call the patient advocate and a higher up management person in the hospital, but I was reluctant to do that because I didn't want to make the doctor mad at us.  That didn't seem like it would be useful. So Ben continued to decline and we continued to not get answers although I continued to reach out and ask everyone I could without going over the doctor's head.

Finally the day came in mid-July and after getting a very unhelpful report from Davis Behavioral Health (our liaison with the hospital), I did start calling "up the line."  Because no one answered and following advice of a friend who is higher up in DBH, I ended up talking to the medical director of the hospital.  She listened, gave me some general information from Ben's chart and promised to check into things.  That was late Friday night a few weeks ago.  Within a week, I had gotten more information about what was going on with Ben from nursing staff, unit administrators and finally some awesome emails from Ben's doctor himself.  And since that time we have gotten weekly emails keeping us updated on the whats and whys of things. It has been so amazing to finally understand a bit about what is happening.  Although Ben is still struggling, at least I feel like we understand a bit about the doctor's thinking and how he is making decisions for Ben.

It has been amazing how much just a little information from the doctor has relieved me so much.

And the next day, at our "Pie--o-neer Social" for our ward, our bishop approached me and apologized for not providing us support around Ben as our Bishop.  This has been hard for me personally because we have had two great Bishops who had been Ben's Scout leaders in the past and were very close to us as a family.  They were often checking on us and on Ben and seeing what they could do for us.  It wasn't that we needed them to do things for us, but we so appreciated them checking about Ben. Being placed in a new ward where people don't know Ben or anything about him was very hard. What made it more complicated was that our Bishop is the CEO of Davis Behavioral Health. It has been awkward for him to "have his professional life and his Church life collide" and this has been difficult for him.  We were open with him from the very beginning that Ben was a patient of DBH and so it was weird to us because it felt like he avoided us as much as possible and never asked about Ben. Even when Ben was sent to the State Hospital, he never asked about him.  And although things haven't changed much since that conversation, I really appreciated having a chance to talk about this barrier with him and I respected him because it was a courageous thing for him to do.

Back to back --two of my "discouragements" surrounding Ben were relieved somewhat.  I get information from the doctor and feel like there is more of an expectation that communication is two way between us AND  I feel like I could talk to our Bishop about Ben if a need arises in the future. Something I wasn't really sure of before he spoke to me.

I accused Gary of "praying behind my back" to get two things resolved in back to back days.  I have been so grateful to Heavenly Father in answering prayers in my behalf.