Therapy and more therapy

After meeting the psychiatrist the first day Kitty was there, we found out from Kitty that the hospital hadn't given Kitty her night meds (despite repeated reminders/requests on our part). We even had the meds in their prescription bottles there. So she ended up not sleeping well the first night. Very frustrating.

Kitty is on a dose of Trileptal (3000mg if that means anything to you) that was so high they called us, the pharmacy, and her psychiatrist to confirm it. The hospital psychiatrist informed us that they were going to reduce her Trileptal to a dose that is appropriate for her age and size, and were thinking about adding or changing her to Abilify. After much discussion between her regular psychiatrist and the hospital's psychiatrist we were informed that they decided to make no med changes.


Of course she is doing well in the hospital. The social worker/therapist said she will probably be released this weekend. Most likely tomorrow. We now know that insurance rarely pays for more than 4 days so we weren't surprised (this time). We've heard nothing since, but last time we got a call at about 9am informing us we needed to pick her up by noon. We're assuming it will be the same this time.

Yesterday we had "family" therapy. We basically explained a little about what brought Kitty there again (it's only been 3 months), and what we guessed she'd been saying in therapy (She's afraid her sister because she can beat her up, her little brother is spoiled rotten, we love the bio kids more...). Let's just say we hit it on the head exactly (and then we clarified the distortions in Kitty's thinking). The therapist ended up saying what a great job we were doing (nice to hear, but frustrating because that's what all therapists say when they don't really know what to do with our kids.).

The therapist asked what we wanted to accomplish with this session. Truthfully we don't have a lot of expectations from hospitalization anymore so we just told her we wanted to try to get Kitty to understand that she needed therapy. She brought Kitty in. Kitty hugged Hubby and I (yea!) and then asked if this meant she wasn't going to get snack. (sigh! That's my baby!). (The therapist reassured her she would). Kitty was sleepy and distracted most of the time. Not completely dissociated, but close.

The therapist did most of the talking. She pretty much told Kitty she needed therapy and that she needed to participate in therapy. I was actually fairly impressed with the therapist's handling of Kitty. Kitty of course agreed with everything the therapist said. As soon as the therapist appeared to be done, Kitty got up, hugged me, stumbled over Hubby and hugged him on the way past, walked out of the door and shut it.

Apparently we were dismissed. The therapist seemed a little surprised, but this was the second day in a row that she'd done this to us so Hubby and I just looked at each other and laughed a little. (that's our girl!)

Today Hubby and I went to therapy with the attachment therapist at 11am and then at 5:30pm saw the EMDR therapist (who isn't seeing Kitty anymore, but is still very involved with the family and is starting work with Bear). More on that next post. Hubby is finally ready to sleep.