State Hospital Vs. Hogwartz

So I know I am going to get asked a ton of questions. I am ok with that. Here are my thoughts first.

I know many will wonder why we feel the State Hospital (SH) will work when Hogwarts didn't?
We look back now at Hogwarts and feel like this was set to fail from the beginning. As you may remember we had to constantly fight with the insurance company for more time. This made it so they never knew exactly how long Grace would be there. For this reason Hogwarts was not able to work with Grace on certain things. The fear was that if they started something they couldn't finish it would be worse for her.

How can we do this if insurance wouldn't pay anymore for Hogwarts. Here is the good and the bad. The minute Grace was admitted to the SH she became eligible for Medicaid. We don't have to work about insurance denying coverage. Happy day. One stress taken away. The bad, we are still finically responsible for her. That isn't the bad part. We have to pay monthly child support for her. And until all the paper work in completed we have no idea how much that is going to cost us. We can afford to support our children in our home with no problem. However we don't have any idea how much we will be expected or required to pay. The estimates that we have been given are pretty scary. I don't know about you but we don't have that much extra $ each month just lying around. I just tell myself one day at a time. We have been lead down this path and I have faith that we will find a way when the time comes.

Hogwarts was what we needed at the time. We also know that every step has lead us to where we are. Talking with DCFS was very helpful to help us realize that this really is the only thing left for us to try. We were to the point that keeping everyone in the home was very difficult. Grace would lash out at everyone, including our dogs. We had to look at the bigger picture. Having Grace go to the SH was not an easy decision, but the trauma that this has caused for Brother and Sister made it very obvious that we had to.

Brother and Sister are struggling with their feelings about all of this. They are sad and very much miss their sister. However they were very afraid of her. Everyone walked on eggshells when Grace was home. You never knew if you were going to say or do something that would set her off. I can't count how many times Brother and Sister would run to a neighbors house for safety. Brother was there the last day she was home and I got hit in the nose. He was so afraid that it was broken he couldn't calm down. He called the therapist hysterical. That is not good for anyone. Brother and Sister are so upset and traumatized that they aren't ready to talk to or see Grace. We know that they will get there. We are continuing to work with the therapist so that we can all heal and be ready when Grace comes home. In the mean time we enjoy the peace.

So far we really like the SH. The staff has been really nice and very helpful. They have put Grace in the adolescent unit. At first I was concerned about this. I asked why this had been done and they said because it is easier then trying to move her a few months down the road. They didn't want to get her use to the rules, staff, and kids in the younger unit to have to have her start over agin. Once they told us I agreed that this was for the best. We are still trying to figure out what she can and can't have with her. As with everything there is always a learning curve. One thing I love is that Grace has her own room. I was very worried about her sharing a room. They have constant supervision, but at Hogwarts Grace always told stories of things they talked about while in their beds at night. It is a lot harder to monitor kids at night. Hogwarts had 4 girls to a room. You can't always know what is going on or being said that way. I love how the school is structured at the SH. Grace is one of 9 kids in her class. School work is given to each kid to meet their needs. She will be able to work at her own pace. Grace is very smart so this is great for her. My only wish is that the SH was a little closer to our home. We realized how driving down to Hogwarts really affected Brother and Sisiter. They really missed out on so much. We are trying to be more mindful of them and their needs. Because of this we feel like we won't see Grace as much as we would like. As with everything we will do our best.