After some time of Joey doing well we thought well we can handle the little bumps in the road but he seemed to be doing fine. That's what we get I guess because Joey started having trouble again. Hallucinations and night terrors came back. We thought we could ride it out with a few medication changes. Joseph had had a few rough days at school and we were trying to control things. He was home from school one afternoon and playing with kids in the neighborhood. I was sitting on the couch with Max our newborn when Joey came storming in the door. I asked him what was wrong and he went ballistic. Joseph came charging at me and grabbed a Rubik's cube and began striking me in the back of head. I bent forward trying to place myself over the baby to protect him. I managed to run out the front door. The neighbors heard me screaming and came outside. I told them to call the police. Joseph was still inside the house throwing things around a yelling wildly. Joseph than came out of the house and took of running down the street. Shortly after the police showed up at our house. One officer began taking a report while a few others started looking for Joseph. Joseph was found down the street and the police brought him into the house. We were trying to explain to the police what was going on when Joseph grabbed some cellophane wrapped and tried wrapping it around his head and neck. The police intervened and Joseph screamed out "I wanna fucking die!" The police were trying to be careful with him when Joseph went after them. Kicking, hitting and screaming. In order to keep him safe from himself and from hurting others they placed him in handcuffs. No one should ever have to see their own child in handcuffs. The police were unable to get an ambulance to come and transport Joseph to the hospital so they took him there. Joseph was readmitted for stabilization. This would be Joeys 12th hospitalization in less than one year. This was one of his longest stays at over a month. At this time we began talking about a future for Joeys care. We knew we would be unable to stay in AZ because of Joeys heat intolerance but we needed to be close to family. Paul's family were still in Ohio and we made the difficult choice that that was where we needed to go. We started to look into residential treatment for Joey. acute stabilization was not helping Joey anymore. He needed long term intensive treatment. We were working hard for Cincinnati children's Hospital because they have such high success rates for bipolar children but it was not in network for our insurance, which would have cost us $4000 just to get a bed not including daily costs. I know it shouldn't sound like everything came down to money but in all reality we couldn't afford to send him there. With the wedding coming up all we could hope was that Joey could get out of the hospital and be able to be there for the big day.
Joseph was discharged just before the wedding and was able to attend. He was so handsome in his tux. Everything was beautiful. I have to make a side note here that despite the difficult things said about Joey, his disease and our struggles. He is an amazing child. Joseph is so loving and wonderful. Unfortunately at times his disease keeps us from seeing those great things.
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