Who is Emily Q?

Emily Q is an angel in my eyes or maybe her parents are.

Several years ago her family sued the State of California Department of Health and Human Services Director. The case is cited as [Emily Q. V. Bonta, No. 98-4181 AHM(AIJX), (U.S.D.C, C.D. Cal.).]

So how does Emily Q's legal action affect my life today? Speciffically today?

Emily Q. Resulted in a new service being provided to families of children who meet specific criteria. These services are called Theraputic Behavioral Services commonly refered to as TBS.

TBS brings a trained mental health/ behavior coach into the home, school, and community to work with the at risk child. This is in addition to other mental health services already being provided.

In our case, My daughter receives medication management from a pediatric psychiatrist, therapy from a Licensed Marraige Family Therapist, Case Management from a social worker,

She attends a non-public school for emotionally distrubed children all of whom receive special education services. The school setting has a counseler who works at the local behavioral health care facility on the weekends and a behavior interventionist (a former probation officer) who works to determine what triggers behaviors and comes up with proactive plans to help the student function.

So, today is our first day to have a TBS worker in several years. The worker has been assigned to work with us in an attempt to reduce the most severe behaviors/coping mechanisms my daughter currently has.

The first two weeks we will be doing an assessment to determine our baseline on such behaviors.
This will be followed by making a plan to handle my daughter's triggers. The goal is to be proactive not reactive.

My dauther is currently slated for two months of services for a total of 120 hours.

At the end of two months one of several things will happen:

1) She will have made so much progress she will not need TBS anymore and will be provided Wrap-Around services

2) She will have made some progress but will need additional TBS services and the contract will be extended

3) She will have made no progress or continued to decline in functioning at which point she would return to a long term hospital also refered to as a residential treatment facility.

As a proactive measure, we will be taveling about 4 hours each way to visit a RTF or RTC next week. At the visit we will be doing a pre-placement intake interview to determine if the facility is suitable for her needs should she not make enough progress with her TBS services.

My daughter has been in long term care 3 times in the past. Oct 98-June 2000, Dec 2000-June 2001, and June 2002-June 2003.

Extra Money

I have to admit, I am one of those persons who will do almost anything legal for extra money.
Last night at 10:30 I get a phone call. Can you come into work because we had a sick call? Sure, let me change and I will be right there.

So I agreed to go in, not realizing at the time it meant I would be up over 24 hours straight by the end of my shift. I gave myself what my daughter calls a birdbath, threw on some clean clothes, grabbed some food and water bottles and left.

I went to work and everything was fine. It was an unusually quiet night. Drama free I might add.

When I got home I was so exhausted it was insane. I slept until my daughters school called me. She refused to take the bus home. Then when I got back I slept until almost 8PM.

It just leaves me wondering... why do we do these things to ourselves for an extra 80 bucks.

So I am wondering... what have you done for an extra hundred bucks and regretted later.

I don't regret the night, it was all good. I just regret letting myself go in without sleep and running myself down.

Reality TV

You know something is wrong when 5 years or so ago you hated reality tv... when it was fear factor and survivor. And now your Tuesday night is flipping between Amish in the City, The Champ, Fear Factor, Trading Spouses, and the Amazing Race... I think there was another one we were watching.

Not only are you trying to flip between 4 of them at a time, people are yelling at each other because I have to know if he goes Amish and I have to know who wins, etc.

This is just silly.

F.A.Q.

MS. Heaven's F.A.Q.

Q) Why are you blogging?
A) I am blogging so my sister ramblin-molli.us will stop bugging me about blogging

Q) What do you do for fun?
A) Camping, Hiking, Boating, Geocaching, Letterboxing, Orienteering, WheresGeorge, Theatre, Cinema, Opera, Art Galleries, Museums, Cultural Events, Community Events, Charity Events, Volunteering, Watching Baseball Games, Watch Fireworks, Travel, Etc.

Q) What do you look like?
A) white, female, wavy shoulder length brown hair, brown eyes, $3,000 smile, 4'11'', bbw, often believed to be as much younger then I am.

Q) What do you mean your child is disabled?
A) My child meets the criteria for mood disorder under Social Security Guidelines. My child also meets the criteria for emotionally disturbed under Special Education Guidelines. Beyond that my child has numerous other health issues mostly pointing at her hypothalmus gland for which she sees her primary physician (a pediatrician), a pediatric endocrinologist, and was just refered to a pediatric cardiologist. In the past she has seen an ENT, dermatologist, immunologist, and orthopedic physician.

*btw* if you are someone of improtance... she collects autographs and would most likely be thrilled to get yours. Her most recent (she is receiving Saturday from her aunt for her 15th birthday) is Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson's which was won at an auction to benfit our local animal shelter.

Q) How do you cope?
A) I cope the best I can. I beg for more services. I advocate for my child's needs. I find support in on-line and real time support groups. Most of all I make time for me.

Here I am

Well, I have finally joined the forces of blogging. I have fought this for quite a while but my ummm how can I put this nicely, sister, has finally come up with a story from her blogging adventures that piqued my curriosity.