Spit Socks

If you follow Mama Drama - Times Two, you know about our very brief honeymoon period with our new 8 year old.  Here's the story....

In between pumping and vacuuming water and emptying out our flooded out basement, we picked up our new little guy, Manny, from an RTP on Wednesday.  After a gourmet family dinner at W*ndy's, we got home to unpack and get settled.  He came with two bags of clothes and a suitcase large envelope of medications!  The list of meds was a full page, typed!  YIKES!  He enjoyed meeting the dogs and cats, seemed to like his room, and got along with the boys.  He went off to sleep with no issues.  So far, so good.

Thursday morning, I got him up and off to school and Mamma greeted him at the end of the day.  She had the pleasure of dealing with his poopy pants--he apparantly likes to poop in his pants in the afternoon and sit in it.  I'm sure Mamma will blog in more detail about this but I will say that this was the first time he, personally, had to deal with the clean-up, and he was not happy about it.  He got through it and other than your annoying, constant, tiring, trying basic oppositional behavior, we hadn't seen any major behavior issues.

Friday's schedule included a doctor's appointment to follow-up on an MRI he had earlier in the week for a strange bump above his eye.  The MRI showed a bone growth (yea, great, huh) and I and his Social Worker were taking him to the doctor. 

This is where the Spit Sock comes in. 

After refusing to pee in the cup (I saw oppositional, controlling behavior, they saw a kid who didn't need to pee, hmmmm), and scheduling Bone Scan and Bone Density tests for next week, we went off to the hospital to have some blood drawn. 

He refused to get out of the car.  After 15 minutes I contacted his Social Worker who agreed that he really needed the blood work so he came to meet me.  After another 15 minutes, still no movement.  As soon as his Social Worker and I attempted to help him out of the car, he went feral.  I held his two wrists for I don't know how long while he kicked me and the car, tried to bite me and himself, tried to scratch me, head banged and head butted, his Social Worker and I decided to call crisis.

Crisis advised that since we were already at the hospital, we should call the police.  This sent the boy into even more of a rage.  The police officer tried everything to calm him but after the boy head butted and spit, the police officer called for a spit sock and put him in hand cuffs.  That about broke my heart--an 8 year old in hand cuffs.

Once he got into the emergency room it took 9, yes, 9 adults to restrain him in order to remove the hand cuffs and put him in soft restraints.  He spent 24 hours in the ER and is now in a residential treatment for 2 weeks. 

We aren't sure yet how this is going to end.  Mama has been counseled by her Mountain Top Moms to say NO.  We have been calling him and will visit this week. 

He has 2 more medical procedures next week -- one that involves an injection of dye -- and I am soooo happy I will not be taking him.