no sleep....

It is funny how some nights like last night nothing will help Faith go to sleep. Normal routine and her sleeping medicine and not sleepy at all. She was happy, a little frusterated, but unable to go to sleep until after midnight. Kris

IEP update....

Yesterday we meet with Faith's school. This meeting was to see, after all the tests and observations, if Faith qualified for an emotionally impaired IEP plan. We went over pages and pages of notes, opinions, scores, and suggestions and she met every qualification for emotionally impaired. On May 5 we have an appointment where we will make our suggestions to the district on what we think she needs and they will make their suggestions. Together we have to come up with a plan to get her back into school and participating again. We also heard from Little Angels Service Dogs, we will know next week if Faith is getting the dog we think she is and the final dates for handler training. It is looking like the last two weeks of June or the first two weeks of July. We are all getting excited because it is drawing so close, yet it is scary because Renae and I basically signed our lives away to get a loan for this dog with the hopes that we can still raise the rest of the money needed to pay for it. It is a risk I had to take, but it is scary. To some people it is not a lot of money, but to our military friends out there who make the paychecks we make you can understand. We will keep you posted. Kris

routine is good...

It is Saturday morning, Tess is volunteering for Equine Assisted Transitions, Renae is taking the day off somewhere, Faith and Abbi are home with daddy. It is raining and cold, so today I will stay home, clean house and watch movies with the girls during breaks of playing time. Faith and Abbi have really been playing well together lately. I am glad to be able to stay home with them today and just hang out, I promised them I would not make them work so they agreed to hang out with me. Strange how the times have changed. Sometimes it is amazing how Faith and I are feeling the same things at the same times, this is something I have been noticing over the past few months. Pretty weird, however I am able to control mine better so it does not show the same as her. As she gets older and can communicate better I am seeing that we are a lot more alike than I ever thought. Kris

same story different occasion....

I am still having a hard time keeping my mouth shut. I made Faith mad again and caused her to have a meltdown. It started because she was not feeling right, however I made it worse when I pushed her buttons and held my ground again. I pretty much have the entire house mad at me...I may not win each battle but I am winning this one this weekend. One of these years we will have a peaceful evening around here. It is not always Faith, other nights it can be one of our other two daughters.....one day. Kris

rough rough night last night....

It sometimes amazes me the little things that set my daughter off. And when I say off the wall little things just trust me. Whether little or big, I still feel sometimes it is necessary to stand my ground on certain things. After experiencing so many meltdowns sometimes, and I may be wrong, I just really get the urge to stand my ground. It can be because of a certain look or a certain pause or expression. Last night I stood my ground and it really made Renae mad. I understand she is "locked in a prison" because she is with Faith 24/7. I understand it is exhausting with no real breaks. I would only hope that she would trust me and my perspective looking in from the outside that sometimes you just have to stand your ground and demand certain things and set up certain parameters that are just not going to be broken. Our home is her safe ground but any safe ground will have limits and out of bounds as far as I am concerned. So the little bull (me) pissed off momma cow (Renae) last night. Now the true test is to see how Faith and momma cow are this morning. I will try to explain my thinking this morning to Renae, but as anyone can relate, some people agree on one thing but in the heat of battle, or in a very high and intense stressful moment, they go back to habit. If you get another post from me then it is likely that momma cow agreed with me if only a little bit. If you do not hear from me then she probably threw the computer and put an end to my blog. Kris

April 18.....

Today we took Faith to an appointment with an orthodontist. She has not had any front teeth for over three years now. She gets so upset every time someone comes up to her and asks when she is going to grow her four teeth back. Well I think she would if she could. And no she is not seven. LOL We are looking into getting her a retainer made that has four front teeth built in. She has enough issues to deal with I just don't want her going into fifth grade with no teeth. Her teeth are far up in her gums and the surgeon does not want to bring them down until the roots develop more. She is doing good, but her outburst are getting bad sometimes. She hits and as soon as she does it a light goes off and she knows it was wrong and she gets upset because she can't take it back. We are communicating with Little Angels to see if and when we can narrow down a date to go out there. I will keep you posted. Kris

letter for faiths grant application.....

I am pasting a copy of the one page letter I wrote for the grant application for Faith's service dog. Maybe you all can give me some feedback on what you think. I am going to mail it out tomorrow. I am also going to past it on some FB pages of organizations that I am seeking assistance from. Please pass it around and maybe it will get in front of the right set of eyes. Thanks, Kris...... Being able to provide a service dog for my daughter Faith would help lay the foundation for the changes necessary for her to live the rest of her life as a productive member of our society and help her accomplish all of her dreams and goals she has aspirations to achieve. Faith suffers from early onset BiPolar and severe anxiety. She is ten years old and at this time in her life her anxiety from “not feeling good”, or even the possibility of, is so severe that she is unable to attend school. Her doctors, as well as her mother and I, feel that a service dog will help Faith gain back the ability to leave home and go back to school. At this stage in her life Faith is so scared of having panic attacks that she can hardly leave her house without either her mother or I with her. She needs us as to provide the security and assurance that someone will be there to help her when her mood disorders kick in. I currently serve in the US Army, which means that I am away from her one year out of every three, leaving her only her mother. The doctors are presently unable to proceed with any desired treatments because Faith is not able to overcome the anxiety issues. She needs something other than her mother that she can depend on to be with her twenty four hours a day and to love her unconditionally no matter how she is feeling. When Faith is “not feeling good”, or when she can tell something is not right she wants to return home as soon as possible and return to the comfort and safety of her home. She is afraid she will lose control and be remembered as that “crazy” kid if she has a meltdown or panic attack in public or at school. She has had a couple extreme and severe episodes when she was seven and before we had any idea that she was suffering from mood disorders. A service dog will help her get out of uncomfortable situations, will keep people out of her bubble, will apply pressure on her chest during melt downs to help her gain control, and will be the “best friend” she can lean on and depend on during her daily ups and downs. Being able to trust and know that she will have this dog with her at all times will open up many doors of opportunity that Faith is currently unable to go through. She will be able to go back to school, she will be able to stay the night at her grandparents house, she will be able to keep prior commitments because of her confidence with the dog when she is not feeling 100%, which is most of her day. Most importantly I think it will help her validate and explain to the public and her classmates that she does in fact have a hidden disability and she is not a “spoiled” or “misbehaving child” that needs some discipline. Mood disorders are seldom understood by those who do not live with them. This hidden disability is hard for most adults to manage and explain to people. Imagine being ten years old and trying to explain what goes on inside of her head to friends when in fact she cannot even explain to her doctors. She is tired of hearing “she looked fine when I last saw her” or “take her to the emergency room if she is not feeling good”. To be able to do the things that normal kids do like ride a bus and attend school, go out and play with friends, stay the week with her grandparents, go to birthday parties, or even spend the afternoon at a friend’s house are the little things in life my child cannot do because of her mood disorders. A service dog will give her the opportunity to experience these things that all children should enjoy. Every child deserves to be “wanted” and to feel “special”, this service dog will add another being besides her parents to shower her with these wants. It has also been told by our doctors and those that we have met that service dogs have enabled many children who suffer from mood disorders to come off of some of their medications. Over the past twelve months Faith has unsuccessfully attempted to admit herself into a psychiatric hospital twice. Her anxiety has kept her from the treatment she wants and deserves. Both hospitals said she would have to be tranquilized and restrained, which would not benefit her and would only add to her bad experiences. Thank you for your consideration in providing what we think will be a life altering friendship and relationship a service dog and provide my daughter Faith. https://www.facebook.com/FaithsMission

17 April...

It has been a good couple of days. Yesterday morning Faith went and had her blood drawn. She took her sisters Ipod and blared it so as not to think about what was going to happen and it worked. Last time she had blood drawn was when she got admitted to Rivendale and it took four of us to hold her down. We are going to start finalizing our trip to San Diego in July. It will be Faith and I only. We have daily training tasks and she will have "homework" each night. Not having her mother and sisters there will allow her to focus on the dog and their bonding. If anyone has any connections for rental cars, hotels, food, and anything else you can think of please let me know. We have to pay all of this out of pocket unless enough donations come in to cover the cost of the dog and the trip. This has not happened yet. We are at 20% of our goal. Thanks for your support and we appreciate everything you do. Kris

April 14....

It is Saturday morning and again the house is quiet and I am doing all paperwork, blogs, and research for our mission here with the Blog. We were turned down again for a personal loan to get the dog. I am working on issues, however I can't get them done fast enough. It is crazy that six years after losing a job we are still suffering the consequences. It makes me so mad that our country bailed out all these banks, yet I am trying to get a small loan, and use my payed off car as collateral and they do not want to do it. Why did we save them? So today I am filling out an application to the Assistance Dog United Campaign. Hopefully in a couple months we will be approved for a grant to help purchase this dog. It is a lot of paperwork, an application, an essay, tax returns, and monthly pay stubs but hopefully it will work. I am still meeting people daily online who are pointing me in the right direction to get help. I just wish it would happen faster. Yesterday we spent the morning trying to get Faith out of bed, yet by 10am she was feeling good. She is having problems with her "senses", meaning her touch is so sensitive it is painful to have her hands a feet or skin touch anything. I don't nor will I ever understand, but it sucks seeing her go through this stuff. Then we went to lunch and everyone sees her and thinks that there is nothing wrong with this child. Such is the life of battling Mood Disorders. Kris

thursday...

long day...Faith is doing ok...we are getting down to the final stretch. I got a call from the Ronald McDonald house in San Diego. We cannot stay there since Faith is not actually getting admitted into a hospital, but they did offer us discounted lodging coupons at local hotels. Who knows. We will keep you posted...not much but appointments today and paperwork. Kris

Hi its me faith. Today i woke up feeling ok so today was an ok day. But latley I have felt really good almost to good it starts to overwelm me but so far today was an ok day. This was Faith yesterday. She is going to start attempting to write on here every few days...I am sure it will take a while for her to open up and be able to express herself. Kris

We are getting a lot of new friends...

Every day now we are getting new friends on our Face Book page. This is exciting. I looked at the stats and out of our 74 "friends" or "likes" those people have 17,381 friends. We now have 40 people talking about it and 1465 page views this week alone. AMAZING!!! On this blog we have had a total of 4915 page views, 1038 last month alone, and 190 page views this week. I am so amazed at how this is spreading. I just hope it keeps growing until one day we can somehow get awareness to some level where these kids can get the help they need. It is so tough because they are a "hidden disease" so people do not understand. Thank you for all of your support....lets keep it going....Kris

Wish upon a hero....

Today I posted Faith's story on Wish Upon a Hero and Make a Wish foundation. They are long shots but there will be no stone left unturned. This is not going to go away once we get Faith's dog. Then I have to continue so we can get other children dogs if they qualify. Thanks again to everyone passing her story around. All it is going to take is one person reading it that can make a difference. Then it will continue snowballing into awareness and more help for these kids. We know what they need, there is just no help available to them. Kris

Wish Upon a Hero - I wish To purchase a Psychiatric Service dog for my daughter Faith.

Wish Upon a Hero - I wish To purchase a Psychiatric Service dog for my daughter Faith.

from Faith...

hi its faith i just wanted to say thank you for helping me get my service dog. I am going to start writing on this blog. I hope you all will write me back. This is from Faith. She has agreed to start participating in the blog to help share her feelings and thoughts. It will be a great way for her to express her feelings and to put a person with the name. She wants to make sure all of this will be able to help other kids like herself one day. Kris

Monday 9 April....

Today Renae and I met with a gentleman to do an assessment on Faith since she is seeing a new psychiatrist. More paperwork and telling our story again. I really should just write it down and mail it to the office each time we start at a new one. He really asked a lot of great questions which of course we answered. He agreed, just as we have wanted that Faith needs therapists to help her get through this severe anxiety she has. He is the first person to agree at least in part that Faith suffers from some sort of PTSD from the traumatic episodes she had at the school when she was ripped out of Renae's arms. Problem is we cannot find the help she needs. It is not out there. There is no place where we can get her intense outpatient therapy (IOT). Tricare does not cover it for kids. The best insurance in the world and we cannot get coverage for my daughter. Unbelievable!!!! We know what will work to help get her better and we cannot get it. This is when it gets me so angry. I am going to start getting Faith to write on the Blog to help us keep track of mood swings and other things. Kris

Happy Easter....

Today we are so lucky to have our kids and see them enjoy an Easter morning. The weather is great and I am not deployed. Faith is feeling good. She gets Sooooooooo excited on holidays. I hope everyone out there is able to have a great Sunday regardless if they celebrate Easter or not. I know not everyone gets to see their kids smiling and screaming while searching for eggs. It is times like today that I sit back and say all the tough times are worth it just to see your child smile and happy even if every morning is not like this. We must always cherish what we have. Especially when you have a great friend like James, I know he loves this Blog so I wanted to throw this out to him. Happy Easter everyone!! Kris

Good Morning....

It is Saturday morning and everyone is asleep. Renae was sick last night, got what Faith had. So me and the girls spent the evening watching movies. Faith is feeling good, and she and I cooked dinner last night. She is so excited about cooking Easter dinner. We were able to get her in with her old psychiatrist on Friday. So we are starting over and going to try and get her moods stabilized. Hopefully it goes well. I think the toll of the last two weeks is what breaks Renae down and allows her to get sick so easy. There is no way for a mother not to coddle a child when they are hurting, but there is also no way they can get rest. Kids just don't seem to want their father when they are hurting, mother nature I guess. Kris

Blogs 101 - New York Times

Blogs 101 - New York Times


cool article on blogs...feel free to add links to your favorite ones or ones that can provide insight or help. Kris

Bad night...

Faith has had a bad run of luck the past week. She was up since midnight last night throwing up. I was able to get her an appointment with her old psychiatrist this Friday, this is one bit of good news I guess. We are still awaiting the results if her IEP, and we are still working on getting all the final documents and doctors letters required to get her enrolled in the ECHO program. This will allow us to have therapists come to the house and help her with a lot of the issues she is having. Renae and I have been talking about the biggest issue we see right now with children with mood disorders. Faith is unable physically to be admitted into an inpatient psychiatric hospital, but this is the only way she can see a new psychiatrist without a three month wait. This seems ridiculous but it is true. There is such a shortage of psychiatrist and that is our main battle. Finding a good one that will not merely keep mixing cocktails of medicine until our child is a walking, yet behaving, zombie. But if we were to force her into a psychiatric hospital she would have a new doctor within a day. Go figure. Hope everyone has a good Thursday. Kris

No luck...

They went to the hospital last night and were not able to do anything. Same old story, there is no way Faith can do an inpatient, they do not offer outpatient, and they have no child psychiatrist they can recommend. Here we are again, no child psychiatrist in the area right now. At least we have a great psychologist that will be with us through all of this, however Faith is struggling and so is Renae. We will see how it goes, now Faith is stressing that she HAS to feel better before she gets her dog. Why she is stressing over this I can't understand, nor will I ever. Kris

So sorry....

today Faith had her two teeth pulled...the anxiety started last night which ran into today. I came home and she is on the floor at Renae's feet begging her to take her to the hospital...she is hurting and the pain in her head is driving her crazy. Renae just drove her to a psychiatric hospital, we both know she will not be able to get admitted, even though she wants to more than anything. The worst part is we cannot find a child psychiatrist anywhere???? This sucks....Kris

It's not fair.....

I know every parent out there hears this at least once a day. It is just one of those things we get tired of hearing. Well things do get more complicated when you have a special needs child or one with a disability. Yesterday I heard, "you never punish her just because she has a disability". Well this is not true but I guess looking back it actually has some merit to it. It is not that we don't discipline, we just try to avoid meltdowns. I have been trying my hardest lately to be evenly firm with the girls, however the last few months have really gotten to me. I did not realize how much bickering girls do. I can honestly say that my girls may get along for five or ten minutes a day. All day yesterday I was trying to get away from them and they would literally follow me inside, outside, to the neighbors, and even across the street. I now have a following, but not the type I want. I am going to make sure that I am more consistent with all three of them, after all they are going to wine, complain, and cry either way right? Kris