Drained

Drained. Spent. Exhausted. Weary. Sad. Clear. Firm. Level-headed. Heartbroken. Anxious. Worried. Reflective. Sad. Hopeful.

But mostly, just drained.

In the morning I drive to go get Radish at Dad's Rehab program where he has been since Sunday -staying for a visit. We'll come back here. Hang out, The Other Mother will come home, we'll have lunch, go through his scrapbook, remind him how far he has come, how close he is to his goal of living with Dad, how his words and behaviors tell us he is ready for he next step: to leave our home and be with bio Dad, how much fun we have had, how much we will miss him. We'll try to keep it together.

In the afternoon a social worker will come get him and bring him to his new placement where he'll stay until he moves in with Dad in September. Radish is going to QUEST : a fairly structured therapeutic residential group program in a nearby city. It is a large New England style house in a regular neighborhood, in walking distance to downtown.

QUEST is the same program where Bucksquat was living before he moved in with us. They did wonders for Bucksquat in terms of stabilizing his behaviors. Bucksqaut has his own impressive history with hospitalizations and acute residential treatment programs and QUEST really helped him pull it together and avoid the hospitals. Their structure and support truly helped him gain self control and manage his own behaviors.

I am soooo releived knowing that Radish is going to QUEST - The staff are great. The residential/group living is comfortable for Radish - it is familiar ground for him having been hospitalized or in resiential programs the past 5 years. I was looking at his placement history as I pulled together his files, Our home is the first regular foster home he has been to.

You and I might cringe at all the rules and routines, steps, priveleges and point systems- but for Radish this is familiar turf. He knows what to do and what to expect. That helps explain why he is so comfortable at his bio-Dad's Drug Rehab Program- communal kitchen - communal bath - set times for laundry - assigned chores and meetings...all comfortable, and familiar.

Living in a family is what has been foreign.