Update on Daughter and Opinion poll

Okay, here’s the deal.  I got the following email yesterday from my daughter’s mom (yes, my ex), and that’s followed by the email I got later from my daughter.  Below those 2 emails are my responses.  I know this is a lot to read, but opinions on whether I’m over-reacting or not would be appreciated.  Or suggestions for a course of action.

thanks

Email from my daughter’s mom:

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Hi,

K just called and she’s fine now and made it to all her classes but she had a rough day.  She didn’t sleep well at all last night and woke up about every 45 minutes even though she did take a sleeping pill.  She said she had restless legs.  She was kind of out of it this morning  – overslept and did not eat breakfast.  She was very tired and laid down after her 9am class and still did not eat.  Lasted through most of her 11am class but passed out while sitting down near the end of class – while she was responding after being called on.  Had the blurred vision and confusion.  She was completely out for some amount of time.  Had shaking, chills, very rapid heart rate.  The teacher panicked and someone called 911 and the ambulance took her to the ER.  She said they tested her glucose level 3 times.  It was 54 and they gave her orange juice and she was better.  She said that she refused treatment and signed the waiver and they let her go.  She went to 2:30 class and did okay the rest of the day.  She is still very tired.

I asked K to please be very careful about eating regularly and maybe carrying OJ along with her.  I will pass the information along to Dr. Bergamini and try to set the appointments with Drs B and B2 for October 2nd.

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My response to my ex

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Hi,
I am getting appalled at K’s lack of self care.  Not getting enough exercise, so she’s got restless legs.  Doesn’t bother to eat the stuff she’s got in the room and goes off on an empty stomach, which spirals down thru the rest of the day until she ends up in the ER.

At her level of non-self-care, she is becoming a burden and distraction on the rest of the university, and causing the hospital to waste resources on her and wasting insurance money.  I am about ready to tell her that if she doesn’t take self-care more seriously, I will pull her out of school and put her in some adult day care until she can learn to be on her own successfully without being a burden and constant imposition on the rest of her community. It is not fair that we do this to the rest of the university folks.  People go to university to either teach or learn, not play nursemaid to students who aren’t even old enough to take care of themselves. 

Asked K to be careful?  No, I demand it, and there will be consequences to her failing to do so.  She does not seem to understand that the rest of the world is not here to take care of her when she fucks up. 

I would not be in favor of another trip for more doctors appointments, when it’s becoming clear that it’s a lack of self-care that is underlying all these problems.  I’m sure your husband understands that there isn’t much any doctor could do if a diabetic refuses to eat properly and take their insulin. 

She needs to learn how to do some mild exercises in her room before bed to stretch out muscles and get them ready for bed. I have the same problem, and can often be found on the stairway stretching my calves so they’ll relax for bed.  She needs to learn to have stuff in her room she can consume quickly – cases of little bottles of OJ, snack bars,

To summarize:  I am not in favor of more doctors appointments at this time.  I am willing to order and have shipped to her cases of OJ and snack bars, on the condition that if this crap happens more than once or twice more, we will withdraw her for the semester and put her in adult day care (or maybe full time adult care) where she can learn to cope with life without imposing on university life.  JMU did not sign up to be a nursing facility and it is unfair of K to try to make them be one, and unfair of us to let it go on.  Furthermore, I still believe she needs intensive therapy – anyone who shows such a rampant history of ignoring self-care has some serious shit going on – like not wanting to grow up and have responsibility for oneself, and doing anything she can to get attention and care from others.

Doctors cannot help her have more care for herself.  She’s gotten used to everyone taking care of her, and that has got to stop.  We should not be responding to her lack of self-care with sympathy at all, it’s almost equivalent to someone being a cutter.

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Oh, btw, this exchange was last nite, and I’ve gotten no response from exwife yet.

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Email from daughter K

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Hi!

Well, yesterday I might have said it was helping. Now I’m not so sure.
 

Last night I couldn’t sleep for shit. Took the Trazodone at 11, had trouble getting to sleep, and woke up almost constantly after that. Consequently I slept in and didn’t eat quite as much as usual for breakfast. Went to my 9AM, felt like crap, which is normal. Meant to get a bagel after that, but dozed for longer than I meant to. Went to the 11:15, still feeling like crap, needing help to walk, and made it almost to the end before my vision started blurring and I passed out at my desk. Incidentally, the prof had just called on me and I mangled a conjugation probably worse than I ever have before in my life. "J’ai mangeait" when probably all I needed was the past participle. They measured my heart rate at 120 and my blood sugar at 54, so that’s the first time a blood test has been not-peachy since the mysterious elevate

d liver enzyme last spring.

Anyway, I woke up the rest of the way just in time to refuse care, and got a free cup of orange juice and the rest of my day back. Blood sugar was up to 90 something after the juice. History this afternoon was uneventful. I took all the right meds this morning (the regular, two florinef, one thermotab) and more thermotabs roughly every two hours after that. It said 5-10 times a day on the bottle.
J found a study linking hypoglycemia to unprovoked seizures in children. I seem to match a few symptoms for the hypoglycemia, at any rate. Not sure where the vertigo fits quite in, though.

love, K

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note:  trazadone is an anti-depressant they gave her to supposedly help her sleep.  Note how well she responded, physically, after some OJ.  Same thing happend week before last.

 

My response to daughter, K

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Hey.
I’m happy you’re back now.  I’m always sad to hear you had another incident and trip to the ER.  I know it’s not how you want to live your life.

The vertigo fits in with the low blood sugar.  Yes, you can get woozy from not eating. It’s not like you have tons of caloric reserves hanging around your middle that your body can metabolize.

From what you describe, it sounds to me like the whole episode was precipitated by insufficient nutrition. I have similar problems with restless legs – that’s solved by exercise, not sitting around.  Doing toe lifts, leg stretches, any kind of calesthenics in your room will help.  I often end up getting up out of bed to do toe lifts to help my legs relax at nite.  You can do something about these problems, instead of letting them run your life. 

You need to take better care of yourself. Get a case of little bottles of orange juice and have one in the morning.  Boxes of breakfast bars.  Carry them with you always. Always.  If you need help getting these things purchased and to your room, ask.  Doing nothing and getting worse is not an option for you.

In re-reading your note, I find very little sign that you’re taking any effort to find solutions on your own to these problems.  You can do something about restless leg (without medication, which would be a very bad idea in my opinion), you can do something about eating.  Yet you’re not.  You seem to let these problems persist through inaction, and I’m not sure why.

You have to pay more attention to self-care.  If you keep falling apart, the university will be forced to ask you to withdraw – you can’t expect everyone else to be always concerned with taking care of you – they’re there to teach and learn, and not take care of ill students.  It would be inconsiderate of all of us to keep you there if these episodes continue – unfair to your classmates, dorm-mates, friends, teachers, cafeteria staff – all of them.

I told Mom that I am not in favor of you making another trip up for more doctors appointments right now.  Not when it’s obvious it was low blood sugar as a result of lack of self-care.  The doctors can’t help you with that, and you’re wasting your time and theirs.

I wish you weren’t feeling bad so often, and I also wish you were showing more reliability in taking care of yourself.  Stretch, do toe lifts do anything at nite to stretch muscles.  Jog in place. do pushups, situps.  Stretch your legs, touch your toes. anything, everything.  You need the sleep, and exercise is what you need now to help you sleep, not more drugs.  And you need food, not more meds, to get thru the day and stay out of the ER. 

If you find it impossible to maintain self-care, then I don’t know what options we have except to withdraw you from school.  I don’t think it’s fair to the school, the hospital, or your fellow students to have you there and disrupting college life this much.  Not to mention that the continued episodes show you need to do something else to learn self-care — I’m not sure what, and apparently Mom and I have failed somehow to get you to a self-sufficient level.

If this sounds harsh, well, it probably is compared to previous discussions where we tried to pamper you. I think we’ve coddled  you too much, and as a result, this situation is not really getting better. I think we’ve failed you in not kicking you in the ass and saying "get your act in gear and tough it out". 

I do love you, and I do want to know how you’re doing.  And I would really love to see more accountability on your part.  Read your own note – there’s no implications there of what mistakes you made, or what you could’ve done different, or what you have decided to do differently in the future.  You need to be more in charge of your own life. 

Love,
Dad

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I’m running out of patience or ideas on how to approach this whole situation.  The ex feels like all K needs is the right pill and she’ll be right as rain again, and I’m afraid that K has adopted this same viewpoint.  It’s like "none of this is my fault – I have no control – I have no responsibility" mindset.  It’s driving me crazy.

 

Even my son, K’s brother has said that he would not blame me and Sweety at all if we told her to hit the road and she’s on her own.  Pretty amazing when your own brother thinks it’s time for sink or swim.

 

Sigh.

If you got this far, wow, you are a dedicated friend, and I thank you.  If you got this far by skipping, harumph – no, really, I understand that was a lot to read.

thanks

Jude