Update From the Wolf Den: State of Alaska Showdown

For the past month, Yukon and I have been confronted with requests for information from the State of Alaska Department of Health and Human Services regarding our son. It seems that the State, benefactors of Wolf's Utah experience, are beginning to inquire as to the appropriateness of his treatment and progress (or lack thereof) in their review and subsequent "discharge planning".

While we are indeed eternally grateful to the State for their willingness to provide funds to care for children like ours if such cannot be provided in-house, we are not always thrilled with the line of questioning that appears periodically.

Up until this point I have been reluctant to bring the State of Alaska into my blog and brain, preferring instead to walk the yellow brick road in a state of implied ignorance until such time as my parental facts are required. I have a background in long term care and Medicaid through my time in Washington State assisted living; I know how long it takes for the wheels of anything state-related to grind forward, and I also know sometimes it is better to wait for them to come to me.

In this case the latter is proving more effective. Our son is a conundrum, an anomoly, an "interesting case" to those who push the paper around and call the shots. He also happens to be a living, breathing person with as much potential as any other teenager, and I, along with my Team (Yukon and Therapist B., among others) are not willing to make many concessions for the sake of the State. Sorry. As in, Over My Dead Body sorry.

I will expand on reasons for all of the above later; it is a volume of information that requires much explanation, but suffice it to say I am climbing a mountain made from paper and phone calls, and need extra-clingy crampons and an ice axe.

It is interesting to note that for my fifteen years of being on the "other side" of a residential facility, making daily decisions and concessions and judgements without knowing the inner workings of my residents, not really; I now find myself in that seat fighting for the future of my own loved one.

Full circle.