Rick and Ashley, had just left the hospital after spending a very long day with Josiah.  Though it was my turn to stay the night, the harrowing experience of being attacked by my own son was enough to scare me away.  I called Rick.  I texted Ashley.  Both were ready and willing to turn around and drive back to the hospital.  What an amazing support team.

Ashley called, insisting Rick needed to sleep since he had to go to work the next morning.  She assured me she felt perfectly safe spending the night with Josiah.  She has experience working with much older, much stronger, much more challenging kids than Josiah.  I was hugely relieved.

I hung up from Ashley and made my way back to Josiah’s hospital room.  I peered in and saw 3 nurses standing a safe distance away, all around his bed.  I was afraid to enter the room.  A sedative was brought in to calm Josiah who was bouncing joyfully on his knees on the bed.

Here’s what I learned about sedatives and Josiah.  They don’t always work.  At least not like they are supposed to.  It takes 3-4 people to hold him down to inject his leg or arm.  A couple of times Josiah pulled his arm free and jerked the syringe right out of the nurse’s arm as it was penetrating his skin.  He is so strong. I was told the drug they were giving him would kick in and he’d fall asleep quickly.  Most often, he would need a 2nd sedative and we’d have to wait for hours before he would fall asleep.

Here’s Josiah 2.5 hours after having Benadryl and an injection of a ‘strong’ sedative. It was 10:45 at night. These were NOT taken the night he attacked me, but are meant to illustrate how energetic this boy is and how his body continues to remain active even after ‘drugged’ to calm down. Clearly sedatives do not work for Josiah as well as they should.  Does that mean the other medications he is on aren’t working as well as they should either?  Does Josiah’s body metabolize medications differently than it should?  I would say unequivocally YES.

While Josiah was in the hospital they ran every test possible, including a CT scan of his brain, x-rays of his chest and sinuses, a urine test and blood work.  Everything came out ‘normal’ so as a last resort, he was whisked off to the operating room. Under anesthesia they removed impacted wax from his teeny tiny ears canals. Perhaps it was wax embedded deep within his ear canals causing intense pain, they suggested.

As his mom, who has no medical degree, no advanced training of any kind in this area, who knows her son better than just about anyone else, I respectfully disagreed impacted wax would cause such behavioral changes with Josiah.  The wax was removed anyway. Josiah’s behavior did not drastically improve.  The hospital consulted with us.  They were no longer able to keep Josiah there once all the tests were run.  They took him off of the heavy sedatives he was receiving and gave us 24 hours.  They plan was to observe him with only the medications he was receiving at home to see if the situation improved.  It did not.

A social worker from the hospital had been working around the clock to find a suitable placement for Josiah, a place that would help manage behaviors so he could eventually return home and back to school. Our insurance company said they would pay for many of the psychiatric hospitals in the area.  The psychiatric hospitals however said Josiah didn’t qualify for admission.There was one hospital left.  They basically said, Josiah has Down Syndrome, Autism, ADHD, erratic, aggressive and self injurious behaviors? Bring him on.  We can handle that.  Our insurance company said no.

After 8 days of medical tests and observations, with no answers to help us FIX our son,  the plan was to send Josiah home.