The meeting went better than great; it went extremely, amazingly fantastic. I am spending the day recouping from the intense outflow of 'whew, ok, now things seem to be going in a more positive, constructive, logical way...'

I don't think there's a soul that was at that meeting that isn't feeling as mentally drained as I am. There are still a lot of things to be sorted out, but at the very least the situation and facts have spoken for themselves and it is now very clear that a more definitive and clinical path will be taken.

:insert angry cuss word here: !!!!!! Six pounds of paperwork between 1998 and now to get here... but we are finally almost here, and at least now it's heading in the right direction rather than the limbo of indecision and the politics of it all. There's still a little bit of limbo to wade through, but the waters feel more tolerable and warm. The facts will do that... bring clarity to an issue, make it feel more manageable.

I'm doing what I do best to recoup... I'm cleaning. Like a goofball... great tunes on softly, Butterfly Boucher and Sheryl Crow and Jane's Addiction, light blue clothes, doors open so I can hear those leaves in the windy gusts and smell of autumn as it casually strolls around in the air.

Nikki conned ten bucks off me, I'd given her 20 on Saturday... I asked her who her dealer was inside the joint, and we laughed. : ) Granted, the laughs we had were strewn in-between a lot of tears over this, but she's a strong, determined young woman and I am so very proud of her for keeping her goals clear and her sense of humor intact.

Still a long road to go... next week I plan to send copies of the documents that show errors in judgment and professional protocol to the many supervisors of the many cacaheads involved in this obnoxious chain of events that led to so many wrong choices by so many various agencies, both insurance-wise and mental health wise. I alerted everyone at the meeting of this, which I believe is at least half the reason things went as good as they did. The other half of the reason is that the facts were indisputable. Try as they would to fumble around direct questions, when asked outright about things like diagnosis and behavior/thought concerns, it became very clear that the system is not working and they are no closer to anything. It's all been nothing but a risky guessing game and they absolutely lost at the expense of Nikki's emotional stability, who clearly let everyone know she does not know what is happening or how to stop it/control it.

Most parents are, I can relate, so mentally drained I can imagine most will submit to the lunacy of the current field of mental health. I refused and I refuse to allow it, and I'm not the first, thank gosh, and will be teaming up with those groups when all of this is over. And it won't be over until she is on a positive path to keeping control of this, over and above herself, undisrupted and empowered. I know she can do it. I hope she knows she can do it. The look in her eyes yesterday when she laughed with me insists that she does know she can do this.

Much as I never thought I'd feel this positive again about this situation, I can say without hesitation that I do feel very positive about it now. Still a piece of me feels nervous and unsure about how sincere the words were, as the only people writing anything down were the only people in the room who haven't said one thing and then said another in the company of others, so it still feels like there is conflict between a few of the agencies. One agency asked another 'can we get that in writing' in a very offensive tone, a definite sign of internal conflict, which I am sick and tired of dealing with as it is always at Nikki's expense and as a mother it enrages me that a system at the level we are at now still seems to be run just as shoddily as a free clinic in some 3rd world country. In fact, I'd say a free clinic in some 3rd world country probably has better interpersonal behaviors and a more caring, honest staff than some of the flapjacks I've met over the years. I'm all for bottom line of profit and keeping the stats good, but not at the expense of the agency's mission, and when you're in the mission of helping mental health patients, your first priority should be the patients themselves, then the financial aspects, because even the bottom line of profit and statistics will sink drastically if you let a patient downward spiral into their mental health issues.

It's more logical, profit-oriented and pro-statistic to do everything you can to prevent what you can and assist in every way possible to see to it the result is the one that works in favor of the patient AND the business/system. Letting Nikki down over and over again and expecting our family to help her with this is like expecting a family to treat their own burn victim with no experience or idea how to do it. We thought love and caring were capable of helping see her through this, and for many years it made a nice, comforting place for Nikki to land after each episode, but it has not helped at all with a problem that needs more medical attention than it has received. Just as you can not love away a burn victim's infected wounds and medical treatment is needed with that, same thing with mental health... it's gotta be a combo of both. And now the system has let it go for so long that more medical treatment is needed than would have been if this had been correctly diagnosed years and years ago. Like cancer, the earlier the diagnosis is made, the easier it is to treat, and the statistics go up in favor of recovery the sooner it is known what is wrong.

Back to housecleaning with me... socked-foot wooden-floor shuffling around and Windex, Murphy's oil soap and dust rags. A special hello to my buddy Randy, in Nebraska. Thank you for making me laugh and chuckle so much throughout this... you seriously kept my head on straight here. Kenny thanks you, too... he said he likes the idea of all of us meeting in Nebraska, but he does not approve of the corn cob idea as his Crohn's disease bans him from corn. :D