I am supposed to be doing my hair (forget the makeup - its too hot) and heading out the door to drive 2 hours where my son is. I have been doing this drive at least twice a week (except when A is able to go but he works so I have taken this on) to bring our 11 year old son home on weekends while he is in a residential treatment centre. It is an awesome unit that he is on at a treatment centre that I wholeheartedly endorse. We have been receiving services from this place since C was 7 years old.

Usually I find a way to enjoy my drive - books on CD to listen to, music I LOVE on my MP3 player plugged into my van and at top volume, sometimes I just drive and think - relishing in the "me" time. But this is all losing its allure. I am tired. I am anxious to start a new chapter in our lives. I am also terrified beyond belief.

Our son is scheduled to be discharged August 13th.

I am not terrified of him. He has done wonderfully while away. We have watched him from afar regain his self esteem, begin to settle, blossom back in to the boy we know him to be. He has worked hard and some days have been harder than others. But he deserves so much to be home as soon as possible. No I am not terrified of him, I am terrified FOR him. And for me.

There - I said it. I am sooooo scared that after he comes home things will begin to fall apart. That he and I will spiral into that horrible horrible place that we were just a few months ago. I have good reason to fear this - we experienced it in April of this year after he went to residential on a crisis bed for a month. By the end of the month everyone on his treatment team was singing about how well he was doing and they couldn't believe how much he had improved. I was so happy to hear that. I had wanted so much to believe that what he had experienced was some sort of "blip" that would never again be repeated. (No one told me that - I had just wanted to believe it).

1 week after he came home he began raging. He began getting these "big ideas" and wanting, no NEEDING, to do strange things at all hours of the day. He slipped out of our reality and into his own. He started running from school again and he was only there for an hour. He began to speak of wanting to harm himself and he couldn't sit still and do anything. He was a whirling dervish and I went along for the ride. The more out of control he got, the more desperate and out of control we got, which then fueled his anxiety as he sensed we were no longer in control. It became a huge, horrible mess.

This time, the team, feel we have a better transition plan in place. I'm not so sure. I'm not convinced and it doesn't feel right (the place he is now FELT RIGHT no matter how hard it was to leave him there). Somehow I just don't get the same vibe from our local treatment centre he's scheduled to attend every weekday once he comes home. I try to tell myself to give them a chance and the truth is we have no other option at this time.

But today I procrastinate leaving and driving the two hours because today I meet with the doctors following an email I sent to our case manager. I wasn't upset but I wasn't happy. The team decided I obviously need more of my questions answered prior to a big discharge planning meeting we are having on Monday. So they cleared their schedules for this afternoon and I got the call yesterday offering for them to meet with me prior to my picking up C today. Its what I wanted and yet now I find myself stressing and trying to make sense of the jumbled thoughts and emotions i have going on so that I can ask clear and direct questions during our meeting.

As I am driving I will repeat this mantra ""I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and Doggone It - I can ask the right questions!" Well, that and "coffee, must have coffee"