Bringing Grace home!!!

I have not shared our story with very many people, and I'm not sure if it's because by nature I am a pretty private person, or have I bought into the stigma of mental health??

We have been living a nightmare for the past 8 months. My 14 year old daughter was diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa Restricting type in November. When diagnosed she was 5’2, weighing 79lbs. She was at that point in starvation mode, heart rate was about 46, and most of her other vitals were extremely concerning. This started our journey of fighting this very intrusive and destructive monster who entered our lives uninvited.

To date my baby girl has probably been home about 2 1/2 weeks bouncing between our local hospital, a local eating disorder facility, a 5 week stay at a residential facility in North Carolina and now she has been in Denver for about a month.

We have dealt with total food refusal, tube feedings and only drinking high calorie supplements. The hardest part about this disease is that you can support, encourage and show your unconditional love, but you can't MAKE them better. You can only hope and pray that their voice becomes louder than the eating disorder and has the strength to fight back!

During Grace’s stay in NC, I relocated with her. Unfortunately she was discharged from that program because she didn’t make the progress that they expected her to.

I soon became very aware that the mental health system is very broken! They don't want to deal with the tough cases, and if your child does not progress on their timeline they can and do discharge them from the program(s).

Grace has worked so hard and fought her fears while in the program in Denver that she is ready to step down to the lowest level of care. I will be relocating to Denver for a month so that she can keep her same treatment team through this very important step of treatment.

While writing this and putting Grace's story out there I want to bring light to stresses that our children are facing every day.

Grace's story all began with the pandemic, isolation, remote schooling, loss of connections. The fear of re-entering the school system after 2 years of home learning, social media, the diet culture (don't get me started on that) and just the basic need of being accepted!

Pay attention to your kids, if you see mood changes don't chalk it up to "oh they're teenagers", if something doesn't feel / look right, INVESTIGATE! Don't be afraid to ask those tough questions - over and over again if necessary. Make sure that your babies are supported and have a safe place to land if they need to talk. I thought that my girl had this, a very tight knit, caring, loving family who dealt with issues as a team...but ultimately she felt she had let us down and was afraid to admit what was going on. Make sure your kids know that they can come to you with ANYTHING, with no judgement. You don't want to have to deal with the guilt of "why didn't I notice this sooner"...

As hard as this next part is… I don’t think anyone can prepare financially for this type of medical emergency. We have seen charges to our insurance company upwards of $750,000 and tens of thousands that are not covered by insurance. The money that has been paid upfront to facilities to even accept her, invoices received while at the facility and after discharge has all of our credit cards maxed and savings depleted.

We have had a great support system and they have provided both emotional and financial support and I am forever grateful for what they have done! However, I am reaching out to you, my community of friends for support as well, to hopefully help lighten the burden and make this transition for Grace as smooth as possible.

Thank you so much for letting my share our story!