Diego Appt

Yesterday when I got back to my desk from lunch I noticed a missed call, the number was familiar. I quickly called and a friendly voice answered, "Elementary School, can I help you?"

Diego's school was calling, odd, the school year is just over and we recently were issued a paper that he is needing to re-enroll into the school, maybe that's the reason. I never thought that would cause a phone call. I introduced myself and she put me on hold. When she came back to the line she asked when I could come in to meet with Mr L.

Knowing that my husband was home I told her that he could make it in the following morning, I scheduled it for 10AM and called the hubster, no answer...called him and texted him about ten times before giving up, wondering if the dog finally swallowed the phone. He called me back and agreed to the time, 10 AM was fine. I asked if he was ok, sick, mad, dying, basically in my own language asking him why he wouldn't pick up the damn phone, apparently sleeping beauty was resting and missed the calls. No more to say on that.

I called the school back and rescheduled, wondering why in the world they wanted to schedule an appointment in the first place.

Not five minutes went by and Ms Secretary called me back telling me it was very important that I attend also. I asked her what the meeting was about, was placed back on hold and left to wonder. I remebered screaming at him for helping mike d flood the bathroom. Could he have told them that I was possessed by a demon, I surely remember the look on his face when I asked him "How in the world can you sit there and allow Mike to water the bathroom like a garden, all I did was grab your pjs, how did this happen?" Obviously in a more ogre-ish tone. And his poor darling face retracted, leaving his eyeballs in place and widening with each yelped syllable, and 4 chins were visible from not being able to bring his face any further into the back of his head, I had the poor thing cornered. I imagine I looked like a Linda Blair stunt double, causing the angel some mommy dearest nightmares. Oh lord, they would surely haul my ass to jail over the vile threat to an innocent.

"We need to go over some results with you, Mr L said it would be best if both parents attended." She basically couldn't tell me any details. What results was she talking about. I asked her to elaborate more on the testing and results and she basically just said that he would go over everything the following day.

(History-We had a major move of house, schools, location, everything about a year ago, Diego has left his dear friends and to this day asks to move back, causing a rip in my heart and a tear in my eye. He has no friends in this new neighborhood, and frankly, would get run over by a vibrating car bouncing along the street in this new area. They speed by and would never hear or see him playing in the street, the cars just hop scotch on by the house in bright flourescent colors, like shooting stars with epilepsy)

I manage to get the full name of the gentleman and begin to dig into this weird call. The next call I make is to my sister, seeing that she can google and I can't do that or email. Nina takes the info and calls me back (thank god I didn't call Mara, I would have put her into an anxiety coma with my jitters going full gear)

Nina calls me back, Mr L is the school psychologist, fear and dread immediately kick in. She has no information to give me, I ask if one of the counselors (she works in a psych office) can see him in the event of an emergency (see jumping to conclusions)

Now mind you, I have no idea what they may want to tell me, nor what kind of news they have. All I know at this point is that Diego needs both parents to see the school psychologist and they are revealing test results with no other information or details at all. I quickly go into Bita (my alter ego, like slim shady but gothy and female) and my eyes swell up with tears, my craziness has been handed down, my angel is upset and never told me anything about anything. I get up from my desk and call the hubster, we can't figure out what is going on.

My mind is racing, wondering how bad it's been for him, the move was really tough.

That night (last night) I blogged busted lip to get my mind off the subject. I hope it was an enjoyable read, I enjoyed writing it. I had a few shots of rum, thought of all the sorrow I put him through and went to bed close to two AM completely guilt ridden.

We wake up, I have coffee and dress like a mom for the meeting. How could I have missed this, how did I not see the changes, where were the red flags? We talk about all the possibilities on the short drive, get out and have a seat in the office. We wait for Mr L, hand in hand, worried sick about the horrible news. To think my 8 yr old has been seeing a school psychiatrist and I never knew it? I asked the secretary about how the test came about and she said that we signed papers for evaluations. When school starts there are so many papers to sign that you think you are merging a corporation and sometimes aren't sure about what you are signing. And I honestly probably just scribbled away wanting to be done. He did need speech therapy for his lisp, his tingers were a treasured memory and now he has no problems with fingers and other words that were once cute synonyms for his toddler years.

Mr L comes up and lets us into his office. There is a file the size of a phonebook on his desk and his hands were crossed on the file. We shook hands and he continues. My eyes focused on the file.

"Diego is a very special child. He obviously had some difficulty in the beginning of the year, his adjusting has been better and he is fully cooperative. When I talk to him, his smile is just huge, such a change from the little boy who once was struggling to fit in."

I sit and listen about how wonderful my child is, (I know this, please get to the part where we get a diagnosis) he mentions the results and how in a second we will go over them. I continue to watch the file in terror, how much time were we going to spend here, was I going to have to admit him to Memorial after the appointment, I began to make a mental note of pajamas, DS, and charger, etc.

He looks up and says, "I wanted to start by asking how the doctor's visits were going?" Doctor's visits, my eyebrows go into "The Rock" mode and I look over to my husband, also puzzled. I know that Mike had tons of appointments in the past with the cancer issue and I know that back then it completely consumed our lives, but I never imagined it affected Diego, we tried to shun him from that until the results (see misdiagnosis) were confirmed. But that was soo soo long ago. How did this still linger, I thought this part of our lives was behind us? Maybe Diego is just worried, or maybe he is thinking of the hospitalization 6 months ago. I look up and the psychologist takes note (finally) that we are clueless. My hubs explains that we don't know what doctor he is talking about, none of us on the same page. He looks at us and asks what the teachers' name is, we confirm it, and then he opens up the mega file. I look over with my bionic eyes (thank you lasik) and realize, they have the wrong Diego. I look over to the hubs "Babe, wrong D, not our D." I whisper because I am not sure how to tell Sigmund Freud about their mistake. In my unique reaction, I hold my head back and begin to laugh hysterically. My husband looks like he is about to explode, I couldn't hold it in. I just listened to the apology over and over, and understand that he didn't set the appointment. Not all his fault. He doesn't go more into detail about the poor child whose poor parents were about to go through a 24 hour waiting game. I pray for them in this time of sorrow, I couldn't imagine actually having this happen, I mean I was ready to admit him to the psych ward, white suit and all.

Thankfully, we went to the office picked up the papers for the enrollment and saved the visit, at least we accomplished something. My husband was fit to be tied, absolutely enraged that they could make such mistake and waste a perfect morning, how dare they disturb his sleeping time. So our Diego is fine, and another Diego is in need of some sort of therapy, I think, he never really got that far. I hope that Sigmund Freud can help him through this turbulent time, and I also hope they call Dora and Boots when they go to make the call to the family, surely being the little explorer she is, she will choose the right contact information, and the right folder, grab your backpack, lets go, you can find the way. What a morning, what an ending, another day in the life of Bita.