Finally!

We had our first appointment with Joseph's new psychiatrist today. We were really struggling to see eye-to-eye with his previous psychiatrist. Every time we questioned something he was doing or recommending he would hold up a medical journal and tell us that he has "read all of these." I guess that is impressive and supposed to mean something to us. Well it was neither impressive nor reassuring. If he did not hold up his reading material, he would ignore us or get defensive. Not the best atmosphere for healing as you can imagine. Anyway we have been trying to get a new psychiatrists for months. This has been a frustrating and fruitless process. Apparently psychiatrists specializing in adolescence is rare and therefore hard to find and of course our insurance only covers a handful. Anyway to make a very long story short we were finally able to find a child psychiatrist that accepted our insurance and that was able to see us in a reasonable amount of time. Enter new psychiatrist...

From the time we walked into the building I felt the difference in this office. The decor was nice, the staff was friendly and there was no weird art on the walls for sale created by the psychiatrists wife/receptionist (I am not kidding). After filling out the necessary paper work we were off tho see the doctor.

We walked into his office and were greeted with a smile, a hand shake and eye-contact, all at the same time. We are off to a wonderful start. He then asked if we used email...oh I am really starting to like this man, and gave us his email address! The eye-contact lasts throughout the whole visit. His manner is pleasant and attentive. He talks to all of us and interacts in a normal humanly fashion. Now the best part, I know I didn't think it could get better either; he actually listened to what we had to say about our own son and what we were concerned about! He agreed with most of what were saying and also wanted to simplify Joseph's meds which we felt were getting out of hand. Then he did the most amazing thing, he actually typed up what we talked about, what we needed to be doing, and the med changes we talked about....and gave us a copy! When we left he was again pleasant and told us we could email him anytime with questions or concerns. WOW!

Ben and I left in a bit of shock and disbelief. The many months of frustration with our old doctor left us sad and upset with Josephs care. The many months of searching for a new doctor left us mad and cynical. In one visit our new psychiatrist erased many of those feelings (don't get me wrong I still think that our old doctor is a quack and probably shouldn't be seeing patients). I am so grateful that we found a new doctor and that he is all the things that our old doctor was not. I think this is someone we can trust as well as someone who can really help Joseph! It is so nice to come away from an appointment feeling hope rather than despair!