Carmen called me from the hospital this morning at around 9AM and left a voice mail message. She said that Carrie’s seizures had been really bad and that the medication was hard on her stomach. She said the doctors wanted to keep her in the hospital for a while and try several medications. She indicated that they may be in the hospital at least a week, if not more.
Carmen called again while I was in my 2PM class and left another voice mail message. This time she said that the doctors had sent her and Carrie home. They had decided not to try any more medications in the hospital. In her words, “The doctors said to just let Carrie take the medicine at home.”
I called Carmen at about 4:30PM when I got out of class. She told me all sorts of horrible things: Carrie would never walk, they have given up on the idea of leg braces, she is forgetting what she has learned so far, she may not be able to retain anything that she ever learns, they will have to fit her for a wheelchair that will grow and change with her, she may soon need a feeding tube because her digestive muscles aren’t working right, when she eats, food has a tendency to go down into her lungs instead of her esophagus, she is having 10-15 seizures a day, a combination of grand mal and petit mal, Carrie may not live past the age of 15. If I think of anything else I’ll add it later.
I think this is a case of Munchausen by Proxy syndrome (MBPS). Either Carrie isn’t sick at all and Carmen is making up all sorts of things to get our attention, or Carrie is sick and Carmen is exaggerating the symptoms to get our attention, or Carmen is creating symptoms by harming the baby in order to get our attention. I looked up several websites that talk about MBPS. Carmen fits in with most of the characteristics of a typical perpetrator. Reference http://www.mbpexpert.com/definition.html and http://home.coqui.net/myrna/munch.htm.
Carmen called again while I was in my 2PM class and left another voice mail message. This time she said that the doctors had sent her and Carrie home. They had decided not to try any more medications in the hospital. In her words, “The doctors said to just let Carrie take the medicine at home.”
I called Carmen at about 4:30PM when I got out of class. She told me all sorts of horrible things: Carrie would never walk, they have given up on the idea of leg braces, she is forgetting what she has learned so far, she may not be able to retain anything that she ever learns, they will have to fit her for a wheelchair that will grow and change with her, she may soon need a feeding tube because her digestive muscles aren’t working right, when she eats, food has a tendency to go down into her lungs instead of her esophagus, she is having 10-15 seizures a day, a combination of grand mal and petit mal, Carrie may not live past the age of 15. If I think of anything else I’ll add it later.
I think this is a case of Munchausen by Proxy syndrome (MBPS). Either Carrie isn’t sick at all and Carmen is making up all sorts of things to get our attention, or Carrie is sick and Carmen is exaggerating the symptoms to get our attention, or Carmen is creating symptoms by harming the baby in order to get our attention. I looked up several websites that talk about MBPS. Carmen fits in with most of the characteristics of a typical perpetrator. Reference http://www.mbpexpert.com/definition.html and http://home.coqui.net/myrna/munch.htm.
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