That light we can see at the end of this long, dim tunnel is the lantern of hope.  Sound corny?  It wouldn’t if you had been afraid to go to sleep at night for fear that your eating disordered child would stop breathing…. or if your pleas for help had been turned down by your insurance company … or if you had gone to see your banker, hat in hand, for a re-finance of your family home to cover your child’s treatment… or if you had left your job and your spouse and your other kids to stay in Portland’s Ronald McDonald House for months on end… or had scraped together college tuition for your child only to have them be asked to leave school because their eating disorder symptoms had gotten out of hand…. or just cried yourself to sleep because of all the childhood joys and opportunities that had been swallowed up in their illness… then you would find that hope and light were not corny at all.

Here are questions I am asked every day:

Do eating disordered kids ever get well?
How many die or are permanently disabled?
Can she/he ever graduate from college?  Get married? Have kids? Just be normal?
When?  When?

This week we got a college graduation announcement from one of our old patients.  It was accompanied by a thank you note, which our patient — whom I will call Tina — has given me permission to quote.  She wrote:

“… without all of you this accomplishment [her graduation as a scientist] would certainly be impossible.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—Kartini saved my life.  For those of you who were not at the clinic during my time there, know that the work that you are doing may seem unappreciated at times but is saving lives and making it possible for your patients to go on and fulfill their dreams.  I was not always a cooperative or appreciative patient (just ask Dr O’Toole), and I have been treated at several facilities.  However, I can now see that without the clinic my life would be non-existent or completely miserable.  Thank you for fighting for me. I am forever grateful.”

Please keep in mind that “Tina” was with us for many years; she had several trips through the hospital and (very, very expensive) residential treatment; she was an early patient in our college-aged program.  Psychologically she was as “hopeless” seeming as anyone we have treated.  A psychiatric provider we once worked with said to me “she is the classic patient who will never recover.”

Ah, but she did.  And how well she did!

With good treatment there is light at the end of the tunnel and it’s not the oncoming train.