Saving Sammy: Curing the Boy Who Caught OCD

by Beth Alison Maloney

Book Overview

The summer before entering sixth grade, Sammy, a bright and charming boy who lived on the coast of Maine, suddenly began to exhibit disturbing behavior. He walked and ate with his eyes shut, refused to bathe, burst into fits of rage, slithered against walls, and used his limbs instead of his hands to touch light switches, doorknobs, and faucets. Sammy's mother, Beth, already coping with the overwhelming responsibility of raising three sons alone,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0307461831
• ISBN13: 9780307461834
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 2.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Must Read for any parent, pediatrician, and teacher

This book was amazing. It is the story of a mother who tries to help her son who appears to come down with a mental illness. It is written so well that you feel like you are on the journey with the mother. You can feel her pain as she try to help her son. I am amazed at how well she handled the stress of being a single mother to three kids with one very ill. This book could help so many children who might become ill. It should be a must read for doctors and educators of children.

Get a Strep Test!

This is an amazing story that every parent needs to read, especially if your son or daughter has behavior that might suggest a "quirky" personality or an outright mental illness. Most people do not realize that strep is extremely prevalent at schools and elsewhere, and your son or daughter may not have any symptoms like a sore throat or a fever. Insist that your physican or clinic staff administer a strep test. And if those come back negative and your child still as odd behavior, get a blood test to rule out strep. These are some of the least expensive tests and should be routine for your physician to run. Physicians often have "notices to patients about antibiotic use" posted visibly in their offices which explain why they won't administer them if your child has no typical symtoms of a fever, etc. As a parent you need to push for the antibiotics. Has anyone ever noticed at all of these mental health issues with our school aged kids have increased dramatically since phsycians started limited antibiotic usage? Another amazing statistic: there are as many people with OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) as there are people with diabetes. Shocking. We need to step forward and get treatment for this. The brain is a vital organ in the body just as is the heart, liver, kidney or pancreas and all of those maladies are widely treated with medication and people share their stories routinely when one of those organs is involved. Brain disorders need to get attention. Especially when some of them are so easily treatable!

Captures the Parental and Familial Chaos and Pain Brought on by OCD

Not a book that would be of interest to everyone, but it is a very well written, accurate account of what it is like to watch your child fall prey to OCD. It's also an excellent portrait of what it's like to be a mother of a child with OCD. I've lived it... and I found myself nodding, crying and saying "Yes!" over and over again while reading this book. Desperate to save your child, with or without the help of others, you will do anything to figure out how to help them and save your family from crumbling around you. That quest is an exhausting, daunting, uncertain one that may lead you to fall into a pit of desperation when exhaustion and frustration overcome you. This book reminds you time and time again (if you are a parent of a child with OCD) that you are not alone in your feelings. I liked that about the book and it made me think I'd like the author if I met her because the thoughts and feelings she shares in the book are 'real'. The author: A strong woman- a good mother - an advocate for her child - an attorney with a bright mind. The author gives hope to parents of children with OCD and through her own struggle illuminates the need for two things. First, the need to question doctors if what they are doing isn't working and second, the importance of being an advocate for looking outside the box when it comes to an answer. If you are the parent or a guardian of a child with OCD... read this book. While what saved Sammy might not 'save' your child, it's certainly a good story and excellent information to keep in mind when looking to manage OCD. My own experience with OCD: My daughter showed signs of OCD following a traumatic incident when she was 5, whereby she went into anaphylactic shock. A severe allergic reaction seemed to be the turning point which allowed OCD into our lives. A previously joyous child turned into a fearful, socially reclusive oddity in first grade. Despite being considered 'gifted' academically, she was unable to open doors (because of germs), saw things in her food (black spots... so she stopped eating), couldn't sleep, washed her hands until they were raw and bleeding, asked the same questions over and over again - never accepting the answer, and developed many other gut-wrenching compulsions as her obsessive thinking continued. We were lucky as our pediatrician is an exceptionally good one who when I took my daughter to her said "We need to do something. We are losing her." Counseling followed, but being so young, it wasn't easy to determine whether that was working or not. For a year and a half she didn't improve very much, and then got markedly worse when a very stressful event occurred in our lives. Another trip to the pediatrician yielded a new plan of attack. Within a week my daughter was seen by a psychiatrist who specializes in children and after a few months it was determined that therapy alone would not stop the progression of OCD. Zoloft was used and within 2 weeks my daughter's compulsions slowed

"If I had the time, I would feel sorry for myself."

Are your kids healthy and happy? If so, you are way ahead of the game. Just ask Beth Alison Maloney, whose son, Sammy, came down with a mysterious malady at the age of twelve. He started yelling at the treetops and the squirrels, refused to go into bed at night, could not enter or exit through the front door of his home, and did not allow anyone to touch him. Beth, who is a single parent with three brilliant and personable boys, had just moved to a new house in Kennebunkport, Maine. (The scenery is gorgeous, and Maloney eloquently describes the wondrous beauty of Maine throughout the seasons.) When Sammy changes so drastically, Beth assumes that the boy is distressed about the move or angry about his parents' divorce. Perhaps, she thought, he is acting out as an expression of his displeasure. Unfortunately, as time goes by, Sammy's behavior becomes more extreme and compulsive (head banging, twitching, hopping, verbal tics, difficulty getting in and out of a van, among others). Beth's life comes to a standstill and her other children, James and Josh, are adversely affected by Sammy's constant need for attention. Since Sammy cannot attend school regularly, Beth is on duty 24/7, aghast at her child's ever worsening condition and desperate to come up with a strategy to help him. Soon, Sammy is unable to sleep, eat normally, or even take a shower. Psychological counseling and a high dose of an anti-depressant do not help. When Beth tells Sammy to stop acting so bizarrely, he replies hysterically, "I can't! It's like a mental itch!" Beth finds it hard to accept that her son had become unhinged out of the blue and that he could stay this way for the rest of his life. Her pleasures (including socializing, kayaking on the beautiful waters of Maine, and even enjoying a restful night in bed) take a back seat to finding the answers that she needs. Life might have continued in this vein indefinitely if someone had not tipped Beth off to the possibility that her son's obsessive compulsive disorder and Tourette-like symptoms may stem from an undiagnosed strep infection. Beth embarks on a frustrating odyssey, visiting one doctor after another until she at last learns what is really wrong with Sammy. This is a heartbreaking and, ultimately, inspiring and hopeful book about a mother whose love for her child impels her to become his champion at school, in doctors' offices, and wherever he needs advocate. She accomplishes a great deal by networking, surfing the Internet, and finally, locating a developmental pediatrician in New Jersey and a child psychiatrist in Boston who proved to be godsends. Maloney's tenacity, selfless devotion, and intelligence shine through; readers will cheer for this courageous and loving mother. Beth made a vow and she has kept it. If Sammy were to get well, she promised, she would publicize his case so that other children who are suffering needlessly might also receive the help they need. "Saving Sammy" is a poig

Incredible tale of courage, intelligence and perseverance

What could be more compelling than the story of a mom who simply will not accept that her son's suddden onset OCD/Tourette's Syndrome is irreversible? At the age of twelve years old, Sammy began developing symptoms of OCD that grew in intensity over a fairly short period of time until they seemed to control all phases of his life. Sammy's mother, and his two brothers, were forced to watch helplessly as he went from being a normal young boy, who liked school, loved playing Dungeons and Dragons and was an acknowledged math wizard, to one who was positively paralyzed by his need to engage in ritualistic and repetitive behaviors that controlled his every movement; who could not touch a door handle or a telephone or virtually anything else; who could not attend to basic matters of hygiene or change his clothes, and who could not eat to the point of becoming emaciated and dehydrated. As Sammy's mom put her entire life on hold to attend to Sammy's condition, and even as Sammy bravely tried to continue going to school and to his math events (it could take him hours to get from the house to the car, and then from the car to his ultimate destination), eventually, Sammy became virtually housebound, and his mother with him. Sammy's mom was told that he had OCD (later he was diagnosed with Tourette's Syndrome as well), a difficult and probably irreversible mental illness which might get worse or might get better and was given various medications to help deal with its effects. Sammy continued to deteriorate, and mom's research into her son's condition seemed to confirm that there was little that could be done for him. She continued to take him to doctors and continued to follow their advice concerrning medications, all the while watching her son develop new and more complex compulsions. Then by happenstance, a friend of a family member related to Sammy's mom her own story of a similar malady that had attacked her son, and its relationship to an undiagnosed strep infection. The remainder of the story focuses upon the efforts of Sammy's mom to first, confirm that her son suffered a similar strep condition (known as PANDAS) and second, to have the medical community recognize her plight and help her find a treatment that would help him. Courage and perseverance abound in this heroic tale, but you will also find a fair dose of mom's intelligence fueling her quest. What is truly amazing is the way the author continued her search for answers and her battle with the medical community while always attending first and foremost to her son's increasingly difficult demands on her time and attention. The "ups and downs" of improvements followed by lapses back into compulsions and emotional breakdowns could easily have leveled a weaker or less determined person. I loved the way this book was written; it is a straightforward and honest account that rarely dwells directly upon the emotional trauma that the author suffered. When those emotions surface, however