Mom Flabbergasted to Learn Her Son, Taken in Case of Alleged Medical Abuse, Could Remain a Ward of the State — 'How Can They Keep an Adult?\

A teen with complex health issues, who was taken from his mother's custody last year, might have been looking forward to being freed from the system on his 18th birthday. But his family learned that becoming a legal adult doesn't necessarily mean he'll no longer be considered a ward of the state.

Michelle Rider and her son Isaiah. (Image source: Facebook)

"How can they keep an adult? Well the truth is that they can," Michelle Rider, the 37-year-old mother of Isaiah Rider, told TheBlaze in a phone interview Friday.

Isaiah, a 17-year-old from Missouri, was taken into custody by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services last year when it feared a case of medical child abuse by his mother.

Michelle, who has not been charged, had taken her son to various hospitals around the country, seeking treatment for tumors and painful, uncontrollable leg tremors that ultimately was diagnosed as neurofibromatosis.

Michelle told TheBlaze last year her son was the victim of a "hospital kidnapping." Isaiah, who was placed in an Illinois foster care home several hundred miles from his own hometown, told TheBlaze at the time that it "ruined" his life.

Since then Michelle said she's been in the court room nearly two dozen times within a year trying to get her son back. He was eventually moved back to Missouri where his grandparents, Michelle's parents, were became his foster care guardians.

While getting him back in his hometown and out of what Michelle called a "ghetto" in Illinois was good news, she told TheBlaze she and her parents still don't have control over making medical or other decisions, for Isaiah. For example, she said Isaiah's doctor recommended he go to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for a consultation. While the mother said Illinois DCFS agreed to allow him to go there for a consult, she said the they wouldn't pay for it. Michelle said that as a ward of the state of Illinois, Isaiah is not under her or her parent's insurance, but state insurance. So any consult with Mayo would come out of their own pockets if the state won't pay for it.

Isaiah turns 18 on August 27, but Michelle said that doesn't mean her son will be coming home.

"An agent of the state contacted my mother and told her that she had spoken with case worker in Illinois and he indicated that Isaiah would remain in state custody," Michelle said.

An Illinois DCFS spokesperson told WDAF-TV that "when a child under their care turns 18, DCFS is still responsible for their well-being, and as a public guardian is considered their parent."

"Well, they're lousy parents and they need to be charged with abuse," Michelle said. "They allowed him to be abused and harmed."

“I thought it was crazy really," Isaiah told WDAF. "How can someone control my life when I turn 18 years old?"

Michelle had spoken out against the foster home where Isaiah was in Illinois before going to her parents' in Missouri, but more recently both she and Isaiah have said he was also sexually assaulted while in the Illinois foster parents' care.

A standard court date for Michelle is set for August 20 in Cook County Court, and she said she and her attorneys separately filed an appeal after Isaiah formally became a ward of the state in April.

"More than anything I’d like to see my son to have the freedom that he deserves, that everyone deserves, to be able to get the medical care that he needs. To not be dictated by a state that he doesn’t even live in," Michelle said.