Much has Happened

Let's just start with today.

It is 1:30p.m. I just got up from falling into darkness for the second time since last midnight, I had to sleep in the guest bed so that I could make sure daughter fell asleep instead of getting dressed and leaving. Her meds kicked in and she slept straigt through until just thirty minutes ago. At 2:00a.m. I had to turn the phones off because her out of control bi-polar friend in IL called. When I looked at 8:00am. at the caller ID log, I noted that she had called repeatedly all through the early hours of the dark before dawn. Mom got to sleep through the night and I made her breakfast before she went to her office. I took my meds for the biblical curse I am writhing under, made a couple of post to you my dear friends, and fell back into blackness that passes for sleep for me these day. I am now recovering from a headache from hell and I am having coffee. Business orders are coming and going through the new system and I may yet survive.

Meanwhile the daughter is making her brunch. It's a big pan of brownies from Betty Cracker (msw intended). She is now lolling on the couch with 19 year old, 5ft-2in ampleness spilling out of her tiny Tee and panties atire playing with her profoundly in heat cat from the road. It looks like a scene from Baby Doll. I expect Burl Ives to show up any moment. I asked if she had taken her meds. She said yes. I looked. She lied. As soon as she gets that nutritious pan of brownies downloaded, she will commence a sugar rush which will turn into a manic cycle of her bi-polar condition and I will be left with planning the evening's activities of being in one emergency room or another, or at the county mental health facility. That will be shortly after she has purged that pan of brownies into the porcelain thrown. Mom spent the day yesterday driving her to some pharmacological genius MD four hours away (two if I'm driving). They had a $250.00 session with the King of Pharma. The lab fees were $150. None of this is covered by the regular insurance. We will make a claim on the medical spending account. The gas was $125.00. The new 'scripts are $15.00 apiece for the co-pay. There are six. Lunch and goodies, I don't know.

That's my story. So, how's by youse?

Lantern "My Wick Needs Trimmin"* Bearer

*Delta Blues standard - May be Robert Johnson

I missed my prediction by 36 hours

We had a fairly pleasant weekend. Ameri ordered pizza Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I had provided other choices but she refused to partake. Saturday evening did not end until 5:30am Sunday morning. Mom and Ameri watched DVDs and conversed after a fashion. Everyone slept in. We did not do church. We were all worn down by Ameri's decompression and recharge. On Saturday she did give the dogs very good baths and she dusted and combed the cats. I still have the litter boxes to tend.

Mom put together an Easter basket for Ameri. It had all the required chocolate rabbits, jelly eggs and a new MP3 player. Big mistake. Ameri loaded it up with trash rap and turned us out completely. She was in a declining state all day. She would take no medication and she was putting us further and further off. Mom had to take her to the county treatment center just after 6:00pm today. It is no deluxe hospital but they will get her back on medication. We had no huge scenes as we usually do. We had a nice diner in a restaurant last evening. I had not expected her to last into Sunday morning but she did. We won't see her again before Friday morning. There is a residential program she is eligible for but we can not get her to go that way. This catch as catch can is continuing to wear us down.

For me. The shingle attack could have been much more damaging than it was. I was fortunate to be able to have gotten on treatment early and aggressively. I still have some scalies over my left eye and ear, and their functioning is a bit whacked but I am recovering. I am getting a lot of sleep but it is not restful nor is it refreshing. My dreams have taken on a dark and uncomfortable theme. I have ramped up all my medications the near term. It is said that it take as long as three weeks to recover from a mild attack. I believe my usual high power recovery system will take over and the recovery will come along much quicker now. After all, when I had hip replacement surgery in 1999, I was out of the rehab center by the time most joint replacement patients are getting there from the hospital. I have been fortunate in that way.

Ameri is gone for the week. I have appointments with the ophthalmologist and the neurologist.

Life goes on.

Off by 36 Hours

We had a fairly pleasant weekend. Ameri ordered pizza Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I had provided other choices but she refused to partake. Saturday evening did not end until 5:30am Sunday morning. Mom and Ameri watched DVDs and conversed after a fashion. Everyone slept in. We did not do church. We were all worn down by Ameri's decompression and recharge. On Saturday she did give the dogs very good baths and she dusted and combed the cats. I still have the litter boxes to tend.

Mom put together an Easter basket for Ameri. It had all the required chocolate rabbits, jelly eggs and a new MP3 player. Big mistake. Ameri loaded it up with trash rap and turned us out completely. She was in a declining state all day. She would take no medication and she was putting us further and further off. Mom had to take her to the county treatment center just after 6:00pm today. It is no deluxe hospital but they will get her back on medication. We had no huge scenes as we usually do. We had a nice diner in a restaurant last evening. I had not expected her to last into Sunday morning but she did. We won't see her again before Friday morning. There is a residential program she is eligible for but we can not get her to go that way. This catch as catch can is continuing to wear us down.

For me. The shingle attack could have been much more damaging than it was. I was fortunate to be able to have gotten on treatment early and aggressively. I still have some scalies over my left eye and ear, and their functioning is a bit whacked but I am recovering. I am getting a lot of sleep but it is not restful nor is it refreshing. My dreams have taken on a dark and uncomfortable theme. I have ramped up all my medications the near term. It is said that it take as long as three weeks to recover from a mild attack. I believe my usual high power recovery system will take over and the recovery will come along much quicker now. After all, when I had hip replacement surgery in 1999, I was out of the rehab center by the time most joint replacement patients are getting there from the hospital. I have been fortunate in that way.

Ameri is gone for the week. I have appointments with the ophthalmologist and the neurologist.

Life goes on.

You Can Throw all That . . .

right out the window.

Mom picked Ameri up at the Hospital. Ameri wanted to immediately visit her new friend who was released from the hospital back to the treatment center from whence he had come. The visit was brief but eventful. Ameri was allowed to visit her friend in his room. They also sat together in the smoking area outside. Ameri had a canned soda from the vending area. She got back in the car with Mom after about an hours visit and began to come apart. This was not her usual melt down but rather she was in the beginning of a drug induced event. She was taken to a treatment center for evaluation and found to be in a toxic state. They sent her on to an emergency room. She was admitted medically and then transferred to the psychiatric floor. It is just this morning and afternoon that we have been able to parse out what had happened to her. Obviously she was drugged by the "friend" on her visit to his rehab center. Fortunately, he gave us his local contact, grandparents, phone number and his full name and home address. What to do now? We can not let something like this pass without letting the rehab center know.

My life is very complicated at the moment. Just a week ago I was ill and in the emergency room. That event has now come to be an outbreak of shingles on my face. Even though the main event is over, there is lingering nerve pain, a rash like outbreak on my face, and fatigue. I am now waiting for the rain of frogs to begin and for my pool water to turn to blood.

We are picking Ameri up within the hour. I am totally unprepared for her to be here. This has now devolved into a state of being ground down. My expectation is that she will be back in the hospital before Sunday morning. I rarely drink alcohol. This moment, however, seems like a good time for a beer and shot.

How to Make the Earth Move

The flood gates have opened.

My faxes to the hospital and the public defender's office have provided a whole new level of attention being paid to Ameri's case.

The public defender, a gracious young attorney, called this morning to say that he agreed whole heartedly that the past tack of release to the community was wrong. He is now advocating for treatment and release from confinement as is indicated by Ameri's willingness to participate.

We have not heard directly from the hospital but Ameri reports a new level of interest in her from staff that she has never seen before.

I am relieved for Ameri. I have no relief for the twenty other lost souls confined in that ward and those in the twenty other wards in our city, and the twenties of wards in the state, and the twenties of twenties of wards throughout the country where the mentally ill are being warehoused and shuffled around in a de facto Gulag of indifference. Where are the faith based agent of relief? Where are the Christians? Who will visit the sick, the dying, the homeless, the despised immigrant. Where is the Christ in you? The sin of indifference is worthy of the knotted cord.

Go and sin no more.

A New Push

Yesterday (Wednesday) was down day for the servers that host my blog. I am now able to make this new post.

All along, we have had one request of any hospital in which Ameri has been a patient. That is that she be on a stable dose of medication and that she be referred to a day treatment program or intensive out patient care. We have insurance resources to cover particular programs. To date, in dealing now with the sixth hospital, we have not had that happen.

This morning we got another cheerful call from hospital social services letting us know that Ameri was going to be released today and asked if we would pick her up.

I had to make a bold move. I sent a fax to the chief of hospital staff and his deputy for psychiatry indicating our frustration with the utter confusion and lack of coordination between all the departments of the hospital who have some say in what happens to our daughter. I requested that a due diligence assessment be made and that we meet with responsible staff in a formal meeting.

I also sent a fax to the public defender's office lauding the fine work being done by an attorney in that office to effect the release of our daughter back to the streets without any requirement for further treatment.

I have found that one must poke the hive to stir up the hornets. I have poked two hives today. I may poke some media hives and some state government hives overnight. It is all that I have. I will continue to poke as is necessary.

Last night I slept from 10pm to 6am. I had to take an anti anxiety tab and an Abien. My sleep was dreamless and without waking until 6am. It is the first in nearly two weeks.

This is Sunday

We saw Ameri last evening. She was in cheerful but rowdy mood. She showed all her bruises and dings from her wrestling matches with attendant staff when she needed to be subdued, medicated and restrained. She has a new young gentleman friend who is a fellow patient. He is confined in the hospital as a transfer from a local rehab program. He also had to be subdued, medicated and restrained. In the aftermath, it is very high comedy for them both and demonstrates the power that they have with getting attention from staff. Mom and I could not listen to the retelling and the comments they made to each other and across the room to staff. We had to make to leave to make our point. It was a short visit. Ameri did announce that she was going to be released on Sunday or Monday. No one spoke to us about that when we were there.

We got a cheerful call from a social worker today saying that since Ameri had become stabilized that she was going to be released. I immediately got on the phone to the nursing staff to find out what was going on. From here on things get very confusing. The patient services coordinator expressed that it was her pleasant duty to inform us that Ameri would in fact be released. "When will you pick her up?" I then reviewed the previous three day events and confirmed that Ameri was not taking any medication. I then confirmed that we in fact had a letter from the court stating that Ameri's condition warranted an upgrade in finding that she was in fact promoted to a level of concern that warranted her continued confinement. After much spluttering and back tracking, the patient services coordinator then had to reverse course. I requested that I be able to speak to the doctor. I laid out a very strong case for that courtesy and sure enough we got a call from the doctor. Oh, no. She is staying for at least another week. I asked about the aftercare plan and he searched for it and found that there was none. After we had a course correction we proceeded to get up to date with him. He is concerned that we want to get Ameri out as soon as possible to return to the comfort of home and hearth. NΟ! Hell Νο! We wanted her stabilized on medication and transitioned to an inpatient or day treatment program. We gave him two good alternatives. They are both out of the county where Ameri is now confined. His response, "We normally are unable to refer out of county." So be it. What alternatives can your social services provide? Dead air.

Here is the way things will probably work out. A new MD/Psychiatrist will be on the rotation for that psych ward starting on Monday morning. The doctor we spoke to today will be able to pass this mess on gracefully and return to his daily practice. The new doctor will review the caseload and kick out the deadwood. Ameri will smile sweetly and take on her deadwood look. By mid week she will have effected her own release and be on the street again, unmedicated, and to be transported out of county by a cab service. She will call us to say that she is not coming home. Within 48 hours she will begin to meltdown and her calls will become plaintive and tearful. At just over 72 hours she will have entered another emergency room or will approach a law enforcement officer and indicate that she is going to kill herself. The cycle will continue.

Yes there is a court order. This is wonderland and Alice is ten feet tall.

White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane

One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Call Alice
When she was just small

When men on the chessboard
get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving slow
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's off with her head
Remember what the doormouse said:
"Feed your Head
Feed your Head!"

This Past Week

I have pointed out before - things move fast when dealing with Ameri.

The living arrangement with the boy friend did not work out. His schedule is 12 hours on/12hours off. Then there is the travel time and he has to depend on a ride from co-workers. Ameri was left with too much time on her hands and she had stopped taking her medication. She went into melt down. Mom had to make the long trip to pick her up. She took her to the local hospital. They had no psychiatric facilities. She was sent on to another facility an hour further away from home. Mom had to leave Ameri at that facility and she drove home. Two days later she was being precipitously released and Mom had to make the long trip back and pick her up. They returned to the boy friend's apartment, picked up Ameri's belongings and went to an appointment to see a family physician in another rural town. This particular doctor keeps his practice away from the metropolitan centers. He works with psychologists and therapists who have offices in those areas. Ameri has a long assessment visit with him. He had already read her history back in September when we had first hoped that she would come home and be treated by him. She felt an immediate rapport with him. I had the same response when I first met him.
The doctor found nothing that we had not already seen in Ameri. Her diagnosis is quite compatible with disorders originating from poor prenatal and neonatal care. He commented that the well documented poor attention and abuse as an infant and toddler have left their telling mark. The serial attachment and abandonment events that she experienced until age 7 have had a profound effect on her ability bond and trust to this day. Ameri seems quite happy to put herself into the care of strangers rather than us. She sees Mom and myself more as siblings rather than parents.

That was a long overnight trip for Mom to pick Ameri up and take her to the doctor. Mom was prepared to stay in that rural town with Ameri so that she could begin a medication regimen with the doctor and have daily visits with him. Ameri had other ideas. She wanted to come back to our home turf and commit herself to a hospital that she trusted. That was done and she was admitted ten hours later. It was well after midnight. It was a very long day.

After a tumultuous trip from across the state, Ameri reportedly went into a manic outbreak and was eventually sedated shortly after admission. We saw her again the evening of the same day that she was admitted. She had finally slept and was in the state of a cranky two year old. She had been a pain off and on all day to staff. That not withstanding, we were received cordially by the floor staff. We had a short visit and then a clinging tearful separation. Shortly after we got home, there was a call from the patient care supervisor on the shift telling us that Ameri had to be sedated heavily again. She was still able to cut herself with some jewelry that had not been taken from her at admission. She was then put into restraints and put into the quiet room. We acknowledged that message by sending a fax to the psych floor repeating what we had been told. That was Thursday March, 30. We had calls from both Ameri and hospital staff on Friday. Ameri had another episode and had to be sedated again. We visited again on Friday evening. The staff was quite distant with us. Ameri was chipper and freshly showered.

It has always been such.