First day at the State Hospital
Courage, Grace, Humor
Good tools for this complicated journey
April 24, 2015 ~ Yesterday was the day I've been dreading. We moved to the State Hospital. I had decided that this was probably going to be the worst day of this whole three year journey we've been on. Ironically, it ended up being one of the best.
The day started early and badly (hang on, though....it gets better). We had been told he would be handcuffed (albeit, hands in front) for the 2 hour trip. I talked to everyone I could think of to try to get this changed. "It's department policy", I was told, which makes me wonder if the person who wrote this policy would feel the same way if it were HIS child being treated like a criminal simply because of an illness she neither caused nor asked for. But at the end of the day you realize that there are just some things you can't control and you just hope it all goes OK.
It's probably best that I didn't know beforehand that handcuffs were the least of it. When the sheriff's deputy broke out the leg irons, shackles, and waist chain I got just a little emotional. To see someone with an illness so dehumanized and criminalized was almost more than I could stand.
Fortunately, he took it well. But I will never forget it and I am now motivated (as a mom but also as a nurse) to work at seeing that patients who have proven to be non-violent and unaggressive are free from this completely unnecessary restraint.
At any rate, we met him at the hospital where the wordless deputy escorted our restrained and shuffling child into the building. The deputy asked the staff if they needed him to stay but they waved him off as if they couldn't get rid of him fast enough.
We gathered in a small conference room for the admission process and then an Ordinary Miracle happened. A staff member said to my son, "You look like you could use something to drink" and offered him a choice between Sprite, Dr. Pepper, and Diet Coke. What a simple gesture and yet, suddenly I felt a little better. After such a dehumanizing experience, these good people were treating him like a person. Anticipating his needs. Trying to make him comfortable.
The security guards were lighthearted, pleasant, and they helpfully told us that if we wanted to stay overnight on campus we could rent out a cottage meant for long-distance visitors, but to choose Cottage B since Cottage A was haunted.
Good to know.
After admission, the security guard needed to drive him a short distance to the building where he'd be staying and offered to let us follow in our car. They didn't just give us directions and drive off, though. They followed us back up the hill we had walked from, waited for us, and led us where we needed to go.
And then, the highlight of the day.
I realized that my son was sitting IN THE FRONT SEAT WITH THE SECURITY GUARD. Wait. What is this? No handcuffs? No restraints? No sitting in the back seat? Nope. Front seat. I imagine that he even let him play with the radio.
These people were comfortable with him. They saw him for what he was - a tired and confused young man with a serious illness who deserved to be treated with dignity, respect, and compassion. God bless them.
The leaders of his nursing unit spent time with us. They smiled and reassured. They listened to our fears. They treated us like we were important members of the care team.
Then the psychiatrist came along and, unsolicited, spent over an hour with us answering questions, throwing out options, and lightheartedly joking around with us. At one point, all the patients on the unit came filing past the room we were in. Our son took notice and asked where they were going. The doctor smiled and said, "Pop Run. Everybody loves going on a Pop Run". Our son said, "Can I go with them?" but he wasn't allowed to yet, since they needed to watch closely for a while and get to know him.
But never fear. These folks get it.
The doctor asked him what he wanted to drink, went off and got it himself, then came back and spent another half an hour with us, companionably sipping his own Diet Coke along with his patient. To the doctors in our past who suggested that jail was an appropriate treatment option, or threatened to kick us off service because I could only get half the meds in, or drugged my son to the point that he was drooling.......you could learn a thing or two here.
The adjacent nursing unit was having a luau so all kinds of employees were cheerfully wandering around with fake grass skirts over their clothes and plastic leis around their necks. One giant employee from Tonga ran up to us and asked if we had change for a five dollar bill so he could pay the dancers. (????????) We scrounged up five ones and he ran off.
Later, the psychiatrist laughingly rolled his eyes at the probable inappropriateness of staff members sticking dollar bills into the grass skirts of their dancing colleagues.
So this day that I have dreaded for weeks and cried about in the middle of the night started just the way I thought it would. But it turned out to be one of the most positive and hopeful days in the recent past because of people who understand that mental illness doesn't make you a criminal, who know that people with schizophrenia deserve dignity and respect, and who aren't afraid to cast out the darkness of this illness with a little fun and good cheer.
I will never be able to find enough words to thank them for making this day so much better than I ever thought it would be.
And for me? Well, I'd like to believe that I met the day with courage. I reacted with grace when a sheriff's deputy shackled my ill son. And I laughed about dancing psych techs in fake grass skirts with dollar bills sticking out of them.
Courage. Grace. Humor. Good tools for this complicated journey.