Of all things .... asking to go to the hospital

Oh - I’m taking him. It’s a chance that something good could happen, and not going means no chance.

Why are you jealous? It’s likely to be a long, emotionally challenging day.

His caseworker is going to try to get him on the list so we don’t have to come hours early and wait.
And, if not, she’s going to tell me what time to get there to get on the list - then, hopefully, we can leave and come back.

I don’t know what will happen, and I can’t say I’m looking forward to it, but I’m going to do it.

It’s the second thing that came up today that I’m going to have to do that I don’t want to do - seems like that’s all my life is made up of at the moment.

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Sounds like a good plan.

My son has a false memory of trying to commit suicide in front of me. It went from I killed myself, to did I die or try to kill myself, to today telling me he had a dream that it happened. I don’t think that is enough to hospitalize someone but it does cause concern.

It would concern me too - and I let a lot of things go that could technically be used to put him in the hospital on an involuntary hold.

I wonder if they’re so far gone from reality that they can’t distinguish dreams from reality sometimes.

I guess they all fall under delusions, though?

This is on 20 mg zyprexa every evening. He is still taking the Sarcasine but nothing else. How about your son? Any improvement?

Not really. Even when I was slipping the meds to him in the other capsules, it only kept him calm and less agitated - the delusions weren’t budging.

And, now, he’s not willing to take the capsules but every 2 to 3 days.

I’m at the point that I think he needs serious help. Maybe the doctor tomorrow will be a good thing.
If not, at some point, I’m going to have to suck it up and just stop sneaking the meds on him. It’ll be an awful week or two, but I don’t think it will be much longer than that before he ends up back in the hospital.

What I’m doing right now is just not a sustainable solution, although it’s the only one I have.

I’m not kidding myself though - right or wrong, I’ll hold him together the best I can for as long as I can.

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I am jealous because I would like my family member to see a doctor.

Well, there is that, but it’s also frustrating that he’ll go to doctors, therapists - even spent a couple weeks in the hospital - and it’s still not really helping.

I think on some level he wants help, but his mind just isn’t clicking enough to get it.

All we have is a lot of medication that he doesn’t want to take.

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the doctor’s visit was kind of a mixed deal.

i liked the doctor - she was laid back, listened, asked lots of questions. he thought she was ok.

i found out right before we got there that he thought he was seeing a regular doctor and would be able to talk them into a script for hydrocodone since his back has been hurting since he came home from the hospital.

instead, he got a script for the zyprexa that dissolves in your mouth at 15 mg each night. he told her he would take it. In the car, he told me he didn’t want to take it, but he’d take it for me - although he was clearly mad that he didn’t get the hydros. this means he might take it for a few days, but i don’t look for it to last.

next appt is in 6 weeks.

she said that if he has to go back to the hospital, to ask them to start him on risperadol so he can try the pills then everyone will know if it’s OK to start him on the injectibles either in the hospital or with them later.

he freely talked about all the delusions as if they were 100% real, so i didn’t have to do anything there.

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Maybe a little insight?

Last night, he wasn’t happy about the Zyprexa script, but said he would take it for me.
They had to order the rapidly dissolving kind, so I haven’t picked it up yet.

But, today, he asked for a Zyprexa - I asked if he wanted to wait until I picked up the new ones tonight, or if he wanted one from his old prescription, and he took the old one.

And he said he was trying to hold off on going to the hospital until after Thanksgiving. (He started asking how far away it was yesterday.)

I told him I’d hold Thanksgiving for him for as long as it takes - I didn’t say it to him, but I’d stop celebrating any holiday for the rest of my life if it meant he’d be well.

I’m cautiously hopeful - I know this could be gone in a blink of an eye.

All of this after I finally talked it over with his dad not an hour before and we decided that he’d have to take the meds on his own or we’d have to grit our teeth and watch him get sick enough to go back to the hospital.

He keeps saying he’s psychic, and I can’t believe that, but he certainly seems to pick up on some kind of vibe now & then.

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No holiday traditions here unless our family member is here. I don’t feel like I’m missing out. I choose to wait and celebrate when we are together.

There’s only the 3 of us - it wouldn’t be the same if anyone was missing, and we keep things pretty low key anyway. With each year, I like the holidays less, and kind of cut back on what I’ll do. It’s mostly me - I’m just kind of done with how commercial Christmas is and how early things are in the stores.

I thought it was kind of sweet for him to say he’d try to hold off - more like it was to not ruin things for me & his dad rather than he would be missing anything.

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That is a good medicine and has helped my son above all other medicine. I’m holding hope around his insight. I don’t know what the holidays will bring but I hope he is able to be here with us this year.

I agree that Zyprexa is good - but it hasn’t really been working for him, not completely, like it used to.
Unless it’s just starting to get there.

Does anyone know if the rapid dissolving Zyprexa is any different than the regular Zyprexa tablets?

Also, she put him to the 15 mg he came out of the hospital with, and didn’t seem concerned when I told her how much he was smoking.

I like her, but I worry that she’ll be too conservative. Maybe that will be a good thing in the long term …

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Hoping you all have a Happy Thanksgiving and our children stay out of the hospital for the holidays.

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Yes, everyone have a safe and sane Happy Thanksgiving, (as much as possible). My best to all.

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I had forgot why I started this post until I went back & read the top.

He’s back in the hospital as of this past Monday. It’s another involuntary.
He was desperate to talk to someone that morning & had been calling numbers early, early in the morning. I’m sure his therapist, and he got the county crisis line. About 11 AM, he wanted to just go to the mental health center and wait. I told him if no one he knows (case manager or therapist) was available, he should ask for crisis again.

They immediately wanted him in the hospital and kept him there to do the involuntary hold - not because he was talking about hurting himself or anyone else, but because he was so delusional and they said he was not capable of consenting. So, police officers came to make sure he didn’t leave. They were specially trained, talked to him calmly, even went outside with him so he could smoke while he waited, then handcuffed him and transported him about 20 miles to the hospital.

He was calm while he was being admitted, but wanted me to come get him the next day.

I heard from the case manager at the hospital yesterday - when asked if he knew why he was there, he said the hospital was doing human trafficking and she had bought him. That’s a new one.

I don’t know that I’ll post much because it seems to make me put the focus on how I feel and what I want to do instead of letting me concentrate on what I need to do for him. It’s easy to forget that no matter how well I plan, it all depends on what he will or won’t do.

But, I figured an update would be OK.

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I’m glad you updated. I find it interesting that they could put him in the hospital involuntarily because he was too delusional to consent.

I hope he is able to get stabilized.

I think it is okay to come here to give both focus and outlet to your feelings.

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Interesting in a good way or bad way?

Maybe it was because he came into our county’s mental health crisis center? The same place you call if you’re feeling suicidal, etc?

I don’t know what he said before they called me to come in & sit with him, because they didn’t talk to him a whole lot after I got back there.

But, both times he’s been involuntarily held, it has been because he was not capable of protecting himself from danger, rather than that he was talking about suicide or hurting someone else. The first time he wasn’t eating or sleeping. This time, he told them he hadn’t slept in 5 days, and that he wasn’t eating much.

When I asked them what they would do about the hospital if he didn’t want to go since he wasn’t suicidal or homicidal, that’s what they told me - he’s not able to give consent, so we’ll do an involuntary.

He definitely needs to be there, but I do think other places or people may have let him go. They seem to be very serious about helping people at this place. His case manager there has truly went above & beyond to help us with the pending disability application, and she was on the phone right away with the hospital to make sure they understood what’s been going on in the past couple months, what kind of treatment they would like him to be on, informing them of trying to get him into the intensive treatment program that’s supposed to help keep him out of the hospital, everything.

And, you know what’s funny? I avoided the place for years because it was county run and I thought it would be some clinic that was a last resort for people and he wouldn’t get good care there.

Now, I think they would give him excellent care, but I’m afraid he won’t accept it.

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I actually like that terminology ‘not capable of protecting himself from danger’. That seems to be very reasonable criteria for admission to the hospital. It can sometimes be very difficult to get an admission, and I will definitely keep that in my bag of tricks, as well as the ‘not able to give consent’. Even tho I am guardian, they sometimes still hesitate.

Hang in there…

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