Yup, I made trip number three last Thursday. A poor day for entry, as I was left without care on Saturday and Sunday. Those two days are the most harrowing of my life so far. I always wondered about people who make plans to die. Not anymore. I now know the depths that a man can go to get relief from that which is tormenting him.
A few weeks ago, I began to have uncontrollable anxiety. My anxiety med, and sleep aid stopped working, as did my antipsychotic. I decided to flip the script and return to some old favorites. The doctor obliged me with little resistance. The changes proved disastrous. I stopped sleeping, for the most part. The doctor offered Ambien and that worked for maybe 2-3 hours a night, and I would spend the next eight to twelve hours unable to sleep, wide awake. I began to hide in bed until noon with a sleep mask on to keep the daylight out.
The anxiety began to make my waking hours a living hell. I could not control my emotions or my limbs. I was completely unprotected from anxiety, which was the animating cause for everything I was feeling. Yes, sleep was the key, but I would not be able to do that if I could not get a grip on my anxiety. So me and my doc kind of did it backwards by trying to treat the sleeplessness first. The pacing and the herky jerky movements hit a high on Tuesday, and it was then that I shared with my wife what was going on inside me. Someone was going to have to observe me, and on Thursday I threw in the towel and checked myself into a locked ward. I saw a doctor that night and again on Friday but no medical treatment was forthcoming. I was going to have to spend the weekend in the same state I checked myself in and wait until Monday when treatment could begin in earnest.
Saturday was tough. I could do very little but adjust my arms repeatedly in bed to try and make myself comfortable. My breathing was hitched and labored. I won’t say the nurses were indifferent to my suffering, but they did spend a lot of time telling me they could not help me. Without a doctors orders, nurses were powerless to relieve suffering. What kind of shit is that? They kept offering me hydroxyzine for my anxiety, which as any anxious person knows doesn’t work worth a hang. At some point, relief was offered by way of intramuscular Ativan. I had to do a lot to get that shot, to include falling down at the nurses station. I repeatedly asked for the doctor to the nurses consternation. Squeaky wheel and all. I did not sleep, but I felt more relaxed than at any time in my stay thus far.
(I am getting over my fourth trip. I have been home for about a month now, and I went in early in the week. Sixteen days, but I am reoriented and meds are working and I no longer want to die. The point of this was, make sure doctors are making their rounds if you have to go insane for a little bit. Because pharmacists and nurses don’t want to hear about your problems if you can’t see a doctor, which you cannot on weekends. Oh sure, there’s an “on-call” doctor, but I don’t know what you’d have to do to get their attention besides deciding to choke on your toothbrush.)
The Illogical Seminary 