Detour from Normal (9 page)

PINECREST

Soon we were en route to the ER, the same one at Desert Hope where everything had begun. Instead of having a déjà vu moment when I arrived, I was beyond recognizing it at all. I followed Beth blindly, and while she dealt with the paperwork, I found a place to pace, my agitation growing by the minute. They quickly admitted me to the ER and laid me on a bed. I must have seemed like a madman. I was unable to remain still; every jazzed-up nerve in my body felt ready to self-destruct.

Suddenly I yawned. It was so bizarre to yawn when it was impossible to sleep. I couldn't help but notice it. I was certain it foretold danger. Beth's cell phone rang and she stood to walk outside to take the call. "Don't go...," I pleaded.

"I have to. The therapist that's taking over for me at the meeting I'm supposed to be at is in a panic. He's already called several times."

At that very moment, something rushed over me like the enveloping darkness that precedes a tornado. I felt as if my soul had been ripped from me, leaving a hollow, lifeless shell. In a panic Beth called out to me, "Ken? Ken?" I could no longer reply—my lips, tongue, and vocal chords had gone still. My eyes still saw, my ears still heard, but all muscle tension
melted away and I lay lifelessly on the bed. It was as if I had died and was experiencing the last fleeting moments of consciousness.

Though it was only for a short time, it seemed an eternity before I felt the first spark of life return. Then fiery sensations raced from my torso through my extremities, like a thousand pins piercing flesh. As my facial muscles reanimated, they automatically contorted from the pain. My eyes squeezed tightly shut and my teeth gritted. As my hands returned from the dead, they clenched into fists of agony. Finally, the sensations faded and my body was once more my own.

Meanwhile Beth had managed to attract the attention of the ER nurse. An X-ray of my chest and a CAT scan of my head were immediately performed. Neither showed anything unusual. The ER nurse left us, and, shortly afterward, a social worker came in to speak with us. She informed us that they were going to send me to Pinecrest where they could better address my problems.

"Will I be able to get some sleep there?" I asked.

"Yes," she answered. I was elated that someone was finally going to help me. I had no idea what or where Pinecrest was, but if they could help me sleep, that's where I wanted to go.

Before I knew it, I was saying good-bye to Beth. I was helped from my bed onto a waiting gurney, which was soon bumping down an outside ramp to an ambulance. As the ambulance pulled away, my excitement grew over the possibility of finally sleeping. The paramedic questioned me along the way, taking copious notes on his indestructible Panasonic industrial laptop. Suddenly I yawned and moments later yawned again. Fear overtook me as I remembered how the strange seizure had started earlier.

I warned the paramedic that something was about to happen. I don't know if he heard me—things progressed much faster than I'd
anticipated. This time the shapeless darkness coalesced into a monstrous form, which reached into me and snatched my life in a suffocating grasp. My puppet strings went slack, and my limbs fell lifeless once more. Soulless eyes watched me as countless seconds ticked away, increasing the future potential of my suffering with each tick. When he was confident that my pain would be unbearable, the monster released his grasp. Life rushed back into me, and the pain was magnitudes worse: a thousand bees stung me from my torso to my extremities. I gasped in despair as I awaited relief, flexing my arms, legs, feet, and hands to speed the process, but the pain was unrelenting.

We arrived at Pinecrest and the paramedics rolled my gurney through the main entrance, helped me from the gurney, and then shockingly left me standing alone while they filled out paperwork at the receptionist's desk. With my muscles still partially numb and still in terrible pain, I could barely stand. While swaying and staggering as I tried not to fall, I continued to flex my extremities to ease the pain.

Beth had followed the ambulance, and by the time she arrived at the reception area, the paramedics were on their way out the door. My pain had finally subsided, but I was left with the memory of two seizures—the second much worse than the first. I knew it was only a matter of time before another started, and I dreaded how painful and debilitating that one was going to be. I suddenly felt in fear for my life.

"I have to get something to help me sleep right away," I yelled to Beth. An ominous feeling overtook me, and I knew danger was imminent. Beth was escorted to a side room where she answered questions and filled out forms with a social worker. "Can we skip the paperwork? Can someone help me?" I pleaded furiously. It seemed that no one was sympathetic to my desperate plight.

I didn't know it then, but at Pinecrest I was no longer an emergency room patient; I was simply one more mentally ill person to whom no one paid much attention. I didn't realize it, but Pinecrest was a psychiatric care facility. There they witnessed people like me acting out like clockwork. I was a television rerun that everyone had seen a hundred times.

I was outraged at how long it was taking to fill out the forms. In short order, time for me had once again run out—the warning signs had multiplied until there was no doubt of my impending doom. My life was going to change in moments if I didn't think fast.

"Beth, I need help right now!" I insisted. The monster was coming for me, but memories of the paralysis and pain were still fresh in my mind, and I wasn't going without a fight. A plan formed in my mind as his heavy footsteps approached. He was less of a specter and more real with each visit, and this time, I could almost feel his hot breath as he lunged for me. The plan went into effect: I ducked and dodged; I avoided his grasp any and every way I could. I never rested, never sat or stood still for fear of becoming his easy prey. I never thought about or repeated the same action long enough for him to decipher the pattern. I paced and I chatted with people in the lobby, never quite able to finish a conversation before I had to change tactics or "change up" as I called it. One by one, I scared them all away with my erratic behavior. I grimaced and strained my muscles in the corner of the room, trying to beat the monster by sheer brute strength. I walked into the side room and interrupted the paperwork to have Beth play patty-cake with me or put ice on my neck.

Though I tried to explain to Beth what was happening, it was incomprehensible to her. No rational person would understand what I was going through. It meant so much to me that she would
do the things I requested. It saved my life—from my perspective. Hours after being admitted, the paperwork was finally finished and all that remained was for me to sign it. I had no idea what I was signing, nor did I care. Stopping the monster and sleeping were my only priorities. With a few quick strokes of the pen, I was finally qualified to enter Pinecrest and face whatever awaited me there.

Beth's journal, May 18, 2011:

Ken struggled to sleep all night. He complained frequently of cramps in his arches. In the early morning, he got up and plugged in my hot wax machine (which I use for softening my very dry hands). When the wax was melted, he dipped his feet into the hot liquid one at a time. Once the wax hardened, he pulled thick white athletic socks over the warm wax on his feet to hold the heat in. That eased the cramping, but he was still unable to sleep. When I awoke, Ken was pacing outside and was very agitated. He kept repeating that something was wrong, that something bad was going to happen. As soon as the girls left for school, I took him to the Desert Hope ER.

The triage doctor at the ER noted Ken as being hypomanic. Shortly after arrival Ken had some kind of seizure. He was talking to me from the emergency room bed when suddenly his head dropped to his chest and he became unresponsive. I yelled for help, and he was rushed out of the ER for a CAT scan and X-ray, both of which came up negative. The doctor never returned to discuss Ken's case. Instead
a social worker appeared and recommended that Ken be transferred to Pinecrest, a behavioral health facility where they could manage his sleep deprivation and monitor his postsurgical health. I asked that he instead be admitted to Desert Hope, but she said that he didn't qualify medically.

Ken was transferred to Pinecrest by ambulance. When he arrived, he reported that he'd had another seizure in the ambulance. The wait to be admitted at Pinecrest was excruciatingly long. Ken was very agitated and in constant motion. His behavior was very odd. He begged me to walk with him, play patty-cake, rub his neck with ice cubes, etc. When we finally met with an admissions person, we were told that Ken's treatment at the facility would primarily address his insomnia. Ken wasn't considered mentally ill when he was admitted. He signed all the necessary paperwork to allow the facility to release information to me and allow staff to discuss treatment.

At 4:15 p.m., I was escorted into the facility. A young man offered me a red pill in a paper cup and a small cup of water to wash it down.

"What's this?" I asked.

"It's Ativan. It will help you sleep," he said.

I swallowed the pill and washed it down without further questions. In no time the medication took hold and the monster withdrew. The man showed me to a bed: a three-inch-thick, vinyl-covered foam pad perched on top of a wooden frame with an uncomfortable pillow, some sheets, and a blanket. I quickly lay on the bed. It was the worst
bed I'd ever encountered, but at that moment it felt like heaven. I pulled the thin blanket around me and finally slept as if I hadn't in a lifetime.

"Mr. Dickson," a voice called out faintly. "Mr. Dickson...," the voice repeated more insistently. I tried to open my eyes. They refused my efforts, begging me to let them stay closed. But behind those eyelids I was fully awake, my perfect sleep destroyed. I cracked one eye and peeked at my watch. It had been an hour and a half since I'd been given the Ativan. I sighed, rolled over, and took stock of my tormentor. He was of small stature with a full head of black curly hair, a close-trimmed beard, and brown eyes staring through dark, plastic-rimmed glasses. His overly sincere grin spread widely across a squat, chubby-cheeked face.

"Hello, Mr. Dickson, I'm Dr. Alverez. I'd like to ask you a few questions."

"I was dead asleep. I haven't slept for nearly a week, and you woke me. Why did you do that?" I asked in frustration. He ignored my question and replaced it with one of his own.

"Have you ever wanted to kill yourself?"

"No."

"Have you ever wanted to kill anyone else?"

"No."

"Have you ever had racing thoughts?"

"Well, I never really thought about it. I guess not."

"Have you ever been depressed?"

"No. I never get depressed."

The questions continued relentlessly. I answered them to my best ability, but I don't actually remember much of how I responded. I just wanted to finish and go back to sleep before the drug wore off. Before Dr. Alvarez left, he offered me a new pill, Seroquel. I accepted it without question, chased it down with water, then rolled over in bed, closed my eyes, and thankfully succumbed once more.