Medicine

Shayne can talk again.  Kind of.  He looks like he has been in a war.  His wrists are bruised and scraped from the restraints.  He has a giant yellowing bruise on his arm from the Haldol shots–he was given more than one–and his eyes are haunted.  Plus he’s lost weight again.  He was already whip thin.   I don’t think he remembers the dirty, dangerous conditions I found him.  I had him moved with one phone call to the patient advocate.  No one really even argued with me.  They knew.  He was moved to a ward that was clean and had privacy and snacks and things for patients to do.  The nursing staff is attentive and busy and makes sure everyone is comfortable and cared for.  It doesn’t fix that other place.  In some part of my brain, I care about this, but really I only have energy to spend on my son.

When Shayne first got sick, I thought that if he had the right medicine, he’d be okay.  I didn’t really understand what was so hard about keeping to a schedule and taking a drug in the morning or at night.  It was completely frustrating for me to always have to monitor the pills and still find the pills on the couch, or in the laundry, or stuffed in a glove.  After I was finished with radiation, my doctor wanted me to take a drug that helps to prevent cancer from coming back.  I didn’t want to take the drug because it gave me mood swings.  I work with kids; mood swings and glitter, can you imagine?  But it was my choice–take the drug and lower my chance of cancer reoccurrence, or live with the risk.  It made me understand Shayne’s perspective a little better.  Sometimes I think, what if we move to San Luis, or anyplace in the middle of nowhere, Shayne could just walk around with the cows all day and just let the voices go.  It would be dangerous for him.  He would be afraid the government was watching him: the soul snatchers would still be after his soul; he’d probably think the cows were really velociraptors.  The advantage would be no one would stare at him, or pity him.  Because the thing is, he can’t help it.  His brain doesn’t know how to turn off.  It’s firing stimulants at him all the time.  The medicine dulls the voices to a whisper, but doesn’t completely extinguish them.  If he misses a dose or doesn’t take it on time, the voices gallop around his brain.

Things went really bad, really fast this time.  It seemed like he was doing great one minute, then the next he was strapped to a gurney.  Now he is committed to a hospital far away without any real idea of when or if he will be okay again.  He might be able to take his medicine in an injection, once a month.  He said he is afraid to have a month worth of drugs put into his body.  I understand that, but I don’t want to ever see him wrestled to the ground by strangers again.  I don’t want to be afraid that he is going to run into traffic, or get out of the car on the highway, or disappear and be found dead or in jail.  Because this is where we are.