i stopped by the dollar store and bought more crayons and a coloring book, chips and a soda.
already packed from home were 2 snack packs of cookies/crackers labeled with her name on it, to give to the staff for her 7pm snack box.
arriving with an activity in hand, just adds ease to a good visit.
wow, was she happy today. she is interacting with peers, and talking to the staff about what she likes and they have connected with her, with the dog and horse book and magazines. everyone seems pleased with her progress unwinding and relaxing in the unit. so am i.
"you visit me! you visit me! she said over and over, while laughing and smiling.
"yes, i do visit you".
and then here came the shoes from the staff for a fitting! once on her feet, she imitated tap dancing and was so excited, i said, "are you going out at the 4pm fresh air break now?" and she agreed, was very happy.
she ate potato chips and colored, said a few funny things that just made me laugh out loud. when i asked "hey are you excited about day after tomorrow going outside on a pass out of the hospital?"
(keeping her grounded with days of the week, etc. prepping her for the outing, which will be a big deal after being locked in 2 hospitals since august, so we are taking it slowly with care not to overwhelm her, walking on the grounds for the first walk)
here was her response
woooo hoooo! and that is a quote from her. lol
--
giving her a heads up about the time, i prompted her to put her things away, i asked her if she had the key to her cupboard and she did, and she went and put her slippers away and the coloring book, etc and came back and lined up and before she went out they gave her a new coat. i had told her i would see her tomorrow, she knew i was leaving when she went outside, that was the plan.
--
i walked outside and took a deep breath of fresh air, looking out toward the open space of trees and the late afternoon sky.
one of the only parking spaces available to park when i had arrived earlier was near the enclosed outdoor area, and i saw her from a distance as i left. she was walking pretty darned confident in those shoes and coat.
i thought to myself, "good for you, Lindsay, good for you!".
--
random music choice for this post
got in the car and caught myself smiling while driving away down the road. this oldie but goodie song was on the radio. it fit the speed of her walking and the fun tone of the day with her, the lyrics, well, could be a bit ironic, though it's the music that grasped the moment, as i drove my old junk heap home.
listen while you read, and imagine my daughter outside. she loves music. she's going to get stronger now, i've seen it happen before.
the pretenders
----
120 miles, 5 hours. for about an hour or so visit.
--
i'll stand by you, i stand by you.....
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17 comments:
I had a very bad day. This lifted me up.
And a very nice choice in music.
xxx to you and a happy weekend.
It's been a very very bad day so this lifted me up like nothing you can imagine. Bless you Stephany, bless you L- bless you.
Nice song too. ALways loved Chrissy Hynde.
I am so happy she is doing so well. I love, ""you visit me! you visit me! she said over and over, while laughing and smiling." It is such a great sign that she is getting better!
When I was hospitalized in Harborview and in the UW med Center for a month my family came in everyday and it wasn't until I finally started to feel better that I realized how wonderful that fact really was. Not only is it great to have company, something so few patients have, (and many none at all), but having visitors that loved me so much and would come from any distance just to show me how much they care. That's wonderful!
Things are sounding a lot better. Maybe their press office is paying attention after all. ;-)
This was a wonderful uplifting post.
Hi Stephany,
It is brilliant news.
Shoes and coat yippee!
Have a good weekend.
Big hugs.
Love,
Herrad
now onto writing about how she was indeed misdiagnosed for a decade, and dx PDD/aspergers at age 17 (1/2 way through this decade)then to end up in the adult psych system nightmare, where i could not get the pdd to be acknowledged until now.
to have this doctor say the drugs were not designed for her, and psychosis induced by drug reaction and trauma---there's a decade long nightmare being confirmed.
OCD>bipolar child>impulsive control disorder>schizophrenia>psychosis NOS the labels kept piling on.
more on that soon.
"you visit me! you visit me!"
I think I'd kinda echo linea. She may have noticed that the other patients don't tend to have visitors, or maybe one of the other patients said something to her on the subject, along the lines of "you're lucky". Or maybe she meant something completely different! More importantly, she's pleased that you visit her.
And she's got her regular fresh air time, too. Strange, isn't it (or not!)?.. A person expresses a wish for something, and rather than withhold it, using it as leverage, one gives it to them, and one gets a positive result?
Maybe the coercive level system works on some patients, but hopefully Lindsay's case will cause some to re-think the policy.
Matt
yes, and today she watched the clock and put her shoes on and got ready for the 4pm outdoor time again, and in her new big puffy coat too.
looking forward to tomorrow, first time in months walking with her unlocked and outta these places.
"...she watched the clock..."
So, she understands the concept of time, and she understands the concept of money (I seem to remember you mentioning something about this, perhaps last summer)? These are complex, abstract concepts, even if the vast majority of those reading this comment take them for granted.
She's waiting for something, I'm almost positive of it... Perhaps for somebody to say something? To give her permission to do something, or stop doing something? It's those double binds, again... I think she's been told to do/not to do something, even though her own, empirical analysis tells her that that instruction is incorrect, but when she followed her own observations, she was punished for it, in some way, and it's left a trigger that's too painful to break through - she needs somebody else's validation to countermand what she was told, perhaps because it's been made clear to her that her own authority isn't good enough.
Hmmm. That's speculation: take it with a grain of salt. Having said that, as a generic analysis, I've found it to be true of a lot of people.
Matt
Matt, well said. Stephany, I'm so happy!
Im so glad she got the shoes and so glad she is in a nicer ward. my son got finally offically diagnosed with PANDAS, a strep induced neuroligical disorder that looks a lot like autism, adhd,or bipolar on any given day. they said without a doubt the swine flu vaccine induced it. but it can be cured with antibioltics! now looking back at lindseys story is it possible that the urinary frequency plus the OCD was PANDAS? urinary incontinence and OCD are red flags for it. do you think she is really PDD or is that caused by the drugs she was on?
Beautiful post, so uplifting and full of hope. Hope that those walks will be around your neighborhood some day soon.
Your such a great mother, in fact you were born to be her mother.
XXXXX
thanks for all of the excitement, and thoughts here everyone, it's really nice to have this support.
wings of peace--pandas was discussed thoroughly as all testing, genetics lab at childrens , lots of stuff over the decade i pushed for, got the confirmation of depakote resulted polycystic ovary syndrome confirmed by a well known psych. (body damage from a drug not needed)
And, yes, PDD/aspergers at age 17 was presented to her in a meeting and even she agreed with it. self taught reader by age 4, walking enclyclopedia, tested at age 8 college age 29 reading comprehension, etc.
she assisted autism spectrum kids in high school at the junior high when she was 17 and came home one day and said "i'm like them".
what we see now is someone who was tossed into a traumatic adult locked psych ward system on her 18th birthday sent there from childrens hospital..due to turning 18, and i fought for her to be returned to childrens on an exception which took me 9 days. she returned MUTE.
i asked for trauma to be addressed, for therapists to come in and find out what happened. it was a rough ward, and she returned bruised and all they would say was "the one concrete thing we know is she was over-drugged with high doses of ativan".
she is paradoxical to that drug and i had told the doctor that. they shot her up with drugs so bad and so did all of the hospitals...after the one doctor said PDD/aspergers, the adult psych system drugged her up hard, high doses and at one time was on 19 pills after a discharge.
all of that leads us to today: a person who some believe suffered trauma, trauma induced psychosis, and brain damage from the drugs, each doctor having their own "cocktail", imagine me with these ppl telling them the drugs are her problem.
finally got her down to one drug--clozaril the last 2 years, knowing that if she wanted to choose to lower it or remove it she had to decide and participate, and being mute the last 2 years were difficult to say the least.
she started talking in august, said she feels like she was coming out of a coma.
so one day at a time and now it's being acknowledged that she again, was drugged for no reason.
thankful for this new doctor and i hope he does what he said he was going to do and find an super top doc in my daughter's pdd/aspergers category, who will, like him see her for who she is, and how drugs don't play a part but truama induced psychosis is there.
the police woman who handcuffed her face down in the gravel this summer triggered this episode, and all i can say is i am not done addressing that entire event.
i thought to myself, "good for you, Lindsay, good for you!".
And good for you Stephany. Here's hoping for many more.
I'm so happy she is doing well at this time. When you mentioned at one time she was mute for a very long time, it reminded me when my son refused to speak. On his first commitment at the mental institution, he would not speak. So they diagnosed him as being catatonic. Eventually when he did speak to certain people, they were very surprised.
Steph, reading this gave me tears of joy!
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