April 10, 2012 Tuesday
It started at 4:30 in the afternoon. I hadn't heard from Tyler after school. I sent him a text asking what he was up to. I waited about half-hour and when I didn't hear back, I called him. I immediately knew something was wrong. When I asked him what he was doing, he told me he was at a soccer game. What? That's not like Tyler. He hates going to sports events. Then I asked him who he was with and he replied, "No one". That was also out of character. He was never alone after school. His speech was slurred as he was talking. I asked him what he had been smoking. I asked him what he had been drinking. I asked him what pills he had taken. The answer was the same to all my questions - "Nothing. I'm fine." He denied that he was slurring his words.
I hung up and called my daughter Katrina. I knew she was with her boyfriend in the same general area as Tyler. I asked her to go down to the soccer field and see if she could find Tyler. Katrina called me 10 minutes later. She was crying. She told me that Tyler was really messed up. He could hardly walk and was stumbling around. Katrina said that Tyler told her he had taken 5 Xanax, 2 mg each. I hung up and called the poison control to see how this would react with his normal meds. I knew they were both CNS depressants, and he could die. I just didn't know how much of an emergency it was. Poison control told me that it wasn't a fatal mixture, but I should take him to the ER.
When Brian and I arrived at the soccer field, I called Tyler and he asked me why I was here. He didn't remember that I had called him twice before, or that I was coming to pick him up. He couldn't tell me what car he was in, or what color it was. He got out of his friend's car and stumbled towards me. He could barely keep his balance. He had been eating nachos and had cheese all over his face, and chips stuck to his shirt with nacho cheese. I helped him into the backseat of our car and approached his friends. I asked him if Tyler had taken anything else besides the Xanax and if he mixed it with alcohol. They said he had only taken the pills. Then I laid into them. I won't write down everything I said, but it wasn't pretty. I told them what bad friends they were - letting Tyler mix his meds with other meds. He could die! They didn't tell him not to take them. They didn't use Ty's phone to call me when he did take them. They would have let him drive home this way! One of his friends proceeded to argue with me about it, and that's when I argued him into a corner and left. While I was yelling at Ty's friends, Brian had been on the phone with the police. He had given descriptions of the boys and the license plate of their car. I don't know what happened with the boys after that because we left for the ER.
On the way to the hospital, Tyler was in and out of consciousness. He was drooling almost uncontrollably. Brian would brake check him to see if he woke back up. When I would talk to him, mouthfuls of drool would come out between his lips, down his chin to keep the nacho cheese and chips company on his shirt.
When we arrived at the hospital, Brian ran in and a nurse came out with a wheelchair almost immediately. The place was packed! They pushed Tyler past everyone and into the check out room without filling out any paperwork. They got his bracelet and rushed us back into the suicide room without wanding us or taking our belongings. We ended up in the same suicide room as the two previous time we had been this year - room 27. We had to wait for a mental health assessor to come interview us. Tyler fell asleep. Different people came in to listen to our story of what brought us here. Tyler stated a few times that he took 5 pills, but he changed his story to 12. We weren't sure what he had taken.
The doctor informed us that there is a peak effect with pills. The peak for Xanax is approximately 2 hours. The medicine maintains the peak for so many hours, then you come down. We figured that Ty had taken the pills around 3:30 pm, so he should have peaked between 5:30 and 6. His state of consciousness was worsening. It was now 7:30, and he was unconscious to the point where you had to violently shake him and yell to wake him. He had been semi-coherent when we had arrived. We figured out that Tyler had taken 5 pills at 5 mg each. This is a LOT of Xanax.
Sometime during our arrival and 8 pm, the doctor woke Tyler up and asked him if he was trying to hurt himself. He said no, but he didn't really care if it happened. The doctor asked him if he thinks about hurting others, and Tyler told him yes. The dr asked who, and Ty replied, "Everyone." Why? "Because they deserve it." Who are you going to hurt? "Anyone who bleeds." Oh boy.
The mental evaluators arrived and Brian and I left with one to tell her our story and any concerns. Twenty minutes into our interview, the other evaluator approached us and said that Tyler was unresponsive, and she was not able to interview him. He would have to be admitted.
By the time they decided where to put him for the night, it was 10:30, and we had been in the hospital for 5 1/2 hours. They chose to put him in the ICU. Not because he physically needed it, but he had to have a 'watcher' - someone at his bedside all night long. I didn't wait for them to move him since I had school the next day and had to get up at 5:30 am.
After school, I picked up Brian and drove to the hospital. We had an appointment with the mental evaluator at 1:30. Of course, it was 2:30 or so when she showed up, and we were all getting anxious. Tyler was awake and alert, and he wanted out. We had the same evaluator the last time Ty tried to commit suicide and she remembered us. Brian and I left so she could talk to him. When she was finished, she pulled me and Brian aside and we had a long conversation. She asked us what we thought about Tyler going back to the mental hospital. I don't know why she asked our opinion, because she was recommending he go. If she recommends it then we don't have an option. Now I had to stall Tyler and not tell him he was going. The last time he went to the mental hospital, he was saying he was going to fight everyone and security had to be called. They had to physically hold the hospital room door shut because he was trying to break out. I knew this time would be much, much worse.
Everything was taking so long at the hospital. Tyler had been there for over 24 hours, and he was still in the ICU. He kept asking me what I was hiding from him. I can't really lie to him without being obvious. I told him we were waiting on the doctors to decide what to do. In the meantime, we were talking about what he had done and the seriousness of it. He confirmed everyone's suspicions in that he took the pills to get high and try to forget about his girlfriend breaking up with him. He was trying to heal his broken heart. If he died in the process, then oh well. He told me that as soon as he turns 18, which is in 6 weeks, he is buying a gun and blowing his head off. He said he doesn't care who it will affect, or what it will do to me. He hates himself and he hates his life. He hates having schizophrenia and being forced to deal with it all - voices every day, hallucinations, and the depression. He doesn't like taking pills everyday, and hates that it will be for the rest of his life. He said if the doctors send him back to the mental hospital, he will kill everyone in the hospital and they will never be able to catch him.
Being undecided up to this point on whether or not he needs to go back to the mental hospital, my mind was now made up. I was crying hard and left the room. I went directly to the evaluator and told him he needs to go. She had just hung up with Ty's psychiatrist Dr. Palamara, and she said that Palamara had ordered Ty to be committed. I went to the waiting area and laid down. I called Brian, who had taken Asher home and was packing a bag for Tyler. He told me he had just called Tyler's ICU doctor and let her have it for taking so long in getting things done. As he was telling me what he said to her, I get a text from Tyler telling me they are sending him back to the hospital. He's not going back, and I am a liar. Oh no. I asked him how he knew, and he said the doctor told him. Wow - Brian's phone call worked fast. As soon as I left the room, someone told Ty that he was going to the mental hospital! What happened to the orders of not telling him until the last minute?
I see Tyler, fully dressed in his jeans, hoodie, and shoes, walking very fast down the hall towards me, then on past and out the ICU doors. The doctors, nurses, and security were walking after him, telling him not to do this. My heart sunk. My first thought was I will just let security handle this. I don't want to see my son taken to the floor and handcuffed. I finished my conversation with Brian. He said he was on his way. I put my phone down and took a deep breath, covering my eyes with my arm as I laying on the couch. Then I thought I had better not let the staff handle this. I got up and started walking in the direction everyone went. I didn't see or hear them as they had a solid minute or two start on me. All I had to do was follow the crowd of people who had stepped out of their rooms, mouths hanging open, staring in the general direction they went. I started to run. When I saw them, I called out to Tyler and he broke out in a run for the exit door into the parking garage. I was yelling after him as I started to run. Why wasn't security doing more? He was getting away! He sprinted through the 3rd floor of the parking garage and down the 3 flights of stairs to freedom. I could hear security on their walkies talking to the police, giving a description of Tyler. I ran across the garage and down the stairs. I could see Tyler through the windows in the stairwell. He was running across the expansive green grass in front of the hospital toward the street. I started to sprint when I got outside, calling after him. I told him I would take him home. I told him I was going to take care of this, just come back. Please come back. As he was running, he was yelling "You're a fucking LIAR!"
It's so hard to realize your kid needs help, and they need more than you can give them. It's hard to accept the fact that your kid is sick, especially when they seem so fine. Tyler acts perfectly normal until he breaks. Then it switches into crisis mode at the speed of light. My first instinct is to be the protective and nurturing mother. Give him a hug and tell him that things will be okay. I will take care of everything. Then he starts saying crazy things like he wants to die and kill everyone who bleeds because they deserve it. He knows saying stuff like that will end him up in the mental hospital. Given how badly he doesn't want to go back, why would he choose to say those things? He just doesn't make sense and that's when it hits me (again) that this is really happening. I go through the grieving process again. I grieve for Tyler. I mourn his loss of normalcy. I mourn for what he has to go through. It's not what the majority of society ever has to even think about. I cry about his sense of loneliness. I cry about his overwhelming despair. I cry about the thought he would harm himself or others and not even remember he did it. I cry because I am losing my son, and I don't know what to do. I am overwhelmed.
Tyler ran into the street and into the woods on the other side. I kept yelling at him to come back, and I would take care of everything. I will work this out! Just please don't run. He was deep into the thick forest, and I was following as fast as I could, stepping over broken branches, squeezing through the trees, not caring if I ripped my coat on the sharp twigs. I knew if he didn't stop running, I would never see my son again. He would disappear into Traverse City and when someone did find him, he would be dead. This was life or death for me, and it was happening right now.
Thank God he stopped, and sunk down to the ground, with his back against a large tree. I caught up to him. Everywhere I looked, all I saw was trees and bushes and soggy mud. I couldn't hear the sounds of the city at all. It was just Tyler and me, and he was insanely mad. All his trust in me was long gone. I told him the cops were looking for him. I told him I would work all this out, and take him home. He told me that he would participate in outpatient treatment, but there was no way he was going back to the mental hospital. I don't know what it's like there. He wants to be with his family. I told him I would talk to the doctors and the psychiatrist to see if we can come up with an outpatient treatment plan. He responded well to that. I told him he needed to stay put. Don't go anywhere because the cops are looking for him, and I don't want him to get arrested. Please don't go anywhere. He had his phone, and I would call him.
I walked back to the hospital. Brian called and I gave him an update. I told him approximately where Tyler was. He said he and his Dad were on their way with Tyler's stuff and would be here in half hour. It took me a long time to walk back to the hospital. As I was going into the ER doors, I saw 2 security in the entrance. I heard one of them say, "That nurse was running after him." I was still in my scrubs from school, and I figured they were talking about me. I stopped and asked them if they were talking about my son, the one who ran out of the hospital. They said "Oh yes, are you his mom? Did you find him?" I told them I did find him, and he's okay. I started yelling at them for not catching him, and how could this happen? The Dr told Tyler they were sending him to the mental hospital as soon as I left the room. Everyone knew he was a flight risk! How come I was the only one able to stop him? They lost a patient - a mentally unstable patient! Because they are fat and lazy, my son may end up dead, and this is all their fault. Turns out one of them - the one I was yelling at - was a cop, and the other was hospital security. We walked back up to the ICU. I wanted them to get Dr. Palamara on the phone.
The ICU doctor was in tears. She said she hadn't talked to Tyler, and hadn't told him he was going to the hospital. Ty's nurse said "Oh! I didn't know he wasn't supposed to know. I didn't tell him, but he probably deduced it from what I said" and proceeded to tell me his story. I interrupted him and said I don't care what you said. I just want to know what to do from this point on. The dr. took me into a conference room and we called Palamara. We talked about outpatient, and she was very calm and relaxed sounding, which is what I needed because I was in freak out survival mode. I just wanted to protect my son. She explained the hospital policy, and the moral and ethical codes health professionals have to stick to in these kind of situations, and the reasons why. Basically, if I didn't consent to sending Tyler downstate, the hospital would call CPS. I would be found negligent and we could lose Katrina and Asher. I hung up the phone and saw Brian as I exited the conference room. He said he got a phone call from his Dad and he was with Tyler, on the way back to the hospital! Wh-what?!?
We went outside and saw them walking across the parking lot towards the entrance. Tyler was walking calmly alongside his grandpa, holding each other's arms. I gave him a huge hug. Dad had parked the car by the woods in the area I told Brian about, and called out Tyler's name. He heard a faint "Grandpa?" and he told Ty they needed to face this. Let's do this together. Come on out and we will take care of this. So Tyler came out. We told Ty that he has to go to the hospital. If he doesn't, they will call CPS and we will lose his brother and sister. He immediately agreed to go. There was no question, and there was no argument. Tyler has always been fiercely loyal to his family.
The hospital staff took us up to the same room - suicide room 27. The rules are only 1 visitor at a time. Each person must be wanded. No phones, keys, purses, belts, etc. Everything must be locked up. There is nothing in the rooms - it's 4 walls, and a wooden bed. There is a tv recessed into the wall, covered by plexiglass. The floor slopes downward toward the middle where there is a drain. The room is made to be sprayed down. We stormed the suicide room area - Tyler, Me, Brian, Grandpa, doctor, 2 nurses, 3 security guards. The nurses working suicide were yelling "you can't be back here! We can't have this! You can't all be here!" and the guards replied very firmly "Oh yes we can!" and they quickly pushed them out of the way and shuffled us into the room. They didn't wand us. We still had our coats on and all our possessions. They got us chairs and we waited for the EMS team to come.
Tyler laid down, and they gave him some Ativan to keep him calm. We waited about a hour, talking the whole time. Tyler was very responsive and relaxed. He responds well to Brian's dad. I think the reason EMS took so long to arrive is because they were getting the largest guy they had on the team. They sent 2 guys, but this one was built like a tree! He talked to Ty and told him what was going to happen, and they were going to have a nice relaxing ride down to Grand Rapids. It takes about 2 1/2 hours to get there. The man told Ty what would happen if he tried any funny business. We exchanged cell numbers in case anything happened, he could call me. Tyler was put on the stretcher and strapped in. He was shaking uncontrollably. He was scared. My heart was breaking. Again.
They gave him another Ativan and a benadryl. They left and so did we. Rules say that we have to drive down and check him in to the facility in person. We were running on about 4 hours sleep in the past 2 days. Now we had to drive 2 hours to fill out paperwork, drive 2 hours back, and get up for school in the morning at 5:30 am. Thank God for Brian! He called Pinerest in Grand Rapids and told him we weren't going. They argued and argued. He told them that the hospital is sending him no matter what. Pinerest said they won't admit him without us. So what's going to happen when Tyler arrives there and we don't? Send him back to Traverse? They finally relented and faxed the paperwork to the hospital and I filled it out there.
It was late as we drove home - 10:30 pm or so. I was exhausted. I hadn't eaten in 2 days. I wasn't hungry. I did feel a pang or two, but I would have just thrown up any food I had eaten. Turns out I lost about 4 pounds, but I didn't care. My mind was finally at ease. I knew my son was in the safest place he could be. I knew he would be alive for a few more days. I could rest now.
