10/2/09 (or wait, is it 10/3 now? I guess, just barely, it is)
I’m writing from UCLA’s Emergency Room waiting room. Not exactly the way I thought this week would
end, but life sure does have a way of throwing in some surprises, doesn’t it?
Yet another eventful week has gone by – I had my own medical
issues, beginning with a very painful ultrasound of my gall bladder, what I
think was a gall stone attack, but then I found out finally 9 days later (the
tech told me it would be 2-3 business days, but I don’t know if it got
misplaced or what, it took several calls to finally have it read) that my
results were negative. Um, okay. Back to square one.
As for the girls – wow, it’s been interesting. I kept having a sixth sense of impending
doom, knowing that someone was headed for a meltdown, but I was completely surprised
by which girl it turned out to be.
Kieran had her moments.
While she loves school, and lives and breathes for swim, there were a
lot of issues with her sisters. There
were off and on moments with Brenna, but she and Ailish were struggling the most. It all came to a head when Kieran came to me
before school one day and said she just didn’t have a good feeling. I asked why?
She explained that Ailish threatened to throw rocks at her, and that she
didn’t feel safe. I was trying to put
all this together when she then told me that she thought she should quit swim. I was stunned. Why?
Because, she said, every time she succeeded at something, Ailish hated
her more. My heart just hurt for
her. I told her absolutely not, she
would keep swimming, and she would worry about herself, not about anyone else’s
happiness. There was no way I was going
to let her give up on swim for someone else.
I got her off to school and resolved to try to figure out a way to help
her. It was such a difficult day. I was filled with such a hatred of, of
what? I couldn’t hate Ailish. I love Ailish. I hated what made Ailish do such things, what
made her believe that Kieran was the root of all evil. There is nothing worse than feeling like you
must protect one child from another – it’s just not natural. I was driving around that day, running
errands, getting my labs drawn, getting groceries, but all the while, I was
fighting back tears, trying to figure out how to fix this. We could give Kieran her own space, but without
a locking door, she was no more safe from them (and probably, in some ways,
less, if she were downstairs and out of earshot at times). There was only one solution that seemed to
make sense. I needed to clear out the
scrapbook supplies from our bedroom and see if we could set up an area for
Kieran. That was my plan for this
weekend – to get that done. I had come
to a solution, but it wasn’t really a satisfying one – not because I mind
Kieran in our room so terribly much, but just that we had to take such drastic
measures. No one could understand this
outside of our family, but we are left with very few options.
As for Ailish, who still doesn’t quite understand what the
whole deal with Kieran is, I still have seen signs recently that she was
starting to lose it a bit. Nothing huge,
but we had been dealing with the medication issue, with her missing several
days in a row. She swore up and down it
was not intentional, but intentional or not, losing that many days in a row
could cause pretty drastic mood swings.
I started to see some of the paranoia creep back in, more of the
backtalk she exhibited last year before the big incident. I know some of this can be attributed to adolescence,
but I can never tell what’s minor “growing pains” and what’s something much
more serious. This was where my
impending sense of doom came in – I was just so worried about leaving the two
of them anywhere alone.
The usual obligations of Girl Scouts and swim filled up much
of my week. There was also school for
Brenna, which seemed to finally be hitting its flow. She struggled to get through a written essay,
but with the help of my friend Lisa, she did get it written, and, for a first
draft, did an excellent job. Although
there were some hiccups along the way, mostly just trying to keep her focused
because she was “up” for most of the week, I felt like we were doing the right
thing, and that the home school program was meeting both of her needs – keeping
her educated while not stressing her out too much.
Today, today was a day where I could have used some danger
music. I am always wishing I could have
my own soundtrack so that the danger music would warn me when things were
getting a little dicey. No such
luck. It started out well enough, if not
extremely busy. Kieran had her Friday
minimum day, and then we grabbed her lunch and got her in to see our therapist,
which was so great. She hasn’t seen her
in quite awhile, and I know she has so much to talk about, so it was important
for Kieran to have that. From therapy,
we went to her first private swim lesson with her coach. Another thing she needed, to have that time
to get one on one instruction, and another diversion for her. From there, we got Ailish from school, then
dropped Kieran back off for swim practice.
I went home with Ailish, then brought both Brenna and Ailish back to
swim with me to get Kieran, as we had to drop Ailish off at a Girl Scout IP
Workshop. Her workshop ran for two
hours, so I decided the three of us should grab dinner while we waited. We went to a little Italian place, and though
the food wasn’t spectacular, we all had a great time, joking around and
talking. Afterwards, we still had a
little time, so we ran to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. Brenna was intent on getting Velveeta so she
could make queso, and we had a good time searching for it. Velveeta is always in the strangest places,
so we had a good laugh about the aisle where we found it. We went from the store back to the school to
pick Ailish up. On the way there, we
listened to the first inning of the Dodgers-Rockies game, and I knew from there
that we weren’t going to win, so we shut that off once we got to the school,
and we chatted for a few minutes before it was time to get her. I told the girls to stay in the car while I
walked the 50 yards to school. Looking
back, Brenna did say, “Stay here? Can’t
we come in?” But I had brushed her off
with a wave. I would only be gone a
second. I didn’t realize that Ailish was
going to be detained for longer than most of the other attendees while her
leader chatted with her troop. Kieran
sent me a text, so I called jokingly to ask if everything was okay. She said, “NO!” but I still didn’t quite get
it. I told Kieran to come inside and I
would deal with the two of them when I was done. So Kieran ran in, but she didn’t say
anything. It was only a couple of
minutes before we were done – I distinctly remember looking at the clock when
we pulled out – 8:09. I asked them,
quite irritably, what in the world was going on? Kieran said she began humming a song that was
playing on her Zune and Brenna just “flipped out.” I was really upset with Brenna, but Ailish
was quite excited to tell us about her Space IP, so the conversation was
quickly diverted. Brenna texted me that
she couldn’t be alone – she was freaking out.
Brad called at that point to say he was still stuck in traffic, so I had
Ailish tell him about her IP adventure.
I never got the chance to respond to Brenna’s text. That danger music would have really come in handy.
Once we got home, I dealt with unloading the car and then realized
that the dogs really needed to go out, so I took them out myself, since Kieran,
who had the dog chore, needed to get her bag loaded up for her swim meet
tomorrow. I was gone for several minutes
because Duncan was quite selective about where he went potty tonight, so when I
got back, I asked if Brenna and Ailish had taken their meds. Ailish moved towards her meds and said she
didn’t know about Brenna. I called
upstairs to Brenna, no answer. Again I
called. Again, no answer. I asked the girls if they knew where she
was. They went upstairs, but then came
down to say they didn’t know. I went up
to her room and found her curled up tightly in a ball. I still didn’t get it. I told her she needed to take her meds. She spat back a defiant NO! I went downstairs, got her meds together and
a glass of water and headed back to her room, certain that I would be able to
get her to take her meds. She was in a
snit, and I wasn’t about to let that get in the way of her taking care of her
medications. I ordered her to take
them. She screamed NO! I tried to force her to take her Depakote –
she spit it out, and it hit the floor. I
turned off the light and walked out, hoping that she would calm down a little
and I could talk her into it. Five feet
out the door and I hear a loud bang. I
turned to see her hitting the wall with her room fan with all her might. Somewhere at that point, I got it. We were in full meltdown mode. I was so busy looking for Ailish to collapse,
it hadn’t occurred to me that Brenna was on the verge. It took every ounce of strength I had to pry
the fan out of her hands. While I tried
to put it away from her reach, she began kicking the wall, full bore. I wedged myself between her and the wall, so
she began kicking at the foot of her bunk bed, shaking the entire thing. I held her legs down, she reached up and
grabbed the straps holding the bunkboard pieces above her, and she began
tugging on it. I used one leg to keep
her legs as still as I could, while I used an arm to hold down her arms. I called Brad again and thankfully, he was
nearly home. Brenna was screaming at me
with full force – I was not her mother, I was never her mother, she didn’t know
who I was. She hated me, she hated
everyone. I just kept telling her
okay. I didn’t know how else to respond. At one point, the dogs came in to comfort her
(it is amazing how much they understand and react to – they know the sounds,
and they will do everything they can to help), and she screamed as loudly as
she could, begging us, “GET THEM OUT! GET
THEM OUT! I WILL HURT THEM!” Then she screamed that they were coming, THEY WERE COMING! We said who? THEM, THEY ARE COMING TO GET ME! She screamed and sobbed. After several minutes, she began talking about wanting to go to the
hospital, feeling like if she wasn’t put somewhere, she would hurt
someone. She said she didn’t feel safe
being at home. Once Brad arrived, I had
him take over the restraints while I began calling around. I called the County Emergency Response
Team. I was told all of their teams were
out on calls, so I should call my insurance company. I called UCLA and left a message – they said
a nurse would call me back and let me know if there was a bed. I called my insurance company and found that
they have absolutely no humans available after 5 p.m. or on weekends. I went back to check on Brenna. She and Brad had gotten to a point where she
was at least less violent. I asked, did
she still feel like the hospital was the best answer? She cried yes, yes, yes. Then she began sobbing about how sorry she was
for what she had said. I told her I
understood, I knew it wasn’t her saying those things. It was okay.
But she was inconsolable. She
couldn’t forgive herself. I began
searching my insurance company’s directory, looking for any “nearby” pediatric
psychiatric hospitals (the closest ones are at least 34 miles away from
home). After an hour, I called UCLA
again. I left another message. I called Las Encinas. No beds.
As I cried, the intake person gave me the names and numbers of a few
more hospitals to try. I called
them. No beds. While I made calls, the girls got Brenna
packed. It was at once so ordinary and yet
so heartbreaking – sisters working together to pack Brenna up for the
hospital. Kieran got Brenna’s
suitcase. Brenna and Brad got some
clothes together for her. Ailish had the
wonderful idea to get some pictures together for her. Kieran gathered up some things she thought
Brenna would need – a deck of cards, the beloved Blink game, Kieran’s prized
turtle she was awarded for winning her heat at a meet in the spring, one of her
First Place ribbons, and a note where she asks Brenna to please not forget
her. Thankfully, I didn’t see any of her
treasures until later – I might have just completely fallen apart if I
had. Finally, I got a call back from the
UCLA nurse. She said they did have a
bed, but that they couldn’t hold it for me, and we would have to just drive to
the emergency room to see if the bed was still available when we got here. Without any other choice, we decided we had
to take the chance. Sandy offered to
have them come over, and then she offered to come over and pick them up, which,
again, just proves even further that she is my superhero. The three of us began the long journey to
UCLA. Brenna was completely silent in the
car. Brad was talking about some new
type of surfacing the state was planning to use on the freeways. I heard him but I wasn’t listening. I was stuck in a conversation in my
head. I just kept saying to myself,
“How did we get here again? How did I
not see this coming?” I just couldn’t
wrap my head around it.
It took some time after we got off the 405 to wind our way
through the streets of Westwood. It was
a party night, all of the greek houses were overflowing with partiers, so we
had to be extra careful not to hit anyone stumbling out. We made our way to the emergency room, only
to find that the emergency room we had taken Ailish to was no longer there – a
lot had changed in six years. Back out
into the fray we went, and finally found the new emergency room. The bright lobby had only a few
patients. I thought maybe this might be
a quick admission. We signed in about
10:45 p.m.
It is now 2:49 a.m., and we are in an exam room, which is
good. At least we have control over the
TV channels. Brenna has been examined
twice by nurses, the medical doctor, and the psychiatric resident. Her belongings were duly noted, documented,
and signed for. We went over all the
sordid details twice, and I was quite worried that, as calm as she was, they
weren’t going to admit her. I was ready
to plead, she was only calm because she knew she was going to the hospital. She responded to everything without affect,
without any bit of emotion whatsoever.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to plead.
At 2:58, the resident came back to give us the admission paperwork. Now, we wait for the nurse to come down and
get us to settle her in. Past experience
tells me we may have a good hour or more ahead of us before we leave. And then we begin our treks to UCLA once
again. It’s like a replay of a bad
dream, one I had hoped to never see again.
We will pick up the pieces and quite possibly go home only
to retrieve Kieran and take her to her meet.
We have to be up at 6:00, and given the hourlong drive home, it’s quite
possible we will have less than an hour before we need to be up and moving for
her meet. It makes the whole sleep thing
not really worth it. I feel worst for
Kieran, who wants so badly to impress her coach at her first meet since moving
up to Gold, and yet I have no idea how much, if any, sleep she’s gotten
tonight. I pray that she was able to
settle in and get some kind of rest. I
hope that she can put this behind her and just swim tomorrow. She says when she gets in the water, all she
thinks about is the water, and that’s what I’m hoping for.
10/4/09
I had planned to post this sometime yesterday, but as it
turned out, we didn’t have much time after picking Kieran and Ailish up from
Sandy’s before we had to be at Kieran’s meet.
We did not get Brenna settled into her room until 4:30, which meant we
got to Sandy’s just before 5:30. By the
time we got home and Kieran and Brad collapsed into bed, I realized Ailish was
seriously out of sorts. She had only
gotten a few hours of sleep at Sandy’s, and she was alternately worried that
she had somehow caused Brenna’s episode (because it all started when we went to
pick Ailish up from her Girl Scout event), then she was talking about the
hospital, I don’t know whether she was worried about visiting or worried about
ending up there, she was just talking in a free-flowing stream, and I could
almost feel the anxiety swirling around her.
I knew I wasn’t going to able to sleep in the little bit of time we had,
so I just let her ramble. I knew she
needed to let it loose or it was just going to build up inside of her.
I gave Kieran as long as I could before I woke her up. So we would miss getting a good spot to set
up chairs, and maybe she’d have to wait in line to check in. The extra 30 minutes of sleep was worth all
of that. I kept thinking about the last
thing Brenna said to me as I said goodbye to her. As I hugged her, she said she was sorry, and
I said no, she had absolutely nothing to be sorry about. The nurse told her she was very brave to ask
for help before she hurt someone. I
appreciated his words in that moment.
She needed to hear that from someone other than us. So many of the admitting nurses we’ve met
over the years have been almost cruel to the girls as they come in. It’s scary enough to be strapped to an
ambulance stretcher, or exhausting enough after 6-8 hours in an emergency room,
to have a nurse almost angry at you – and angry at what? They weren’t there, fighting the battle,
whatever it was that took us to the decision to hospitalize them. The only thing I can think is that a new
admit is a lot of paperwork, it’s labor-intensive, and they are irritated with
them for interrupting their night. I
just think the last thing the girls need at that moment is someone who looks
like they disapprove. The nurse we had
this time around was very kind, he was very compassionate, and, exhausted as I
was, I appreciated that. As we hugged,
Brenna looked up and said, “Please tell Kieran I’m sorry I ruined her meet.” I told her not to worry, she would be okay.
It took a long time to wake Kieran, and for a moment, I thought,
what was the point? She would probably
have an awful day, and I didn’t want that to be the start of her season. But I had also committed to a volunteer job
during the meet, and I didn’t want to let them down. We would deal with however her races turned
out. I decided after Brad didn’t respond
to let him sleep for awhile. Kieran and
I gathered up our stuff and made our way to the pool. Once there, I was very happy to have a job
that wouldn’t let me sit down. I didn’t
think I could make it if I sat for any period of time. However, my body was screaming. I knew the lack of sleep was affecting my
other ailments, and my joints were aching terribly. Still, I was grateful for something to keep
me busy.
Brad arrived just before the meet began, and I was grateful
to have him. I wanted her to feel
supported, but I could only step away briefly to watch her race, and couldn’t
be there fully for her. It was finally
time for her first race, and I’m not sure who was more nervous – me or
her. I knew this race would color the
entire rest of the day. 50 back, two
laps of backstroke. It’s her favorite
stroke. I just hoped the exhaustion
wouldn’t affect her. She hopped in, the
buzzer sounded, and she was off. 41
seconds later, she had taken nearly 10 seconds off her old time and won her
heat. I was so thrilled for her! That’s when I finally breathed – I knew she
would be okay. She was happy because the
heat prize was a package of cookies, and then I got to see firsthand as I was
posting her results that she placed 1st in her age group. As I was taping it up to the wall, Brenna’s
words came to mind, and tears welled up.
I made myself stop – I was so exhausted, I was afraid I would never stop
crying if I let myself start right then.
I gave Kieran a huge hug, told her the news and went back to work. Kieran’s two other races – 50 breast and 50
free, both went just as well. She took 9
seconds off her freestyle time and set a great time for her 50 breast – the first
time she’d ever swum that race in short course.
There were lots of cookies, one set that she put aside for Brenna, which
made me both proud of her and a little heartbroken.
We got home from the meet at 12:30 and needed to be on the road
at 1:00 to get to Brenna for visiting hours.
At first, we thought everyone would go, and then Ailish worried about
crowding Brenna too much. Brad was
exhausted and falling asleep every time he didn’t have someone actively talking
to him. I decided Kieran and I would go
for the long visit, 2-4, and they could come down for the short visit, 7-8. I was so irritated when we hit traffic. I didn’t have time for traffic. We got to the ward around 2:15, and I
apologized to Brenna, but she didn’t even realize it was time for us to visit,
so she was fine. She loved her room,
which is so much nicer than any room we’ve ever seen. She has her own bathroom, her own TV, a
lovely view of Westwood. Her walls are
painted a serene blue. The mattress is
even nice. She said she felt good. “Good enough to come home?” “No!” she said quickly. “This is keeping me, it’s keeping you, safe,”
she said, matter of factly. Wow. I’ll admit, her bed was too comfortable. All I wanted to do was sleep, but I knew that
wasn’t doable. The three of us ended up playing some rousing
rounds of Blink. Brenna and Kieran were
laughing hysterically at each other, and I realized this was the exact sound I
had heard at dinner, less than 24 hours before.
“How did we get here?” I asked out loud, and Brenna stopped and looked
at me. “Really, B, how did we go from
this kind of laughter at the restaurant to being here? What happened? Do you remember a moment when it just broke?” Brenna looked at me, at a loss for
words. “I don’t know,” she said
softly. “I guess it had been building.” “But was there a moment you can remember?” “You left me alone in the car!” she said, her
voice rising. “They were coming to get
me!” “Who?” “The people.”
Ahh. Okay. There was a moment, but it could have
happened anywhere.
After the visit, we had lunch/dinner with Cinnamon, Becca’s
mom. Cinnamon is near the end of this
particular UCLA journey, we are at the beginning. I love Cinnamon – we have the same very dark
sense of humor about all of this. Becca
is an absolutely beautiful girl. On the
one day I saw her, at Jani’s party, she was having a great time, and got along
well with the girls. But Becca is
haunted by a similar idea – that the man is coming for her. Becca has been inpatient at UCLA every single
month this year but one. Cinnamon lives
maybe a bit further out than we do, and the thought of going through all of
that is exhausting, and yet, I know I would do the same thing if I had to. Cinnamon gave me lots of tips on parking and
navigating the maze of buildings at the new hospital campus. I appreciated all of the information – how nice
it would be if every parent had someone who had been there before to tell them
how to make their lives easier in a time of crisis. It was time for the next visit, and Brad and
Ailish joined us with some items Brenna had asked for from home. Ailish had seen the list and, on her own,
packed the bag for Brenna. She told Brad
she would know better what Brenna needed.
She did a great job, and I was proud of her for being so
compassionate. We had a good visit,
playing Blink, then card games, and then charades. I was grateful to have them there. Sometimes those visits can be so intense,
staring at each other for an hour, and everyone was willing to play, so the
time passed quickly. Brenna was sad to
see us go, but we reminded her, we would be back for the two visits the next
day.
We split up and made our separate ways home. Kieran and I put on Black Eyed Peas on Max
Volume and sang our hearts out all the way home so we wouldn’t fall
asleep. We crawled into bed and watched the
Dodgers *finally* win the Division Championship and then I was out. Kieran fell asleep in the 8th. This morning, I will make pancakes, Sunday
tradition, and once she wakes up, I will help Ailish with her homework. Her anxieties about her homework came
spilling out the night before as I tried to say goodnight. I knew she was troubled by something, and I
had just assumed it was Brenna’s situation, but it was her homework that was
bothering her, so I promised to help today.
She said she knows she shouldn’t let the anxiety control everything, but
she couldn’t help it. I understood. Ailish is also quite sad that Kieran isn't going to share a room with her anymore. I explained, as gently as I could, did she understand why? No, she didn't. "Because you threatened to hurt her again." "Well, sometimes my anger comes out, and I can't hurt the dogs, they can't fight back. They are helpless." "But Ailish, Kieran doesn't want to hurt you." "I know THAT! I don't want to hurt her. But I have to hurt something when the anger comes out, and she's all I have." Wow. How do you resolve that? They love each other, they want to be sisters, and yet Ailish can't help but go after her when she's angry, and Kieran, obviously, can't help but be scared of her *all* of the time because she doesn't know when that anger is going to come spilling through. What am I supposed to do with that? Wow. It was honest, it was as open as Ailish has been in so long, and yet I have no clue how to help them.
I just want to take a brief second to thank everyone who has
written me in the last couple of weeks.
I will respond – I have put them all in a separate folder to respond
to. I know that her hospitalization just
happened, but it was honestly something I felt building for weeks, and I just
haven’t been able to be on the computer as much as I wanted to. I just want you to know I appreciate your
words so much, and that I haven’t forgotten them.
This whole week brings me back to something Ailish said the
other day. She was talking about
residential, and whether it did her or Brenna any good. “Not really,” she said. “All it did was bring us back to, well,
square two.” This morning, I completely
understand. Square one is the
beginning. We’re not at the
beginning. We’ve been through hell and
back, only to find out the things we’d fought so hard to win were not victories
after all, that the services we’d fought for would actually do more harm than
good sometimes, and that now, we are left with very few options. If Ailish meant square two is worse than
square one, I would definitely have to agree.