A View From The Psych Pod

Our oldest daughter, Laura, is diagnosed with bipolar disorder and has been in the hospital four times over the past few years:

Of course, that is a serious diagnosis, but, honestly, as a parent, her illness had not escalated to a point where I imagined it might change the course of her life.

She is still very young, and it was my hope that, with medication management, things would stabilize after her teen years.  

I guess I was living in denial.

Until a few weeks ago.

Over Spring Break, several high risk behaviors she had been engaging in came to light and we were so upset.

At the same time, her behavior was escalating again.

By Friday, April 1st, we decided she was going to have to go back to the hospital.

Unfortunately, as I was preparing to take her, she took a massive overdose of one of her medications and had to be rushed in by ambulance.

That night was one of the worst of my life.

Her vitals were all over the place. At one point, we couldn't wake her up. It was just horrible. . .

When she finally recovered from the overdose, there was not an adolescent psych bed available anywhere in the state, so we spent the whole weekend locked in the psych pod of the Children's Hospital ED:

We were there from Saturday morning until Monday morning, when Laura was transferred to Mountain View in Gadsden.

Since she has been at Mountain View, they have increased her medications tremendously with some success, they have had to give her Thorazine to manage some of her episodes, and I have finally started to accept that Laura is living with an SMI (Serious Mental Illness) Diagnosis that will be a major part of her life.

Because this admission seems to have brought a significant change in her, we are realizing that we have to also make some new plans for her when she is discharged:

- She will not be returning to her school and we are scrambling to figure out what will be best for her now.

- Of course, after a serious suicide attempt, we are having to rethink her schedule (we do not want her to be alone) as well as things she has access to in our home.

- I haven't been happy with her psych team previously. I am hoping to continue care with her psychiatrist through Mountain View and perhaps see a counselor through our church? Since our previous team obviously wasn't working, I'm going to just start over.

- She will not be allowed to associate with her old friend group as she was making some very poor choices with them. This will be a challenge.

- I will be looking in to what additional resources are available to help her. She needs all of the support she can get.

I worked as a psych nurse for quite some time and I'm familiar with the meds and the behaviors and even the progression of the illness if it isn't controlled but it's been a major adjustment to accept that these things apply to my Laura.

She seems to have rapid cycling bipolar which is the most difficult to treat because this is their typical day:

It also makes it challenging to live with them, as their moods are constantly changing from one extreme to another.

I am hopeful that the med adjustments that are being made in the hospital will help her as they have more than doubled her mood stabilizer.

They have also tripled her antidepressant which will hopefully prevent another April 1st from EVER happening again.

So now we wait and plan and search for help and pray and pray and pray.

Be well, friends.