Tomorrow

I can really use a little distraction right now, so if you don't mind, I'm gonna tell you about yesterday. First thing in the morning, we went back to the hospital to talk with my son's doctors and social worker. An orderly escorted us into a day room and on the walls were these weird murals of Rugrats and Winnie the Pooh characters, and whoever painted them was just a little off in the composition and scale departments, like all of the kids in this place.

The first doctor walked in and introduced himself, but I didn't catch his name because it was long and African-sounding and he shook my hand with two fingers and then mispronounced my son's name and it took everything in me not to bolt. He proceeded to ask us all of the same questions every psychiatrist and psychologist has ever asked us about our son, and my wife and I responded robotically until we were joined by the social worker, who at least had a name I could pronounce (and I don't mean to sound so racist here; it's just that it's hard to place your trust in someone you can barely understand).

So we directed our conversation towards her, which was a good idea because she proved to be a good listener. Then an Indian woman came into the room and it turned out that she was the head psychiatrist for the unit and she told us that she wanted to put my son on three or four different medications for bipolar disorder and in the moment, what she was saying made perfect sense to us so we signed a bunch of papers that said just that, and walked out of there feeling a little more hopeful and that maybe this time, we were gonna get this thing under control.

It was on the way home when I began to change my mind. I started thinking about the last time my son was in this hospital about six months ago and how they kept him there for 11 days and pumped him full of drugs and how he stopped taking all of them as soon as he came home, and I didn't want to go through any of that again.

Several parents we know who have been down this road had suggested that we yank our son out of the county snake pit and place him in a private hospital to be properly and comprehensively diagnosed. And after an hour or so of making my wife crazy with the pros and cons of treating craziness, that's what we did. I called the private hospital to see if they had an open bed, they did and then I called the social worker who we had just met with and arranged a transfer.

So we turned around and drove back to the crap hospital. Not surprisingly, my son was flipping out because he had no idea why he was being moved and as much as he hated the place, had already figured out how to game the system. But when I told him that they wanted to keep him there for at least two weeks and pump him full of drugs again and how he could wear his own clothes and be outside in this other place and how I thought this was the right thing to do because I fuckin' love him to death and only wanted to see him get well, he relented. He even almost smiled when he saw that I brought him his baseball cap and black leather jacket.

I was allowed to ride along with him in an ambulance to the new, good hospital and my son was wheeled out on a stretcher because of insurance-related idiocy and I was making annoying Hannibal Lecter jokes ("Hey, they forgot your mask!)" for the entire trip. My wife drove up ahead by herself.

It was dark and much colder when we finally arrived. The three of us had to speak with yet another psychiatrist, who I immediately liked because he looked like an old freak with hair down to the middle of his back and I could tell he was no-bullshit because he said things to my son like, "You just need a little something to smooth you out." I could immediately tell that my son liked him too. We then had to talk to another psychologist, who was fat and distracted and was all bullshit, and we yessed him to death because we were exhausted.

Right before we split, I kissed my son goodnight and told him that everything would be better tomorrow.