Hostage Situation? You Decide. Part 3

Here is the third part, and it is just about Wednesday.  If you haven't read part 2 this might be a bit confusing. Here is the link to part 2-- http://writingcattales.blogspot.com/2015/10/hostage-situation-you-decide-part-2.html  I would highly suggest reading part 2 before reading part 3 if you haven't.

Wednesday was a doosey! 

Since 8 the night before my daughter wasn't checked again until morning. The I.V. was still in but barely dripping.  In fact from the night before until that morning the level of the fluids in the bag had not changed.

After what happened the night before, both my daughter and I realized the day was not going to go as we wanted. My daughter's boyfriend was tense. I was tense. My husband was on alert. Meg was warning me... “This has happened to others, Mom. Be careful.” So we waited.

In the meantime both Meg and my daughter's boyfriend did some research and found cases where patients had been forced against their will to go to the psych ward and had sued this hospital. Some of those cases had been substantiated.

The psychiatrist came in around 9. He was insistent that she be admitted to the psych ward. I was not comfortable. We talked back and forth, but it was not going well. Neither my daughter nor I felt comfortable at all. At this point we didn't know this was going to be a forced issue. We didn't know the lies we would be told, and how bad it would get.

After he left --about a half hour later, I called and scheduled an appointment with our counselor for 1:00 pm. Surely that would take care of this.

At 10 he still was not back. I finally went to talk to the nurse asking when my daughter was going to be released around 11, explaining we had made an appointment with our counselor. A few moments later the psychiatrist was back. His opinion had not changed and it was becoming more apparent he was willing to force us to do things his way, even if we didn't agree.

“Why can't she see our counselor? Or why can't we do this outpatient?” I was asking these questions trying to understand what the problem was.

“It will only be for twenty-four hours. She will have a private room. Just to keep a watch on her.” He spoke as if to pacify, but not at first answering me.

“She does not like strange places and situations. She wasn't trying to commit suicide and she doesn't want to hurt herself, so why is this so urgent? I am her mother, why do you need to keep a watch on her? She needs to figure out what she is going to do. She has an appointment at 1 pm with our counselor...” This was me again.

“Well we agreed she needs a break...” The psychiatrist again.

“Yes, but being here for another 24 hours is not a break...” Me speaking up once more.

“I work off a plan, and I need a plan. That is what I need to figure out now...” My daughter spoke up for herself, calmly explaining one of her objections.

“Well you need to slow down...” We all agreed on this but that also included a plan of how to do that.

“What would you do if you were home instead of here?” This question felt like a trap. He was insistent she needed to slow down, and yet kept flipping into that she needed a plan and he didn't seem to understand those went together. So no matter what she would say he would jump. My daughter told me later, she didn't know what to say. Would she say she would go to class? Would she talk about the appointment we set up? Or going home to get a little sleep because of the tension within the hospital?

“I might take a nap, and then when I woke up I would sit down with my mom and begin to talk about what happened and start to...” This is what she decided to say. It didn't go over well. He interrupted her before she could finish.

“Talk... You have no plan. See we could help you figure out a plan.”

“Why is her talking to me and our counselor not as good as being here? That would give her a chance to figure out what she wants to do from here.”

“Well when would you have her at the counselor?”

“Today. We have an appointment already set up. We had an appointment for Monday, but then she was in here and we had to cancel that one. I've been in touch with our counselor every day that she has been here.”

“But she hasn't seen her before...”

“No, but I have and my older daughter has, and our counselor has agreed to see her already. She has never met your people either. At least she knows I know this counselor and if she wants me there I will be there.”

“Well if she could come here...”

“I can call her...”  This was me.  I knew our counselor would come there in a heartbeat.  She had altered her day on Monday to be able to see my daughter on her day off.

“Well do.” I picked up the phone and talked to the office for our counselor and he talked to the receptionist and gave him a number for our counselor to call him. For right then the argument stopped. He also talked to my husband, who thought it would help him if he knew we had the appointment and maybe coming to the room would be good and help him calm down.

An hour later, there still was no resolution. He refused to talk to our counselor about any of the circumstances, even though we had given him permission. Lied to our counselor and told her he hadn't understood that our daughter hadn't seen her before. She offered to come there to the hospital, but he told her his people could take care of things and she couldn't be involved. I know that because our counselor called me trying to figure out what was going on.

In the mean time I was lied to, and told that since the counselor hadn't seen our daughter before she thought it better she be admitted to the psych ward and let the psychiatrist handle it.

I called her back and told her what was said, and she suggested getting an advocate involved and talking to the head of mental health. Little did we know at this point that the psychiatrist was the head of mental health.

After talking to her, I called my husband and told him I needed his help. I felt over my head, but I would be damned if I was going to leave my daughter there now after realizing how many lies we were told and how much this was looking more and more like being a hostage rather than a patient. What would they do? Especially if I left her alone even for a little while?

Somewhere in here we were advised by the head of the ICU and the psychiatrist that my daughter had two choices. Either my daughter voluntarily commit herself and they promised she would be out in 24 hours, or they force the issue and she would stay there until a court hearing. My daughter was told by the doctors this could take weeks-- another lie. We found out later that the longest they could hold her was five days.

On top of that the I.V. was still in even though both the head of ICU and the other doctor that had seen her agreed she was medically sound. Still, they kept her things and refused to take out the I.V. in order to keep her hostage.

There was a third visit that day with the psychiatrist, the head of ICU, a nurse, and two other women I later learned were student doctors. I spoke up for my daughter as she asked me to, and the psychiatrist accused me of not letting her speak. He asked me why was I trying to control my daughter. At that point, in a strong clear voice my daughter spoke up and told the doctors that she had asked me to speak for her and I was saying what she wanted me to say. Nothing got any better, and so Todd came to the hospital asked to speak to the head doctors and administration. He asked for a patient advocate for our daughter and tried to sort out what was going on and why.

My husband was told I had lied to the psychiatrist and that I was over-controlling. They said they already had papers written up to force our daughter into the psych ward, but it would go better if our daughter voluntarily signed papers. Otherwise it wouldn't go so well. My husband said, he thought the psychiatrist would have almost backed down, but the head of ICU was adamant that my daughter was suicidal and needed to be in the psych ward and she was not backing down. The other doctor that saw my daughter Tuesday was there, but didn't say much. He was the one that wanted to release her Wednesday morning.  

My husband requested a patient advocate, and the advocate went to visit with our daughter. The advocate spent about an hour talking with my daughter, and listening to her. My daughter told her what the last few days had been like. She told her about the problems, and about her fears. She told her how she had been treated.

My daughter said that day, and in the days since that the advocate was like a shaft of light in a very dark space. Within five minutes of leaving a nurse was in the room with a fresh gown, a comb, a toothbrush, and a set of cleaning wipes for the first time since Monday-- by this time it was about 5 pm on Wednesday. That is when I came back into her room. She was actually smiling a little. She spent a half hour telling me about the patient advocate and what they talked about. When I had traded places with my husband an hour and half earlier my daughter was in tears. One person can make such a huge difference. Someone simply sitting down, listening, and doing what they can to make sure a person has what they need shows a person dignity. That was something my daughter wasn't shown much of Monday or Tuesday or most of Wednesday.

As soon as my daughter agreed on voluntarily going to the psych ward they took out the I.V. . At 6 p.m. She was released from ICU and taken to the psych ward by a security guard. Meg and I went with her, and this began the most frightening part of the story, but also the shortest. I will talk about this in the next part.  Wednesday was much more to take in and seemed to last forever compared to Monday or Tuesday. The time in the psych ward was frightening and unneeded.  It didn't give her a break or help her make a plan.  It did make her jumpy and give her nightmares though.  More on that in the next part.