She's home

You may have seen that I wrote a post called Mama Bear the other day and you can not access it.  That's because I deleted it.  I was very frustrated with the hospital on Saturday and I really thought I was going to have to go mama bear on them.  Luckily I got it worked out and no one had to see my ugly side :). 

On Friday Oksana's doctor told me that we would see how her stability was over the weekend and that would determine if she could come home Monday.  If she didn't stabilize enough we would be talking about long term care.  As you can imagine this was a big deal to me.  On Saturday I had planned to visit her during regular visiting hours from 5-7 so I called around 11 in the morning to check on her.  They told me that she was doing good.  She had taken a shower, had breakfast, and was watching a movie.  I asked if she had any agitation at all.  They said yes, she had been agitated after her shower.  After I got off of the phone I commented to Larry that it wasn't very comforting to hear that she was fine while eating or watching a movie but when they actually required something of her that wasn't fun she got agitated.  So that evening I showed up for visiting hours and was told that she had done great all day.  I asked if she had done any non-preferred activities because if she had fun all day of course she would do great.  I was told that before this she would get agitated even during preferred activities so this was progress.  When I went to see her I found her watching a movie.  Her 1 on 1 was with her so I started questioning her about the day.  I found out that this was Oksana's 4th movie and the only time she had gotten to get up was when she complained her butt hurt.  I was not happy but I didn't say anything because I was afraid that if I did I would end up in the psych ward! 

To top it off she was eating a horribly unhealthy dinner.  I had asked when I admitted her that they would monitor her food choices better.  I reminded them that she was on medications that had a very high risk of obesity and when she was allowed to choose her own food she would choose nothing but junk!  Obviously that didn't get communicated because her diet was awful.

She didn't look great either.  Her hair was a mess, her orthotics were on completely wrong, and they had her in clothes that weren't hers.  I'd had such an amazing experience at this hospital up to this point that I was shocked.  I went home irate.  I needed time to think.

The next day I prepared myself to have a "friendly" talk with them if things hadn't changed.  When I got there she had a different 1 on 1.  I was thrilled to see that it was a girl she had been with before and I really liked her.  She looked much better.  She had still watched movies but she had also been up walking and making a lot of pictures for me.  I talked to the 1 on 1 about the food issue and she brought me a menu.  The menu was FULL of great healthy foods.  She was choosing the junk every single time.  I learned that if we ever go there again I can choose all of her meals and control what she eats.  You can bet I will be doing that.  I felt so much better after that visit.

This morning I got a call from the doctor that she felt Oksana was ready to be discharged.  I commented about the movies all day but she didn't seem overly concerned.  I've learned form other people that sadly, this is the reality sometimes, especially on the weekends.  At that point I just wanted her home where I could feed her properly and find her something to do that wasn't a movie!  When I went to pick her up she was rather sedated.  She had been like that on and off over the weekend too.  She is on heavy duty drugs.  Basically it got to the point that they had to sedate her down a bit to stabilize her.  Once she is adjusted back home and we've watched her for a few more days we can start to back off of some of the meds and see how she does.  She is now on Zyprexa, Lithium, and Clonidine.

Earlier today anytime she sat still she dozed off but now she is up and playing.  She still managed to bite my head off when I did something she didn't like so obviously the meds aren't affecting her too bad!  We start our extensive testing to try to get more info on what we are dealing with on March 3 and then on the 5th we go back to see the psychiatrist.  Lets hope this time I take her home with me, especially since another hospitalization will mean a long term stay!

Just as a side note, her current and ever changing diagnosis is currently Bipolar disorder Type 1 mixed episode.  Here is a link to info about a mixed episode and it describes very well what we saw this week.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_state_%28psychiatry%29