Detour from Normal (17 page)

Beth refers to that as a "startle reflex." She does it regularly and at the least provocation, but most frequently when I have to wake her for some reason when she's asleep. I've tried a dozen different ways not to startle her when waking her but have resigned myself to expect it. In her state of exhaustion, it was no surprise for her to react that way.

Just after midnight on May 22, Scottsdale Samaritan RN Sharon Bell sat at her desk entering patient data into her computer. Hours earlier a psychiatric patient, who had become increasingly agitated while awaiting treatment, had been brought to a special room, which by coincidence was in direct line of sight with her desk. Though she had no involvement with the patient, she was asked to keep an eye on things and call for help immediately if she saw any threatening behavior. Sharon frequently glanced up from her computer monitor to check on the patient.

The last time Sharon looked, the patient had been standing and talking to his wife as she sat in a chair in the room. Suddenly she sensed abrupt movement from the room and glanced up. The wife was now in the bed, and the psych patient was hunched over her with his back to
Sharon. His position and the movement of his shoulders suggested that he was doing something around the woman's head. What had caught her attention were the woman's hands—they had just shot out blindly in the air as if she was trying desperately to protect herself. It could only mean one thing...

"He's trying to choke her!" she screamed.

The room came alive. In moments, medical and security people converged on the room, coming to the hapless victim's aid.

"Stand back. Get away from her NOW," I heard as I finished positioning the pillow behind Beth's head. Surprised, I turned to see a security guard standing menacingly in the doorway. By instinct I raised my hands to show that I was unarmed. I backed away from Beth, and the medical staff whisked her away while the guard stood threateningly between me and everyone else. As the last of the staff cleared the doorway, he backed out slowly himself, keeping a keen eye on me all the while. As he crossed the threshold, he pulled the door closed and then locked it from the outside.

When it finally seemed safe to do so, I walked toward the door. It had a window through which I could see what was going on. The security guard was standing close to the door where he could see both me and the small group of medical personnel gathered around my wife. The hospital personnel talked to Beth for quite a while, but I couldn't make out what they were saying.

After a time Beth, Kim, and Tim left, and everyone vanished except for a few of the nurses at their stations. Even the security guard was
nowhere to be seen. Eventually it seemed that everyone had forgotten I was still locked in the room. There was no way to contact anyone, and no one had made any attempt to communicate with me. I felt as though I no longer existed.
Maybe someone will notice me at shift change in the morning,
I thought, resigned to the fact that I was going to be there until someone found me by accident.

With nothing else to do, I decided to take stock of my room. I noticed that it was different than any hospital room I'd been in. It had nothing on the walls, nothing in the room at all except for the bed and the chair Beth had been sitting in. The door was steel, and there was wire reinforcement within the glass window. The door could be locked from the outside to keep someone inside from escaping. Clearly, it was no typical hospital room—it was more like a prison cell.
Why am I being locked up? I haven't done anything wrong.

Time crept by. I kept track of it by the clock on the other side of the nursing station. I paced for a while and then noticed a light switch near the door. I turned off the light, went to the bed, and lay down thinking that I might sleep. I lay there wide awake for half an hour, then got up and looked out the window. Two nurses were at their stations, so I pounded briefly on the door to get their attention but to no avail. I then pounded incessantly until they finally turned and looked at me. I raised my hands and shoulders, giving them my best questioning look. "Why am I in here?" I yelled. Once again Sharon responded, only this time she left the area to find the social worker. The other nurse resumed her work.

It was 1:30 a.m. As Sharon approached her, social worker Kathy Winfield was sitting at her desk sipping hot coffee she'd just poured, taking a break from patients and paperwork. "Kathy, you better get down to see your psych patient," Sharon said. "He tried to assault his wife a while ago. They've got him locked up in the ER. He just started pounding on the door, demanding to be let out."

Great. Just what I need: a whacko trying to kill his wife. Why am I the one who always has to deal with these kinds of people?
She grumbled to herself. "OK, I'll be right there." She gathered a pen and her clipboard, and took one more sip of coffee before reluctantly making her way to the ER.

I went back to the bed and lay down again. A few minutes later, I heard a rattle at the door. I looked up as a portly woman around fifty years old with curly blonde hair opened the door, walked in, and locked the door behind her. The social worker had finally shown up just before 2:00 a.m.

I could feel hatred emanating from her as she asked me questions and filled out paperwork. She didn't once look me in the eye. Whenever I asked her why I was there or what had happened to my wife, she refused to acknowledge me. It was as if I was invisible. Her only purpose for being there was to complete her required paperwork and get out as quickly as possible. She responded to nothing I asked. Finally, noticing she had a wedding ring on, I asked her the only question I could think of that might break through.

"If your husband was here and suffering, wouldn't you try to help him? Wouldn't you at least get him on a bed and get him comfortable?" She had no response. It was the rudest experience I've ever had in a hospital. Shortly, with only yes or no answers from me, she managed to get what she came for and was gone. I was again alone in a locked room.

Around 3:00 a.m., someone unlocked the door, and to my surprise Beth walked in. She looked worse than ever. I'm certain she hadn't rested at all between leaving here, driving almost thirty miles home, then turning around a few hours later, and driving thirty miles back.

"We can go now" was all she said.

"Can we stop at a McDonald's on the way home? I haven't eaten anything since lunch yesterday at Pinecrest. I'm starving."

"OK," she replied, but she knew there weren't any open at that time of night. All I could think about was eating. I'd forgotten that there were no McDonald's open that late, but I would have been happy to settle for the nearest convenience store.

"Would you like me to drive?" I asked. She just looked at me briefly and said nothing. Though I felt like I was in much better condition than she, there was no way Beth was going to let me put her life in jeopardy any further.

Beth's journal, May 21, 2011:

We arrived at Scottsdale Samaritan around 6:00 p.m. The doctor in the ER diagnosed hypomania and suggested waiting for the social worker to discuss options. He would not listen to my pleas to have a
neurological consult. We were definitely treated as the "crazy man" and his stupid wife. At around 12:30 a.m., Ken insisted that we go home and tried to pull me off the chair I was sitting on. I held onto the base of the chair with my hands and wouldn't go. Somehow after that I got onto the bed. Once I was in bed, Ken lifted my head. I didn't know what he was doing, and it frightened me. A nurse sitting at the nursing station observed everything. I can recall the look of complete shock on her face when we made eye contact during the time I was frightened. She called security and they separated us. I was taken out of the room, and Ken was locked in.

I knew that something was incredibly wrong with Ken and was so relieved when the doctor told me that he would be admitted to the hospital. He also told me that I might as well go home as nothing would happen for several hours. He recommended that I come back in the morning. We got as far as the Elliot Road exit when I received a call from the social worker, who informed me that I either had to file a petition that Ken was a danger to himself or persistently and acutely disabled, or I had to come take him home. I went to get him as soon as I could drop Tim and Kim off. Ken seemed very angry when I arrived. He asked to go to McDonald's but didn't seem to believe me when I said that they were all closed that late at night.