Detour from Normal (26 page)

I have never had a worse night in my life. There was no one that I could talk to who could begin to comprehend what was happening to me. In just a few weeks, my family was completely torn apart and had no hope of ever being back together. I don't know if I will ever be able to really forgive myself for not talking to him that night. Maybe someday he will think of me as his "angel" rather than someone who was trying to hurt him. I was only trying to help bring him back to me.

I walked to the desk and returned the phone. "Can you help me? I'm going to have a seizure," I informed the nurse matter-of-factly.

"OK," she responded, scanning the room to see where the PAs were.

"I'm serious. I can feel when they're going to happen. I've probably got less than fifteen minutes."

"Uh-huh." She didn't look up.

"Please."

"Mike, can you get this man out of my face?" she shouted to the most intimidating of the PAs. I backed away from the desk as he approached.

"Is there a problem here?" he inquired.

"No, uh, I just needed a pencil and some sticky notes to write some things down," I said, thinking quickly and noticing that both those items were within my reach. The nurse pushed a pad of sticky notes and a pencil toward me, and the PA watched as I hurriedly tore off several of the yellow squares. I filled out a sticky note with "KEN DICKSON NEEDS HELP CALL 911." Then I filled out another, then a third written on the sticky side of the note. My writing became more and more labored as I progressed, and I knew it wasn't going to be possible to write anything else. The monster was close, and I was running out of time.

Gritting my teeth, I slapped one note on the desk in front of me—directly in the nurse's view—then I turned and weaved toward the other desk in the room and slapped another note there. Finally I staggered toward the large glass window separating patients from observers. I took the last note and stuck it on the glass. The text on that note faced everyone on the other side. I turned and stumbled the last six feet to my recliner and collapsed into it, praying that someone, anyone, would heed my desperate pleas.

With only seconds left, my mind searched for anything I might have missed, anything that might save me. I suddenly knew what I must do. No one on my side of the glass was ever going to help me.
I would have to make an unmistakable appeal to those on the other side. I used my last strength to throw my failing body toward the glass door that separated the two rooms. My hope was that someone on the other side would recognize that I was in jeopardy and swiftly open the door to rescue me. The monster overtook me, and my body melted halfway to the door. My face hit the glass and left a trail of spit on it as I slid to the floor.

At that point I was at the mercy of fate. PAs were on me like vultures on carrion. Hands pulled on me from all different directions. At first, there was concern that I was trying to escape. Then there was laughter. It was suddenly hilarious that I was feigning paralysis, pretending so that they'd let me go. Recognizing a con, they turned mean. They didn't appreciate being manipulated.

I didn't know who they were or how many there were. My shirt had been pulled over my head as they dragged me off the floor by it, trying to force me to stand. All I could see was gray fabric before my eyes. My head flopped uncontrollably from side to side inside the cotton T-shirt as they dragged me.

"Stand up...stand up...," they yelled as they mopped the filthy floor with my flaccid body. I couldn't say, feel or do anything. Abruptly my body was thrown onto something soft. I lay face down in a world of gray, waiting for the paralysis to end.

Mercifully, there were no stinging bees, pain, or vomiting that time. Instead I felt only pins and needles as my body returned to me. I pulled my shirt down and found that I was back in my recliner. It felt as if I'd been dragged twenty feet while I was paralyzed, but in fact it was only the few feet from the door back to my recliner. I took stock of my surroundings. No one had come to my rescue, and nothing had changed
except that all the PAs were eyeing me suspiciously. They needn't have worried. I was so weak I could do nothing but stay put.

Not long after that, it was lunchtime. I wondered if food would help to stabilize me. Another inmate who'd just been assigned the recliner next to me had just gotten his lunch.

"Excuse me, I'm not feeling very well and don't think I can make it to the food line. Could I have your lunch and could you get another, please?"

The scruffy, longhaired man looked at me with bloodshot eyes and said, "Fuck you, asshole. Get your own fucking lunch."

After resting for a few minutes, I decided to give his suggestion a try. I stood as if drunk and walked slowly, shakily to the food line. I'd barely made it back before the monster set his sights on me once more. With only moments to spare, I sat in the recliner and placed the tray on the floor next to it. This time the monster had a new trick. He snatched my puppet strings and shook them with glee. In response I flailed uncontrollably in my recliner.

"What the fuck...what's the matter with you, man?" I heard from the recliner next to me. Instantly I had the full attention of all the staff. Just as suddenly as the flailing began, it stopped. The monster let my strings go slack and watched in satisfaction as my head fell limply to the side and my body slid to the floor. Hands pulled at me again, and the yelling and laughter began anew. Arms dug painfully under my armpits as PAs tried forcing me to stand.
Why are they hurting me? Why are they laughing at me! I need help. I tried to tell them. Why won't anyone listen?

The pain in my armpits was impossible to ignore. I used all my willpower to try to end it and managed to persuade my legs to swing a bit as
they held me in the air, making it look like I was trying to walk so they would stop hurting me. That only made them laugh harder.

When I thought it could get no worse, the pain suddenly subsided as the arms digging into my armpits eased. I could hear a muffled conversation far away, then laughter. From the edge of my field of vision, I could barely make out a PA talking to two paramedics with a gurney My heart soared.
Someone is going to help me.
I was incredulous. My pleas had been heard, and I was going to be all right.

With my head hanging down and my legs swinging loosely, the PAs carried me by my armpits and hefted my limp body onto the gurney. The two paramedics restrained my hands and feet to the gurney. I was so thankful that I was going to be helped that tears of joy began to stream down the sides of my face as I lay there. I was rolled out into the bright sunlight of midday and lifted into an awaiting ambulance. Though I'd grown to dislike ambulances, I felt that this one was a blessing; it had rescued me from the PDC and was taking me to salvation.

As the ambulance drove away, the monster remained right by my side. This time he wasn't freeing me any time soon. I remained paralyzed and unable to talk longer than ever before. I began to wonder if it was over for me—if this was how my life was going to be from then on. The paramedics, having been led to believe that I was faking paralysis, made a game of filling out my medical information. While we drove, the paramedic riding with me would ask questions, and the driver, pretending to be me, would yell back ridiculous responses. The two would then laugh hysterically. During moments of silence, the paramedic next to me would check off boxes and fill in information as if I had given it to him. I'd never before experienced anything like it. I couldn't believe that anyone could be so cruel to a person in my condition.

Before long I arrived at my next stop and was greeted by RN Raul. The paramedics wheeled me into a small, white room with a thin mattress covered only with a fitted sheet on a steel frame bolted to the floor. There was nothing in the room aside from a convex security mirror in one corner, and there were no windows. After the paramedics removed my restraints and rolled the gurney next to the bed, RN Raul ordered me to get onto it. When I didn't respond, the paramedics rolled me from the gurney face down onto the bed and laughed as they walked out. RN Raul rattled through a list of questions and checked off boxes on his forms as if I had answered, sometimes making up his own answers and laughing as well. Finally he stuck his pen in his clipboard and said, "Welcome to Gracewood." Then he abandoned me in the room. Having made me suffer enough, the monster finally released me and left me alone with my pain as my body returned.

Part 3

RESOLUTION

Chapter 24

MAKING LEMONADE FROM LEMONS

Gracewood was indeed a hospital but not one where I was going to receive any medical attention. It was a psychiatric hospital, perhaps the highest security of its kind in the Phoenix area. The unit I was placed in was for patients under court-ordered treatment who were considered a danger to themselves and others, or who were persistently or acutely disabled. Unknown to me at that time, I was considered "all of the above." When you enter Gracewood, much like the other places I had been in, you don't get a tour. You aren't greeted by all the staff or introduced to the other patients. No one explains the schedule, how to get your clothes washed, where the showers are, or when you eat. You don't get a toothbrush, toothpaste, or soap to wash your hands. The only thing you get shown is your room. You have to figure out the rest on your own.

As far as treatment goes, I can tell you the sum total of my treatment in a paragraph. If there was a treatment plan for me, no one bothered to inform me of it. The psychiatrist did talk to me a few times, but he was only interested in how I felt, which was always "fine." There were group meetings at Gracewood—most of them involved substance abuse. I went to two of those before deciding that they were a waste of time. Because of
my recent history with medications, I was already saying "no to drugs" twice a day (specifically Haldol and Depakote) when the medication cart arrived at 9:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. The only medication I took was an occasional Ativan to help me sleep. I went to a few other group meetings: one for a movie, two for yoga, and another to play bingo. I won at bingo twice in a row. Everyone complained that the game was rigged. I also participated in the community meeting at the end of every day and tried to establish a worthwhile goal for the next day. That was it. That's what you get for the bargain basement price of just over $2,000 a day.

One thing I have to admit is that meals at Gracewood were excellent. The food was always fresh or freshly cooked. Since we were already dangerous, perhaps they didn't want to complicate things further by adding more chemicals or preservatives to the mix. My unit wasn't large, perhaps eighty feet long by forty feet wide. Twenty-five feet or so on the east end included the men's rooms (four double-occupancy and one that housed four patients), two single-stall showers, two seclusion rooms referred to as "quiet rooms," and the nurses' station. There was a U-shaped hallway through that section with the patient and quiet rooms around the outside perimeter. The women's rooms were in twenty-five feet or so of the opposite side. The women's side was a mystery to me since it was off limits to men but was most likely a mirror image of the men's side. Word had it that each room had its own shower though. The women's side also housed the snack room with a roll-up steel security window facing the main area. The window was only opened at snack time. If you weren't fast enough getting in line, the snacks often ran out before you got yours. The linen and medical supply rooms took up part of the remaining area. That left an area of roughly thirty by thirty-five feet in which the twenty-some patients spent nearly all their time.