Sectioned in Hospital - Day 148

Written by Fox.

DAY 148 - 2nd January, Thursday

Keri was determined to try getting up early but it just didn't happen. She didn't get up until gone 1 and that was because one of the staff said she was due to start her physio again today at 2pm. 

The physio has decided to start afresh with Keri as there's so many problems with her physically! Let alone mentally! Today she focused on Keri's ankles and said that the problem could be that a muscle in her ankles keeps flicking over the bone, or it could be a small triangular piece of bone that most people don't have but some people are born with in their ankles. The only way to find this out is through having an X-ray but the physio is going to do some more tests with Keri to see which of her theories is most likely. Either way it means Keri's ankles are in need of long term treatment.

Keri's mum and "her partner" (they took the mick out of me for using that phrase today!) visited Keri today. It was a late Christmas. Keri gave them her presents which included some jewellery and a book that Keri had received from her foster carers on her birthday called The Stranger Inside. Keri thought her mum would be interested in reading it so bought her a copy! She also got John some special kayaking socks. Weird if you ask me! Keri received her usual chocolate from 'Rudolph' and got some really nice gifts. She now has a coffee machine sat on her bedside table and speakers that spray spouts of water in sync with the music it's plugged into! Keri loved the coffee from the machine and hopefully that means it'll help to get her out of bed. She's also currently listening to a song on her iPod that she's hooked up to the water speakers. I'm listening to it. There's got to be an undertone there. It's a song by Nickelback called 'Lullaby' which is basically about suicide and giving life a second chance. David put it on and let Keri back out while lying on her bed. He's put it on repeat so the song is playing again and again. It's almost like David is singing it to Keri. She hasn't turned it off so maybe that's a good thing? I don't know. My brain isn't working! I'm too tired!

David's running out of ideas on how to dissuade Sally from helping Keri with the whole suicide thing, even getting down to the last resort about saying how terrible the weather is! I'm not sure how things are going to pan out. His first argument was to ask that she let Keri see her foster parents first but Sally hates them! That part of the argument wasn't too productive! It's turned into heated conversation now rather than Sally agreeing fairly calmly over the fact New Years Day was a bank holiday...

Sectioned in Hospital - Day 139, 140 & 141 (20 weeks)

Written by Fox.

DAY 139, 140 & 141 (20 weeks) - 24th, 25th & 26th December, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

Christmas Eve thankfully was actually a day of rest. There's not much I can say about it which was the reason I didn't bother writing a blog post. Keri slept reasonably well considering her nightmares. She wasn't overly sociable but she didn't ignore people. She kept herself to herself and only really spoke to the staff when she had to go and get her medication. The duty psychiatrist even granted Keri 6 hours of leave to go home for Christmas Day! Keri thought she'd be happy and forced herself to try to be. She didn't know why but she was feeling really depressed. Later in the evening, the crying episodes began again. In the end Keri had to put everything she'd wrapped for people in the bathroom as she didn't want to look at it. For some reason her memory has been playing tricks on her. She was looking at the presents and had no idea what she'd bought anyone, even though a few weeks previously she'd been in deep thought about what to get people. Her mind was just blank.

Christmas Day! Keri got her presents ready expecting her foster parents to pick her up between 1 - 1.30pm. Everything was sorted and I remembered to slip her iPad into her handbag as I wanted to come out and have Christmas dinner as Keri had no intention of eating. I even text in advance so they knew!

Her foster dad came to pick her up and Keri was putting on a really good face. She felt so depressed and was even on the verge of tears at many points during the day, which is when she was secretly glad she was out smoking alone. She'd seen everyone open their presents and gone along with stories when they'd been opened. She thought that when people opened the presents she'd bought, it would trigger her memory into thinking, "Oh yeah, I remember now!" That moment never happened. She was really chuffed with her presents she received. She considered home leave to be her biggest present and was really grateful for all the other presents she received from her family. I really enjoyed the Christmas dinner! Perfection as always from Keri's foster mum! There were a few genuine laughs out of Keri's mouth but most of the day Keri perfected the talent of a good "I'm stable" face. Even when she gave the last hugs to her foster mum after being dropped back to the unit, she wanted that hug to last forever. She had been on leave for 8 hours, the manager had said it was fine to stay longer than 6 hours when her foster dad picked her up.

During that night Keri couldn't stop crying. There was nothing that could stop it. By about 1am she was sat in the office chatting to Ade about how depressed she was feeling and about the fact she was feeling really guilty about feeling depressed because she knew how hard her foster parents, especially her mum, had worked to make it a nice family Christmas. Ade tried to make her feel better.

"I had everything I wanted!" Keri cried, while she sat on a chair in the office. "I got more leave than I was supposed to, I got to go home, I got to spend time with my family, I even got really thoughtful presents. So why did I feel so depressed? Why did I sneak out and smoke on my own just because I was on the verge of tears? I don't understand it! I want to be happy and that should've been one of the happiest days I could ever have!"

"Keri, look," Ade said. "You can't feel guilty about how you're feeling. I don't want this to sound patronising so I'll apologise in advance, but feeling depressed, even when you feel you should be happy about something isn't your fault. Depression is an illness, a chemical imbalance in the brain. Would you feel guilty if you'd broken your leg and gone home for Christmas?"

He had a point. Keri shook her head.

"Depression has a habit of striking when someone least expects it," Ade continued. "You might try and force yourself to be happy but it'll keep trying to beat you down. You'll have bad thoughts or memories or images in your head but it's all down to the depression and I'm sure your foster parents would understand that it had nothing to do with them."

By the time it reached nearly 3.30am, Viv gave her some Lorazepam. She didn't go to sleep until nearly 6am. Her head was just going round and round too much and even though Ade had been reassuring, she still couldn't stop herself feeling guilty about how she was feeling. 

Because of the lateness of her going to sleep, she didn't get up until gone 3am and that's only because Matt wouldn't leave her alone. He just talked and talked and talked until Keri finally gave in. She was sinking deeper and deeper into her depression and didn't want to get up, but anything to get him to shut up! This evening the crying episodes have been even more frequent, she's still feeling guilty, her suicidal feelings are getting worse and the night staff have noticed her lack of eye contact, lack of enthusiasm, and complete flatness in her voice. It's almost to the point of monotonous. No feeling in it at all, even when the words she's saying are conveying some form of emotion.

I'll finish with this.

Keri got given a copy of her risk assessment today, plus her care plan which hasn't changed. She found her risk assessment an interesting read. It's ten pages long! When she questioned the staff about some of the things on it, they said they had to put events that had happened in the past on there as well, like things that involve Keri's foster parents restraining Sally the time she went for the kitchen knives, even though that was a year ago! But again, that phrase came up, "The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour". No it's not! But they have to put it to cover their backs anyway!

(I'll just write the categories of each one, I won't go into detail like they've done to summarise each topic as I do like to give Keri some privacy!)

Harm to Self: Risk Status - HIGH

Evidence of Risk - Evidence found

Act with suicidal intent - Yes

Self-injury or harm - Yes

Self-neglect - Yes

Suicidal ideation - Yes

Harm from Others: Risk Status - MEDIUM

Evidence of Risk - Not assessed at this time

Risk caused by medication/services/treatment - No

Risk of emotional/psychological abuse including bullying - Yes

Risk of financial abuse - No

Risk of neglect - Yes

Risk of physical harm - Yes

Risk of unlawful restrictions (e.g. locks on doors, physical restraints etc) - Yes

Risk of sexual exploitation - Yes

Harm to Others: Risk Status - MEDIUM HIGH

Evidence of Risk - Evidence found

Arson - No

Exploitation of others (e.g. financial, emotional) - No

Hostage taking - No

MAPPA (what does this mean?!) - No

Probation service involvement - No

Risk to children - No (so what's the issue with her younger foster brother?!)

Risk to vulnerable adults - No

Schedule 1 - No

Sexual Assault - No

Sex Offenders Act 2003 - No

Stalking - No

Violence/aggression/abuse to family - Yes

Violence/aggression/abuse to general public - No

Violence/aggression/abuse to other clients - Yes

Violence/aggression/abuse to staff - Yes

Weapons - Yes

Accidents: Risk Status - MEDIUM LOW

Evidence of Risk - Evidence found

Accidental harm outside the home (e.g. wandering) - Yes

Driving/Road safety - No

Falls - No

Fires - No

Unsafe use of medication - Yes

Other Risk Behaviours: Risk Status - MEDIUM HIGH

Evidence of Risk - Evidence found

Absconding/Escape - Yes

Correspondence - Yes

Damage to property - Yes

Incidents involving the police - Yes

Phone Calls - No

Restricted Client - Yes

Theft - No

Visitors - Yes

Main Types of Risk 

Aggression; Assault Threats - Perpetrator; Self Harm Risk; Violence; Suicide Risk

They haven't even officially assessed her yet so how they can do all this from a bit of paperwork is unbelievable. I think Keri will definitely be having words about her care plan. It's absolute rubbish. Who writes this stuff?!

Sectioned in Hospital - Day 137

Written by Fox.

DAY 137 - 22nd December, Sunday

Keri's had quite a reasonably settled day today. She woke up in a terrible mood but decided to go out on leave anyway to get some last minute Christmas goodies. To her surprise, when she got back her foster parents were sat in the office! It was really nice of them to come down to see her and Keri perked up a little bit. There were a lot of fake smiles but there were at least a few that were genuine. That's better than nothing. And she didn't burst into tears while she was with them either, which is also a bonus. Hopefully Simon can sort something out about Keri's Christmas leave. Keri may hate Christmas but she doesn't want to be spending it in hospital. If she's not allowed leave then they really think that'll stop her getting a taxi to her foster parents anyway? 

She's finished all her wrapping now. Until tomorrow when some last minute presents should be arriving. It took her hours. In the end I came out and did some of it as I was getting frustrated myself watching her do it so OCD-ed!

There's a sense of badness with us at the moment. Something bad is going to happen tomorrow, but I don't know what. All I do know is that it's tomorrow. Keri feels something bad but can't put her finger on anything. We were quite upset earlier this evening when Keri went to visit Lime Unit to drop off a present for a patient as she was talking to a nurse about how she was lucky to still be in Alder and not been moved back. The nurse actually turned around and said that Alder had been in contact asking for Keri to be moved back as they couldn't manage and the only reason she hasn't been moved is because there's no beds available! What?! Why did we have to find out that way? Even so, hopefully Keri can get things sorted with Simon, the ward manager, tomorrow. That's if things don't start kicking off early in the day :/

Sectioned in Hospital - Day 118

Written by Fox.

DAY 118 - 3rd December, Tuesday

Keri hasn't been out at all today. She woke up as Clarissa. Staff nipped into her room during her hourly obs and said that they'd arranged a nurse to escort her to her physio session. Clari turned around and said she's never done any physio. Immediately the nurse asked who Keri was which was when Clari introduced herself and it became fairly obvious. While Clari was pruning herself, the physio turned up and had a chat with Clarissa. Clari told her she might be able to do stuff with Keri tomorrow but couldn't promise anything. 

Clari went to the supermarket twice today (she's now got two half hour unescorted leaves). She bought some Christmas lights to put in Keri's room as a surprise, a shirt for David plus some shoes, a pair of boots for her, some more coat hangers, food for me and one of those plugs that you can plug more plugs in. She was pretty tame with her shopping. The problem is she tried buying vodka. When that didn't work and she got asked for ID she got quite annoyed. It's probably good that Keri doesn't have ID at the moment!

I came out at about 6.30 this evening. Apparently Clarissa told the staff earlier in the evening that I was likely to come out so they were given warning. She knew I'd be out so I found a sandwich which she bought me. Thank you Clarissa for thinking of my appetite for once! I haven't done much. I put on a video in one of the lounges (there's three of them) so I settled on one on my own for an hour or two which was quite nice as I was out of our bedroom. I'm feeling very tired and I'm now back in our room with some comedy DVDs. It's very likely Keri's going to wake up as herself tomorrow but Sally's not doing well so Keri will have one hell of a headache!