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 112 (16 weeks)

Written by Fox.

DAY 112 (16 weeks) - 27th November, Wednesday

Keri had a rude awakening by Creepy today who was deliberately trying to annoy Keri. Thankfully her door was locked, Creepy couldn't get in and she quickly got bored with banging on Keri's door and walked off. Even so, Keri got up ten minutes later to have her medication and a few cigarettes. She was feeling quite heavily sedated though so went back to bed at midday to see if a nap would wake her up a bit afterwards.

She was then woken by the physiotherapist. Keri did her ankle exercises while lying on her bed so she had a chance to wake up. The physio had also brought down a tens machine and said that "shock treatment" for Keri's self harm may work. There are 8 different levels of voltage. Keri's been told she has to keep it on a 4 constantly while she's awake, and if she feels bad to increase the voltage. It got to a point where Keri actually got all the way up to eight! It worked though. Her muscles in her arms were cramping painfully, similar to the experience she had when she reacted badly to Haloperidol. Afterwards she felt temporarily better and the voltage went back down to 4. It's leaving no scarring, doing no damage and has stopped Keri needing stitches today. All in all I think her "shock treatment" should've been done years ago! She keeps the machine on all day and the physio told her only to take it off when she was going to bed, just unplugging the wires from the electrodes on both her arms and reconnecting them in the morning.

Keri met with Sye, the manager of Alder Unit today. He said yesterday that he'd meet up for a cup of tea so he walked Keri to Tesco and they sat down while she had a bottle of coke. It was soon obvious that it wasn't just a casual drink and Sye was actually assessing her to see what she was like out in the open. He was quick to catch on to Keri's paranoia, and to the fact she has way too much expertise on calories and food, and that she's agoraphobic because he saw her turning up the level on her tens machine after they'd sat down. She was able to put it back down to 4 when she got outside and was able to smoke. Sye was very interested in questioning Keri on things and has already been told a lot about her, especially in regards to Sally. He's also happy for Keri's foster dad to put her TV up on her bedroom wall when she moves in as it's a long term placement.

And then after this she went on unescorted ground leave! She managed twenty minutes this time because half way through she increased the amount of shocks she was getting again which calmed her down a lot. This evening she's had to up the voltage quite a lot because of the agitation. She gets very anxious at night, even with all the medication. But the shocks actually managed to keep her calm enough to not need additional Lorazepam with her sleeping medication. She's even planning to go to bed earlier! Whether that works or not is another thing! Let's stay hopeful. Everyone knows Sally will screw us all over multiple times in the next couple of months so everyone is prepared. Keri won't get kicked out of Alder due to extreme behaviour due to her dissociation and Keri gets along with Sye very well and he seems to understand the extent of her illnesses, especially the horror of losing time and not knowing where she's been, what she's done, or finding herself on the floor being restrained by police. It's not a pleasant experience for any of us!