Dealing with Crazy (Acting) Folk Is Tiring

[roo_ster]

Wife, kids, & self just got back from the hospital where our neighbor is currently receiving care.

A few months back, he received a head injury that has become debilitating: blackouts, siezures, massive headaches, etc.  The neurologists have run him through beau coup tests & are not entirely sure as to the underlying causes: post-traumatic epilepsy, blood clot in brain, concussion...there seems to be a diagnosis of the week along with some no-shinola powerful meds.

I took him to the ER Friday after a blackout/fall & they have kept him in since then, cause they found something in yet another CAT/MRI/whatever scan.  An inoperable blood clot or some such.  They have kept him on some clot-dissolving drugs in addition to the usual cocktail.

All day long I have gotten call from him that I would classify as "crazy talk."  Thing is, he is usually the kinda guy who is as grounded as they get.  Anyway, I tell him I can't bring the police, as I am watching the kids & my wife has the kidmobile.  Truth, every word.  Then, he leaves a message saying he wants a ride home.  Ruh roh, Raggie!

Wife comes home & we head to the hospital & call said hospital on the way.  After getting through the three layers of gatekeepers, my wife get through to his nurse.  I didn't expect her to get any information, but it seems  that HIPPA can be bent to reason.  Seems that our neighbor has been quite ahandful, today.  What with calling the police, hallucinations of attempted murder & coverups, our neighbor has kept 'em on their toes.  He also passes all the tests that if he failed, would allow them to restrain him & treat him.  They say they need him to keep recieving treatment for a few more days, then he'll be good to go home.  Oh, and they are modifying his meds because of all the side effects.

Anyways, we get there, talk in person to the hospital staff & then with our neighbor.  His story is, uh, far fetched.  I figure that if I say, "Neighbor, your meds are causing your mind's perception to be altered.  Just sit tight & you'll be OK," I'll be dismissed out of hand & fail in my object: getting him the care he needs.

So, I listen to his story and, without indulging his phantasms, propose a course of action that will get him the care he needs.  I just needed to satisfy real logic as well as hallcuinatory logic.  It helps that my kids & wife are there, as he likes them & my boy could defuse the most tense situation imaginable.  Anyway we come to an agreeable compromise: stay in this hospital until a transfer can be arranged in the AM to another hospital.

So, I guess my neighbor really isn't crazy, he's just acting so due to powerful meds.  Whatever the cause, it is exhausting getting him to not do crazy stuff.  At least the crazy-talk/actions ought to end after the meds have run their course.

Oh, if you made it this far, thank you for your indulgence.

[cosine]

Oh, if you made it this far, thank you for your indulgence.

No problem. Sometimes you just have to talk it out with someone. You sound like you care about your neighbor's well-being quite a bit; you're a good man for doing so. Neighbors like you can be hard to find sometimes.

[Car Knocker]

Ten years ago I was severely injured and was receiving commensurately potent pain medications.  These medications spawned the most terrifying nightmares that are vivid to this day.  For whatever reason (I was drugged out of my mind - that was the reason), I didn't think to mention the nightmares to anyone until after I was out of the hospital, therefore, of course, there were no adjustments in meds made to alleviate the nightmares.  I feel for your friend/neighbor - that situation can be truely terrifying!

[grampster]

Well, my friend, I had a close pal that was schitzophrenic.  I sat with him in the bathroom of his house with all the faucets on and constantly flushing the toilet because THEY were listening.  I was trying to convince him to check back in to the hospital so he could get some meds.  I dealt with him for years in many similar fashions till he finally jumped into Lake Michigan one night in the belief that he could breathe water.

He bobbed around in there for a couple of days.  There were rocks.  It was warm.  His family didn't have much money so his casket was mostly heavy duty cardboard.  I was a pall bearer.  I kept talking to him during the walk to his resting place;  pleading that he would not make an unexpected appearance out of the bottom of that box he was riding in.  He didn't smell very good at that time, either.

Now, I'm not making light of such things.  Just telling what happened.  Try to stick by your friend as best you can.  If he goes way over the line that you need to draw at some point, then you need to disregard him.  He will do what he will do.  You can't make those decisions for him.  You can carry him to his rest.  You can think of him, as I do my friend, often, and kindly.  He meant something to me, but he went away.

[gunsmith]

IMO you should not indulge his fantasies.
Firmly tell him right from wrong and real from fake.
I am not a doctor but I have personal anecdotes from living in NYC
(crazy people there are a dime a dozen).

[thumbody]

Two years ago my MIL had stomach surgery. Two days post surgery she went into septic shock. She was in a coma and on a drug cocktail that included morphine.
While she was in the coma she would have brief moments of semi concioneness where she would beg them to just let her die. When she finally came out of it she told of the horrible nightmares she was having . She said she would rather be dead than to have to go through that again.

[roo_ster]

My neighbor got out of the hospital & came home yesterday.

It seems some of his crazy talk was not quite so crazy as I thought.

After I dropped him off at the ER Thurs PM (not Friday like I wrote above), they set him up in ICU.  In addition to the anti-siezure meds, brain blood-clot-removal meds, & other meds I can not recall, he was given hefty doses of morphine for the headaches.  He was doing fine in ICU & I had visited him there Friday PM.

Well, he improved to the point where they moved him to a regular ward Saturday PM or so...but his "care & feeding" instructions & log lagged behind.  So, instead of getting his meds on his usual regimen, he got nailed with med doses back-to-back in under two hours.  Essentially, he was doubled up on the anti-sizure, blood clot, morphine, & other meds and it took him pretty much all of 24 hours to get his head screwed back on right.  In the meantime, he was acting all sorts of odd, what with the double-dose of mind-altering meds.  He said some politically incorrect words to a female nurse (the one who doubled him up) & got to witness some ugly not-so-professional confrontations including him, nurse, nurse's supervisor, & hospital security.  I guess the alterered perception made him equate "2+2" to "22."

Various bits of this percolated up to his doctor and higher ups in the hospital.  His doctor, not yet apprised of his double-dosage, seeing his behavior, thinking him deteriorating mentally, proscribed a pshychiatric evaluation.  Good thing it was a holiday weekend & the hospital moved slowly so that by the time the phsychiatrist showed up to evaluate him, he was mostly recovered.  The psychiatrist said he was the most pleasant & most sane patient he had all day..and what he needed was to go home to a less stressful environment.

[Trisha]

The less stressful environment made all the difference with me.  That's why home is somewhat remote here in the mountains.  People are a part of that environment, likely moreso in this man's case.  I hope they understand the value of being honest, being genuine, and listening to him.

Because, there but for a touch of the fates, goes any other.

My best to you and his family.

[280plus]

Yes, morphine will do strange things to a person. So will cocaine. I remember an old friend cutting her mattress and other furniture cusions apart because "The children were hiding in there and she had to get them out!" "You SEE THEM?!? THERE THEY GO!! They hide in the shadows!"

Yup stay away from cocaine. Morphine too if you can avoid it.

[gunsmith]

i was prescribed generic vicoden after knee surgery, big horse pills too, enuff to make a junkie drool.
They gave me horrible nightmares, so i kept them for shtf but i had a real cute stripper over for a private show and she stole them.
stupid strippers!