Monthly Archives: August 2009

Ironman Sunday

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It’s Sunday. Five days since the RCMP called. Four days since he went into treatment. It feels like weeks. The last time I felt this sad and overwhelmed was when Lucas was in NICU.

Just got back from doing a couple of loads of laundry. Walking through the courtyard, feeling the warmth of the sun, looking at the scenery – I had this sudden sensation that we were back on our trip to Australia. Just desperate wishful thinking. Although the area looks very much like New Zealand – especially near Summerland – perhaps that is why Jordan felt it was a safe place to stop.

On Friday we were feeling pretty fragile and took a couple of hours off in the afternoon and went for a swim in the lake. Friday evening Jordan was able to remember some of the details of what happened in Summerland and tried to tell us where his stuff was hidden. He also shared all his conspiracy theories and delusions – it’s exhausting listening to it but the nurse says it’s a good sign that he trusts us.

Saturday – Jordan flushed, high BP, puking, high pulse (the nurse told him it was 250 – Jordan said “I’d be dead if my heart rate was 250″). I am imagine he is detoxing. Greg spent the  morning trying to find a new rim and tire for Jordan’s car – it looks like he drove on a flat tire for a very long time. In a rare moment of lucidity when Greg asked him about the tire, he recounted not knowing it was flat and “almost flipping” a couple of times. There were so many ways this whole thing could have gone a different, tragic way.

We phoned the tow truck company and they contacted the land owner who agreed to let us contact her Saturday afternoon. We were able to travel to the acreage and thank her in person for contacting the RCMP. It was really hard to hear her describe how desperately afraid he seemed. She let us search the property and Greg spent 2 hours up to his butt in a muddy creek battling thistles but with no luck.

Jordan was really agitated last night, desperate to share his paranoia with us. We decided that a day away from him was likely good for everyone. And Greg wanted to get out and watch the Ironman. Imagine our surprise when at 1000 Sunday Jordan called us, announcing that he had seen the psychiatrist and had a 2 hour pass, come and get him.

I phoned the unit to speak to the physician. “You seem concerned about the pass” said the doctor. Yes, I replied. We are having trouble understanding how we went from raving lunatic last night to out on unsupervised pass this morning. I said we would need to come in and spend some time with Jordan before we agreed to take him out. Two minutes into our visit the nurse cancelled the pass. We have had a different nurse every shift and a different doctor everyday. A perfect situation for Jordan to use his brains and charm to snow the staff.

 Of course I am now the bad guy. Greg desperately wanted to believe that he was ready for a pass, felt that spending a couple of hours watching the triathlon would have done him a world of good. Jordan made it perfectly clear that I had “fucked everything up” and that I was “seriously jeopardizing his chances of getting out”. And what is worse, is that it appears that the physician hung up from talking to me and then confronted Jordan with all the things he had learned from me. Up to this point, Greg and I are the only ones Jordan was revealing his delusions to. If we have lost that trust I am not sure what we will do.

 Anyway, since I am in everyone’s doghouse, I am staying home tonight and Greg is going for a visit after he cheers our friend Bruce Gordon across the finish line of the Ironman.

 We have asked for a team conference tomorrow. We need to make decisions about how long to rent for, if we are going to transfer him to Saskatoon, etc. etc. One of us will be taking the 5 pm flight out of Kelowna on Tuesday night – not sure how we decide which of us will leave first. Leaving feels like failure, staying feels like torture.

 Lucas is a trooper. He had a great time at Andrew’s birthday party, fell in love with Karen’s new puppy, and talked Grandma into making him waffles from scratch this morning.  Michelle is making sure he has lunch stuff and is spending the night tonight. This is the first time in 15 years that I have not seen my son off to the first day of school. Lots of mother guilt there I’ll tell you.

 I think there are glimmers of hope if I look really hard for them. The CT and EEG were normal. While it is too early to completely rule out schizophrenia, they are fairly optimistic this is a drug induced psychosis. I think the fact that he is starting to remember what happened is a good sign. Part of his master escape plan is for us to “look like a happy, loving family” and “the fact that you guys are here all the time is a good thing – it’s not going unnoticed”. It’s “all about appearances you know”, and as a result we get lots of hugs and “I love you’s”. Which feel good regardless of the motivation or the sincerity behind them. Friday night as we were leaving I gave him a big hug and said “I love you” and then whispered “and that’s not just for appearances”. And he gave me a big, normal looking grin, said “I know” and kissed me on the forehead. I will be pulling that memory out several times a day for the next little while.

 Thank you all for the emails and text messages. I can’t tell you how much it helps to know you are all out there thinking of us. 

 “Pooh!” whispered Piglet.

“Yes, Piglet?” said Pooh.

“Oh nothing,” said Piglet

“I was just making sure of you.”

 Thanks for answering my whispers.

It’s Thursday … I think…

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It’s 8:30 PM your time, I imagine Sandra is ready to crash after getting up at 3:30 AM to drive me to the airport.(I know you offered Karen. I tried to say no to her but she is a force onto herself).  I hope Andrew had a wonderful time at his birthday party.

Greg picked me up at the Kelowna Airport in a rental vehicle the Maltman’s had arranged for him. I was fine till I got out of the car at the Penticton Psych Centre. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t stand up straight – a full blown anxiety attack right there in the parking lot. I imagine it’s a sight they are well used to.

My brief psych rotation on West One in the old City Hospital when I was a second year nursing student did little to prepare me to deal with seeing my son in the midst of full blown psychotic break. He is still convinced that he is wanted by the police, that they raided our house, that his room is bugged, that they are spying through the window. I had to leave the unit and then absolutely lost it in the parking lot.

He is better tonight than he was this morning. He continues to have paranoid delusions but at least he is sharing them with us. They have him on Respiradol and they say it could take another 48 – 72 hours to be effective. The good news – according to the psychiatrist – is that he was in treatment within 3 days of onset and not 3 weeks or months and there is a very good chance he will fully recover. I refuse to consider any other outcome. The bad news – he may need to be in care here for as long as a month. Greg and I (and the hospital staff) all agree that to move him during his inpatient treatment would be a mistake. When he is ready for outpatient care we will transition him to Saskatoon.

We are going to give it another 24 hours and then make a decision about what to do. Right now, he needs both of us here. He wouldn’t go for his CT scan without Greg (to ensure they didn’t try something) and me (to stay behind and guard his room). We have to be back at 7:30 in the morning to help them get the EEG done.

We’ve talked about taking turns staying a week at a time – but it’s really hard to know if having us here helps or hinders his recovery. He is an adult. And he doesn’t interact with the care team when we are around.  All I know is we need to find cheaper accommodation.  The Ironman Triathlon is on this weekend and everyone has jacked up their prices as a result. We had to ask social services help us find this room.

By supper Jordan was able to remember that he stashed his $270 dollar skate board, ipod et.c in a backpack near “spot b”. We assume that is on the acreage where they found him. Perhaps after a good night’s sleep he’ll be able to narrow the location down by a few hectares.

It is still very surreal. I sit there and listen to Jordan express these bizarre ideas and I find myself waiting for the punch line. This isn’t the life I ordered – can I please send it back?

The Journey Begins

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Our world imploded yesterday afternoon at 4:15 pm when I answered the phone and heard Constable Despins of the Summerland RCMP ask me if Jordan Chartier was my son. I can’t even type those words without crying. He is fine, or at least safe, but the last 18 hours have been very difficult and we aren’t out of the woods yet.

Constable Despins was calling to tell me that Jordan had been spotted at 1000 am yesterday on a private acreage in the Summerland area. When approached by a neighbor who told him he couldn’t stay there, Jordan replied that he had to leave his car and belongings, that he was “wanted” by the police but that she shouldn’t worry, he wasn’t a bad guy.  He offered her his spare keys so that she could move his car and belongings and when she declined  he jumped on his skateboard and took off with just the clothes on his back. She was disturbed enough by this encounter to call the RCMP. When they arrived they found he had left his laptop and cellphone and clothes on a picnic table. His passport and driver’s license were in the car. He had taken off the license plate and locked it in his trunk. The Constable wanted to know if we knew what he was doing in the area and if he was traveling with someone. We had no idea.

The next few hours are a bit of a blur. Between Facebook, text messaging and cellphones we managed to contact his friends and piece together the last couple of days. Perhaps someday in the far away future when I am not so raw, I can give a presentation called “social networking saved my son”. Today I am just unbelievably grateful that this new generation is wired.

I am also grateful to my brother in law Dave who used his connections with the police force to confirm that Jordan was not in trouble and that we weren’t making the situation worse for him by bringing in the RCMP to find him. I can’t even find words to describe how I feel about Tom and DeeDee Maltman, who in the middle of dealing with their own family emergency in Kelowna, combed the streets of Summerland last night looking for my son. And I can never express  how grateful we are to Jordan’s friend Adam, who called us back at 1030 last night and said “We were talking about this at football practice and I think I need to tell you a little more about his behaviour Sunday night”. He put the final pieces of the puzzle together for us.

Sometime Sunday Jordan began “zoning out” as Adam puts it. Acting agitated, talking about someone coming to get him. He hung a sheet up in the entrance to the family room to block the view from the front door. I have no doubt he is the reason all the spare keys hidden outside have disapeared. While they were in the middle of watching a movie, he bolted out of the house at 3 in the morning and when Adam tracked him down by cellphone it appeared that he had been hiding in the bushes. He claimed he heard sirens and knew they were coming for him. There were no sirens. He packed everything he owned and claimed he was going to the lake. When Adam asked him why he was packing all his stuff, he just said “don’t worry about it”.

With that information we were able to convince the RCMP that they weren’t looking for a suspect, they were looking for a kid who was in deep trouble. And there is a special place in heaven for Constable Luscomb and his partner who made it a priority last night to find my kid and who were finally able to call us with good news at 2 AM.

Greg and Dave had already booked tickets for the 0530 flight to Kelowna; prepared to launch a search and rescue mission. Packing a plastic bag with your son’s dirty laundry so that the search dogs would have a scent is something I pray I never to have to do again. Because the ticket was already bought in his name, and because he was terrified to leave his other son alone, Greg insisted on flying out by himself this morning and is about half an hour away from reaching Jordan as I type this. I’ve just hung up from a conversation with the mental health nurse who confirmed that Jordan is in full blown psychosis – it’s too early to know exactly what is going on or to make a prognosis. The psychiatrist flies in from Vernon on Thursday – they have him on a 48 hour hold till then. Jordan hasn’t slept or eaten in over 72 hours. They were finally able to get him to take some meds this morning so hopefully he will sleep.

I am trying to focus on the fact that he is safe and getting the care he needs. I am trying really hard not to think about all the “s” words like suicide and schizophrenia or to think about what might have happened if that woman hadn’t recognized a kid in distress and called the RCMP. We could very well have lost him.

Despite Greg’s insistence that there is no point in us both being out there, I desperately need to see and hold my son and talk to his physician face to face. However I will wait till we talk to the psychiatrist tommorow before booking a flight – who knows, it may take us awhile to get him stable enough to travel and we may need to tag team for a couple of weeks.

Please please don’t phone me. I am barely holding it together and when I have to talk about it out loud I lose it. I know you all love me and Jordan and that you will be keeping us in your thoughts. I will keep you posted in regards to my travel plans and Jordan’s status.