” I learned that parents can bear almost anything. Every time we reach a point where we feel as if we can’t bear any more, we do. Things had descended in a way that I never could have imagined, and I shocked myself with my ability to rationalize and tolerate things that were once unthinkable”

The parent who wrote the above quote is David Sheff,  a writer for the NY Times. The quote comes from an article he wrote called “My addicted son”. He went on to write a book called “Beautiful Boy”. Which could just as easily been called “Jordan”.

We’ve been making a little progress with Jordan. Hard to see it sometimes when you are buried in the day to day crap. He had been doing really well on the Respiridon – brighter, more talkative. We even had a lovely supper out a few weeks ago. Then the UIC cheque came and we descended into another smoke filled black hole.

I lost it – on Greg and Jordan. Said I would no longer be witness to his death spiral and would be moving out (since Greg can’t yet get to the point of kicking him out). That he was killing himself, killing the family. As luck would have it, the next day Dr. A had a frank and honest conversation with Jordan about the deterioration he was seeing and the risk he was running of permanent cognitive function loss. Jordan sat on it for a night and then came and said he would go to Edgewood. I said if he was sincere about it, that he could check into Larson House first. So he did. Lasted 3 days. Came home and said he wasn’t comfortable there, that it didn’t feel like the place for him, that the sessions were not what he expected (they spent one session playing two truths and a lie and he struggled to see the value), could he go to Edgewood?

Made him call Edgewood and talk to a counsellor. Made sure he was aware that he had to do group sessions there as well and that he wouldn’t always understand the point behind the exercises. That he would have a roommate, have to do chores etc. That it wasn’t a spa vacation. That if he walked away from Edgewood and disapeared, that it would most likely kill us. Or at a minimum bring on the cardiac arrest that has been imminent for the last 18 months.

He still wants to go. Says he knows he needs to stop smoking and that it needs to be for the rest of his life and that he can’t do it alone. So we agreed. Truthfully, I am not overly optimistic that this will be successful. But Greg and I decided that if we don’t try it, and things continue on this downhill slide, we will always wonder if it could have made the difference.

So I am pulling escort duty on Tuesday. As seems to be the recurring pattern of the last three years, Greg is once again away when things hit a crisis point. If it was a direct flight I would just put Jordan on the plane, but the two hours in Vancouver makes everyone a little nervous. I am also a little worried about continuity of care in regards to his meds so would like to have a person to person conversation with the psychiatrist. There is also the  little matter of the downpayment…yikes…I just keep focusing on how many airmiles it will generate 🙂

But most importantly,  Jordan asked me if I would come with him. And no matter how angry and disapointed I am with him, and even though I feel as if he has beaten all feeling out of my soul – he is my kid. And I need to recognize how hard it was for him to finally reach this decision and show him that I support him. As one of the family panel members said at last year’s workshop – “Were it not for hope, the heart would break. Hope kept me alive”. So we keep hope’s light burning.

Fingers crossed.

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?

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.