Day 5 - The First Hospital Visit

I finally made it to the hospital yesterday for my first visit with my mom. I'm glad that I didn't have any expectations coming into this.

First, some background.

My family checked my mother into the hospital 5 weeks ago. She had gone for a very long period without taking her medication, and her mental state subsequently degraded. She had isolated herself from the rest of the family by retreating to her bedroom. Then she'd get up every morning around 03:00 and compulsively clean the kitchen. She'd move appliances (including the fridge), empty out the cupboards and drawers, flood the kitchen floor with water.
It reached a point where the family and the help were afraid of her.

Five weeks ago, my cousin drove her from Cabanatuan (~60 miles north of Manila) for a routine appointment with her psychiatrist, and instead, she was permanently admitted to the hospital for treatment.

My mom has schizoaffective disorder, which is a combo of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. You can search on WebMD for some quick background on these disorders.

This is nothing new... she's suffered from mental illness for many years. (Maybe on this trip I can figure out from my family members as to when she first started exhibiting symptoms.)

Back to present.

I entered the community center (where mentally ill patients are hospitalized) and saw my mom eating at a table across the room. I didn't immediately recognize her (the nurse had to point her out to me.) She looked disheveled, dressed in loose, over-sized shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.
I walked over and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned and was genuinely surprised and excited to see me; she jumped up and gave me a hug.

Then she sat and returned to eating. She needed to finish her meal. I sat next to her quietly and just let her finish (she was pretty absorbed with finishing her meal so that she could conduct a proper visit with me.)

In the meanwhile, I went over to the nurses station to confirm her current meds (risperidol, epival, and others that just merge into a jumble), and they told me that she was no trouble at all, but just kept to herself all the time in her room. (I saw on the wall a list of daily activities for all patients, which included interactive social activities.)

Its hard to go into the minutae of our conversation... mainly because it was disjointed and didn't make sense. Topics ranged from sentate elections (didn't know if she was referring to the US or the Philippines as she kept on pointing to the TV which was tuned into some game show), to Queen Elizabeth II (she's always been infatuated with the royals since I was a kid), and a "letter from the Social Security Administration."

I wasn't too sure about the latter; she kept on telling me to ask my cousin or my sister, and she grew quickly frustrated with me. Why? I don't know. I guess because I didn't understand or couldn't comprehend where she was going with this (I had suspected that it had to do with Medicare or disability coverage.) She'd slam her hand down on the table in anger at my ignorance and flip her head in disgust. Then her attention would return to the game show on TV.
In the meanwhile, I just kept a cool head and went along with her. Disputing her statements or questioning her judgement would just make things worse, and an underlying goal of this trip is to regain her trust.

I showed her loads of family pictures on my PocketPC which she found to be entertaining. She asked questions about my sisters and their kids, and I also told her that my older sister recently announced another baby on the way.

I did ask her a couple of questions. I asked her if she knew why she was in the hospital, to which she responded, "blood work."

Then I asked her if she needed anything. She wrote down a list of things; just clothing and sundries. My family had not come to visit her over the past five weeks. (I knew from my aunt that they were tight on money, couldn't pay mom's hospital bills, and couldn't find staff to keep our family bookstore open in order to visit her in Manila.)

The rest of the visiting time was spent sitting in silence and watching the TV game show. Mom would occasionally interject with some odd commentary about the commercials (how vitamins and drugs don't work, how people are stupid, etc...)

I left after an hour; it was the end of visiting hours (11:00 - 13:00.) I told her that I was here for one month and that I planned to visit her everyday. Would this be ok with her? "Yes. Sure. That's ok."

So, I return to the hospital today with the sundries and some shirts. I went to the mall after my visit yesterday and purchased what I could (I have no idea what size she wears, so I needed to guess on some things.)

Her doctor won't be back until later on in the week. I look forward to sitting down with him and planning some kind of long-term treatment plan for her. This revolving door of her in-and-out of the hospital has to end.

I'm holding up... I came to the realization that this will be a very long month. I was pretty exhausted from a day of running around, seeing my mom, ticking off her shopping list. I came back to my hotel room and crashed around 17:00; woke up around 21:00, ate some cereal, watched BBC, and then went back to bed. I'm still a lil' whacked out... keep on getting up at 4am, but that's ok. It works for me.

I do admit that there are periods of loneliness. I knew that would be a big challenge for me. Sometimes I'd feel waves of frustration with different situations (getting to the hospital, the phone situation, internet access), and its hard because there's no one to whom I could immediately vent. Writing all of this stuff down has been pretty therapeutic though.
Some have asked that I take pics. I'll do that at some point. I want to play on the "down-low" and not attract attention to myself by being a tourist with a camera. I have thought about sketching though... I haven't done that for awhile and need to buy some supplies. Luckily there's a lil' bookstore next door to my hotel.

I will do a walking tour at some point... I concluded that I need to do it early in the morning - 6 or 7am - when its still cool and not so crowded outside. I'm only a couple of blocks from Intramuros (an old colonial fort), the bay front, and Rizal Park. I really need to get beyond the mall, hotel, and starbucks!

- Ed