Emergence

Count All This — Chapter 5: all systems frayed

Just when Jo Kasten’s adult son encounters schizophrenia, she discovers she has breast cancer. Meanwhile, her marriage faces a test. Count All This is a story about love and loyalty, addiction and madness. This is the fifth chapter. Find the first chapter here.

The emergency room was at the back of the hospital. The waiting area was large, with seating for maybe 30 people. There was a television tuned to The Oprah Winfrey Show mounted high on the wall in the corner and two bored looking viewers sitting on hideously-upholstered chairs. The nature of their emergencies wasn’t readily apparent. The woman held a baby whose nose was running. The man, seated a few chairs away, seemed to be asleep.

Although I worked upstairs on the seventh floor in the Planning and Marketing Department where I wrote stories about health for their monthly newsletter, I had never been to this particular room. I didn’t recognize the woman barricaded behind a plexiglass window who took my insurance card and heard my explanation that my son had a bad cut that needed stitching up. She said she’d call his name when they were ready before sliding the window shut. Larry and I stood near the exit, a sliding glass door. Eddy flitted about the room, finally standing on a chair in an effort to turn off the television.

“Eddy, I think people are watching that. You should ask them first,” I admonished him anxiously, but the feared conflict never materialized, since the set turned out to have no external controls. I wondered if the woman behind the plexiglass made the viewing decisions, or if there was a control room somewhere else.

After realizing he had no power over the television, Eddy sat down on a chair and leafed through a People magazine, chuckling to himself. Then he focused on the television again.

“Do you honestly like this show?” he asked the woman sitting next to him, who didn’t answer. Next he came to stand near us, bouncing nervously on the balls of his feet, then closely examining the pattern in the carpet and following it carefully with one dirty big toe.

When Eddy stepped outside for some fresh air, I looked at Larry with alarm, trying to communicate telepathically: What is wrong with him? But Larry didn’t return my look or even notice it. His face was blank, unreadable, and thirty seconds later, Eddy was reentering through the glass doors.

When his name was called a few minutes later, Ed let out a big sigh, as if he had been waiting forever, and eagerly followed an older nurse with glasses and bright orange hair through a heavy, locked door. We trailed behind. She led us down a wide, white hall to a large room at the end that seemed to be both a storage and a treatment area. There was one big bed on wheels; two flimsy plastic chairs; formica counters littered with random pieces of big equipment; two large machines on wheels with dials, buttons, and tubes; and a second, smaller bed surrounded by a heavy plastic curtain hanging from rails affixed to the ceiling. That side of the room was unlit.

“Why don’t you sit up here,” the nurse patted the closest bed. Eddy obliged her, hopping up energetically. When he pulled his filthy feet up onto the clean white sheets and crossed his legs, Indian style, I cringed. Larry and I sat on the two white plastic chairs and observed him.

“What happened to you?” she asked as she took Eddy’s hand in hers and began unwrapping the white, gauze bandage.

“Oh, the usual,” Ed smiled. “I put my hand through a window.”

The nurse didn’t seem alarmed, and didn’t ask another question. “My son walked through a plate glass window one time,” she said, and proceeded to tell us about his drunken college years at Chico State. Eddy ignored her, closing both eyes and breathing conspicuously, taking long, deep inhalations through his nose and exhaling the air loudly through pursed lips. I felt embarrassed by his rudeness, and tried to make up for it by feigning attention to the nurse’s story, smiling and nodding whenever she turned her gaze to me.

“Oh yeah, that’s a good one,” she pronounced when she had the hand unwrapped. You’re definitely gonna need stitches. At least 10. Maybe more. But it’ll be awhile before the doctor gets around to you. Do you want some water or something while you wait?”

“I don’t know. Maybe,” Eddy opened his eyes. “What have you got?”

“Well, nothing really. Just water.”

“What kind of water?”

“Just regular old water from the water cooler. Nothing special. I could bring it to you in a paper cup.”

“I don’t know.” Eddy considered this a serious decision.“Let me think about it.”

A second nurse, young and blonde, entered the room with a clipboard. “Mrs. Thibedeaux?” I nodded. “Would you please come with me?”

I looked hesitantly at Larry, then Eddy, reluctant to leave the room. “What’s the problem?” I asked her. “Why do you want me?”

“There’s no problem” she smiled reassuringly. “We just want to get some paperwork completed.”

The two of us walked down the hall to a small office with a desk and three chairs. After offering me one, she settled in across from me, the clipboard at the ready on her lap. “Can you tell me how this happened?”

Suddenly, I felt wary of her authority. What might happen as a result of this interview? They couldn’t take Eddy away from me, since he didn’t live at home. And the policeman at CSM had said he wouldn’t press charges, so they couldn’t send him to jail. Could they?

“I don’t know exactly how it happened,” I said aloud. “We were just sitting at home when we got a call from our son, asking us to pick him up. He said he’d put his hand through a window.”

The nurse made a note on her clipboard. “Where was that?”

“We were at home in Santa Inez. He was up at CSM. There were police officers there when we arrived. They made a report and everything. They wanted him to get into an ambulance, but he refused. So we drove up there and brought him down here.”

“Why did he put his hand through the window?” she asked, looking up from the clipboard. “Was he involved in some kind of a fight?”

“Well, no. That’s the scary part.” I suddenly felt I could trust her. She sat attentively and respectfully, radiating concern. She seemed both sweet and young. It was a relief to be in a private room, without Eddy listening.

“He says he doesn’t know why he put his hand through the window. He says he wasn’t angry or upset, that he just wanted to. He says it felt good.” I started to cry. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He’s acting weird. I’m worried about his mental health.”

“You should be,” the nurse said simply. “Has he always been like this?” She handed me a box of Kleenex. “Have you had trouble with him before?”

“No. Not at all. I mean…he’s always been difficult. He has a strong personality — argumentative and stubborn — but he’s never been crazy before.”

“What do you mean by ‘crazy?’”

“Just doing crazy things, like putting his hand through the window, and thinking crazy thoughts. Two weeks ago he told me he had decided to be homeless. I know he took drugs a week before that, because he messaged me when he did it. Do you think they caused something to go wrong in his brain?”

I felt distracted by a bit of moisture at my breast. When I looked down, I was horrified to see a big damp spot spreading over my tank top. I pulled my vest over to cover it, looking nervously at the nurse, and feeling relieved when I saw she wasn’t paying attention. She was busy making notes.

“The first thing to do is to take care of his hand. After that…I’m not certain,” she looked up from her clipboard. “Tell the doctor what you’ve told me when you see him, okay? See what he advises you to do.”

“Okay.”

The nurse attached her pen to the top of the clipboard and pulled it up against her chest, closing the interview. Still, we lingered in the office for a moment longer while I blew my nose and wiped my eyes.

When she finally opened the door, I girded myself to return to Eddy’s room. I could see him clearly at the end of the hall, framed by the doorway, sitting like some outlaw Buddha on the top of his bed. His legs were crossed in the lotus position, with the bottoms of his filthy feet pointing upward; his hands rested on his lap, palms up; his black clothing stood out in stark contrast to the bright white walls and hallway. I thought at first that he was staring at me with cold, dark eyes — that he knew exactly what I had been telling the young nurse and considered it a betrayal. But as I drew closer, I realized with relief that his eyes were shut.

I slipped back into the room quietly and sat down next to Larry on my flimsy plastic chair. A few moments later, a doctor entered brusquely, followed closely by the older nurse whose son had gone to Chico State. “Let’s take a look,” he picked Eddy’s hand up from his lap unceremoniously. “We’ll need novocaine,” he told the nurse, who turned to leave.

“No. I don’t want any drugs,” Eddy said.

“Believe me, you want novocaine,” the doctor continued, turning around to look at us and smiling sardonically. “You’re going to want to be numb when I stitch you up.”

“No, I’m not. I don’t want any drugs. Don’t give them to me.” Ed withdrew his hand from the doctor’s grasp.

“Look, if you don’t have novocaine, it’s going to hurt like hell,” the doctor looked at us for reinforcement.

“Listen, Eddy, the doctor knows what he’s doing. He’s done this a thousand times. If you don’t have novocaine, you aren’t going to be able to keep your hand still while he’s working on it,” I tried.

“I think I can hold it still. I can hardly feel anything in that hand right now anyway. Why don’t you try it first without novocaine and we can see how it goes?”

“I don’t have time for this.” The doctor turned abruptly to leave the room. “I’m not going to stitch it up if you don’t have the novocaine, so think it over.”

“Okay, okay! I’ll take it.”

“Good. The nurse will prepare a shot, and I’ll be back in a little while.” When the doctor left, I stood up and followed him down the hall to the nurse’s station, where he picked up a folder and began looking through it intently, ignoring my presence just two feet away.

“Excuse me, doctor,” I hesitated. “I wanted to talk to you in private, because I’m concerned about my son’s mental health.”

“Yes, I can understand that,” he said without looking up from his chart. “How old is he? Eighteeen?”

“Yes.”

“When I’m done here, he should be taken across the hall for a psychiatric evaluation.” He shut his folder for a moment and looked me in the eye. “But the problem is, since he’s 18, he’s got to go voluntarily, and if they decide they want to admit him, he’s got to agree.” The doctor smiled as if he’d just said something funny. The nurse who’d interviewed me looked up regretfully from her chair.

“I don’t know. I can ask him. But I doubt he’s going to want to do that.”

“Good luck.” The doctor smiled at me again, and returned his attention to a piece of paper in the folder he was holding.

“How long do you think it will take to stitch him up?”

“He’s not first in line. He’s going to be here at least an hour and a half. Maybe two. But if you talk him into it, the nurse here can put a call in to psychiatry, to let them know he’s coming.” She nodded.

As I walked slowly back to the room, I considered how to put the suggestion. “Look Eddy, we think you might be crazy, so we’d like to take you across the hall for a few tests” didn’t seem like a good script. I liked the clinical term that the doctor had used — psychiatric evaluation. It sounded less insulting. Still, I expected an argument, and when I entered the room, I tried to act casual, directing my first comment to Larry.

“The doctor says it’s going to be at least another hour and a half here, and I’ve got a phone interview set up for 5:30 for a story I promised to deliver to Mandy tomorrow. I don’t have the number with me, so I can’t call to postpone it. Is it okay with you if I run home and take care of that real quickly?”

Larry nodded halfheartedly. He didn’t like hospitals any more than I did. But I figured it was his turn. As a stay at home mom for seven years when our three children — Rose, Eddy, and Michael — were little, I’d been to the emergency room more than once without him. I remembered the time when Eddy was four years old and broke open his forehead running into a door frame. When we got to the hospital, they played a little game to trick him into crossing his arms over his chest before trapping him in an upper body restraint — a kind of mini-surfboard with wide Velcro panels across the front. After strapping him in and laying him down, they placed a cloth over his eyes, which was a mercy, but didn’t prevent me from seeing the size of the needle they were preparing to stick into his baby face. I thought I was fainting as I sank to the floor. It seemed his scream would never end…

After Larry gave his okay for me to leave, I turned toward the bed. “Eddy,” I said in a light tone, “the doctor thinks that after you’re done here, we should go across the hall for a psychiatric evaluation, and I agree with him. What do you think? Would that be okay with you?”

Eddy took a moment out from his noisy-breathing meditation to look up at me. “Sounds like fun.”

Back at home, I found Eddy’s little brother Michael, 14, reading a fantasy book on the couch in the living room and Jason leaning impatiently against the counter in the kitchen.

“Eddy and Larry are still at the hospital,” I reported to Michael as I raced by. “I just came home to do a quick phone interview,” I told Jason on my way through the kitchen to the back bedroom. “It’s supposed to start in 10 minutes. I have to review my notes before I make the call. Then I’ll come out and give you an update.” I paused for a moment to give him a shy smile.

“How long is the interview going to take?” He ran his fingers through his hair.

“I don’t know. Maybe half an hour?”

“I kind of need to get going. I’ve been waiting here for you or Larry to show up so I could give you the check for the Volkswagon and get the pink slip.”

“The pink slip? Crap. I’m not exactly sure where that is, and I don’t want to stop to look for it right now. Why are you in such a hurry?” I laid my fingertips lightly on his forearm. “You should stay here to keep Michael company while I go back to the hospital. After they stitch Eddy up, we’re going to take him across the hall for a psychiatric evaluation, so it’s going to be a long night.”

“No. That’s not going to work.” Jason slid out from under my hand. “I’m supposed to go to Susie’s tomorrow, and I’ve got to drive the Toyota home to Marin first and pick up my own car.”

“Susie’s?” The name of his newly-acquired girlfriend stuck in my throat. “Why do you have to drive your own car to Susie’s? Why can’t you just stay the night here and drive the Toyota? You’ll be much closer anyway.”

“No. That doesn’t work. My brother’s waiting for the Toyota, and I want to drive my own car.”

I wanted to ask him if he wasn’t worried about his good friend, Eddy, who was physically injured and apparently losing his previously brilliant mind. I wanted to ask him if he wasn’t worried about me, the woman he’d been slathering with attention for the better part of two years before abruptly disappearing two months back. I wanted to ask him if he wasn’t worried about Michael and Larry, members of his former second family whom he’d been eating dinner with every Wednesday night for months. But I was stung by his refusal, so I didn’t ask again.

I found the pink slip, signed it, and flung it down on the table like a tissue full of snot. “Bye,” I spat as I snatched the check out of his hand in the kitchen. I didn’t walk him to the front door.

After Jason left, I conducted my phone interview, which took about 30 minutes. Tonight’s subject was menopause. “What about unusual lactation?” I asked the expert before hanging up. “Can hormonal changes — or stress — cause an older woman who isn’t pregnant to produce milk?”

“Not usually. Why do you ask?”

“A little liquid has been coming out of my one of my nipples. I’m 45, and I’ve been going through some stresses. But that’s normal, isn’t it? Just a symptom of menopause?”

“No. That’s not normal. When was your last mammogram?”

“I just had one yesterday. Now they want a biopsy.”

“Good. Take care of that right away.”

I said I would.

Once the interview was over and I was ready to return to the hospital, Michael said he wanted to come, too. “Couldn’t you go to a friend’s house?” I asked. “It’s probably going to take a long time. After Eddy gets stitched up, we’ve got to take him for a psychiatric evaluation.”

“What’s that?”

“That’s when they try to figure out if you’re crazy.”

“Eddy’s not crazy!”

“I know he isn’t. But he’s doing some pretty crazy things, like putting his hand through a window. So it’s a good idea to try and figure out what’s going on with him.”

“Why did he do that?”

“I don’t know, honey. He says he just wanted to.”

“Sounds like Eddy,” Michael laughed. “I’m coming. I want to see him.”

“Okay…”

Maybe Michael’s presence would be helpful? Besides, I didn’t want to leave him waiting alone at the house. We might be gone all night. Rose was off on a road trip, and no one else was home. I hoped I wouldn’t regret the decision to bring him along.

That was the fifth chapter of my novel, Count All This. To continue, follow the free chapter links below or buy a digital copy of the whole book on Amazon, where leaving a rating or review will help others find my story.

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