Tuesday, June 12, 2012

ANN MEETS ED IN A PSYCHIATRIC HOISPITAL

Today Ann is given the wrong medicine by the pharmacy and almost dies. She is hospitalized and meets Ed at the hospital.

THE GOD GAMES: Heaven & Hell...Chapter 30...HELL                                                                 

After a couple of years had passed, I realized that I did not love anyone except my children and all of the grandchildren. I knew that if I did not get off of the mountain soon I would never recover my mind or my physical health. I hated Bruce and I hated Brian and I hated being controlled to the point that I could not talk freely with another human being. I was sick of being kept a virtual prisoner by a man that-although I respected his many abilities to mine, and weld, and build, and do anything mechanical-I had come to have absolutely no respect for him as a person, He had many, many male friends and many female friends as well, and I became aware of a special relationship he was having with one of Janice's friends. I guess that turn-about is fair play, but all of the tangled relationships that were going on in the mountains were just another reason for me to be free of it all.

I took a prescription into my usual pharmacy one day in May of 1999. It was a new prescription of a drug I had taken for years, but for a higher dose, and I did not know what to expect the pill to look like; this medication was my chief psychiatric drug. The pharmacy gave me my prescription and I noted that it was a pretty-shaped medicine. Two weeks later I began to feel very physically ill, throwing up all of the time, and hallucinating. We were up in the mountains of course, and it was not easy to get to town, but finally I got so sick that Bruce bundled me up into the truck and took me to the psychiatric hospital to see Dr Laurence. What had happened is that the pharmacy had given me the wrong medicine. First, I was getting the maximum dosage of a drug I had never had before, and second, since I didn't have the correct drug to take, I had abruptly stopped taking a powerful psychiatric drug and that gave me terrible drug withdrawals also. I almost died before they could get the wrong drug flushed out of my system and start me back on my usual drug. After I got well, Dr. Laurence requested that I get a lawyer and sue the drug store for giving me the wrong medicine. He said that it had happened many times to his patients who used the same pharmacy as I did. This pharmacy was one of the largest in the United States and I had never sued anyone before and didn't believe in suing. Dr. Laurence said that unless someone stood up to them they would continue to hurt and kill other people by being lax in their dispensing of medication. So I found a lawyer and we were successful in our lawsuit and I received $14,000; after about a year of waiting for them to see the merit of our lawsuit.

I was in the hospital for three weeks recovering from the medication side effects. One day we were having community meeting for our hospital ward. The issue came up of choosing a movie to be watched that night-for our weekly popcorn and movie night. There was a gentleman sitting across the room from me who suggested watching the movie, The Game. There were several other suggestions for movies but something inside of me said to choose The Game, so when it was my turn I also suggested watching The Game. As I said my choice for a movie, the gentleman who also wanted to watch The Game, turned around in his seat and stared at me; he was very tall and handsome, and he mouthed, "Thanks!"
                                                                                                                                                                 
After the meeting was over the gentleman came over to me and introduced himself as Ed, short for Edmond. We began talking and never stopped for the next two and a half weeks. We thought the same about ONE and had the same life goals. We discussed religion and I found out that he was a jack Mormon-a Mormon in name only, not practicing. We found out that in our entire life spans we had been close to each other many times. He was born and raised in Prescott, Arizona to a very old Mormon family, while we had moved in and around the Phoenix area when I was a girl. He had once had a home in Poway, California, but now he was going through a rough spot after going through a divorce that had ended a thirty-year marriage. He was still very much in love with his wife and he missed his children so much that he asked me to get the word around not to include him in any Father's Day events or rewards. Holidays brought him incredible pain as he dreamed about and remembered all of the events he had shared with his family over the years. Now, he had not seen or talked to any of his three children in some time and he ached to see them and have them forgive him for all of the mess and pain he had caused them.

Ed and I were both patients of Dr. Laurence and Dr. Laurence was very happy to see us talking to one another. He felt that we had a lot in common-Ed and I had the same Bi-Polar Disorder-and we both had compatible minds and backgrounds. So I spent blissful weeks talking with another human being about ONE and about theology in general. He introduced me to so many new ideas and we seemed to concur about almost everything. We had been born two months apart; I was two and a half months older than him.

One night I had a dream and in the dream a man came up to me with a letter he had written. As I took the letter, I heard a voice say, "When a man brings you a letter you can know that he is the one that has been chosen for you. Have no fear."

Two evenings later, I was writing in my bedroom when I heard a knock on the door. I went to the door and there stood Ed with a letter in his hand. He handed me the letter and I said, "Thank you so much, I was just writing you a letter. When I finish it I will bring it to your room." He said how great that was and that he would be waiting. Then he left-the rules were very strict about bedrooms being off limits for the opposite sex.


Tomorrow, Ed visits the mountains and Bruce, and our friendship grows. Ann is "dying" to get off of the mountain...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

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