Naked, only half covered with a sheet, restrained to the bed with massively infected feet, probably osteomyelitis, again, angrily cussing out the nurse as well as spewing racial slurs at her, we had a ‘nice’ little visit … doesn’t everybody spend time with their family like this on a Saturday afternoon?!
To say I’ve become numb to it would be a lie, but I am accustomed to it … not as shocking anymore, but still disturbing to me nonetheless …
When I arrived I walked into the room they told me he was in … the floor was sticky under my shoes, I knew what that meant, he had pissed all over himself, the bed, and the floor while in the restraints as he cannot reached the plastic portable urinal hanging off the side of his bed … he is not rational enough to tell them he needs to use the urinal and I do think it is his way of rebelling, getting back at them for doing all these things to him …
He was not in the room, but had just been moved to a different room around the corner … that’s when I walked into my naked brother being tended to by a couple of nurses and a guardian to watch him 24/7 due to his L2K – Legal 2000 – Code for Crazy Mother Fucker
I shied away a minute, because I didn’t want to see my brother naked, I told them they should shut the door (anyone walking by could see him naked – reminded me of them doing the same thing to my mom when she was in the nursing home, just letting anyone walking by see the show – FUCK! It ain’t right …) They laughed; I didn’t think it was funny …
I know they may be used to tending patients like that, but giving the patient dignity is in order … in both Stuart’s, and my Mom’s case, they were not able to guard their own dignity in the moment, I feel it is moral obligation to give them their dignity at all times as best as possible … keeping doors wide open when a patient is naked and strapped down, is not providing dignity in my opinion. But hardly anybody in the system gives a fuck what I think … that has been made clear time and time again …
He went into the VA hospital 2 East Psych Ward July 3 … he was relatively ok, mentally, when he went in, but felt himself slipping and decided he wanted to go in or he would take off and cause damage to himself and his bank account …
When he takes off, we never know where we will find him, California, Washington, Vegas Strip, etc … spending lavishly along the way …
He was in for about a week, released July 12, even though he was worse than when he went in …
His feet were a known issue at this point … his diabetic ulcers had reopened … home health care was ordered again, but they did not get the chance to come
He stayed home for a little while, maybe 3 days and he ran around the city of Las Vegas for another 3 days, ending up at Sunrise Hospital … My message to Kerri, our family friend, on July 15, ‘Stu is gone and he left nothing but his bloody footprints’ … They called me July 18, right when I had landed out of town for a family reunion in Minnesota … leaving half a message about him needing an MRI.
Again, I don’t know if you are used to getting disturbing half messages about your missing family member when you are out of town, but let me tell you, it is a bit of a gut punch.
I called the doctor back and found out it was about his feet. His foot wounds are open again and they need to do an MRI to find out how bad it is …
Remember now, he has been at the VA hospital only 7 days earlier … his feet were a known condition … so was his mental state, but they thought it was a good idea to release him … that is the system … they do what they want, not necessarily what is best for the patient …
He went AMA from Sunrise July 22, was picked up and transferred to Spring Mountain Sahara Mental Health Clinic July 23 (he has been there MULTIPLE times through the years)
Stu stayed at Spring Mountain until Aug 19 when he was transferred to Valley for his infected feet … His feet were a known problem at the VA hospital when his Podiatrist visited him on the VA Hospital psych ward and again on July 18 at Sunrise … how did his feet get ignored for a month until they are almost ready to fall off or be cut off?!
He has been in Valley since Aug 19 … I received a voicemail from the doctor Aug 23 that I returned Aug 24 as I did not get the message until late that evening, she said his feet are critical … they are worried he may have osteomyelitis, a bone infection that could cost him his feet … he will not stay still long enough to get an MRI to see if the infection has reached the bone and they cannot sedate him enough to have antibiotic IVs in his arms as he keeps pulling them out … he is a big guy and has always been hard to take down or sedate … it is like sedating an angry elephant … they go down hard … St Rose Sienna was able to handle this situation in the Fall of 2021 … I wrote all about it in the FIC blog entry, and My VERY FAVORITE FIC post, for Nov 10, 2021, L2K, Legal 2000 (great name for the movie). That is the post that starts the My-Brother-is-a-crazy-mother-fucker journey … Start there and read forward if you have the time and the stomach …
He has been in Valley since Aug 19, I visited Aug 24, his feet are not properly dressed, there was a large Band-Aid stuck to one foot, the other was not dressed, it had been, as that was the nurse ‘dressing’ his feet when I walked in on him naked, two big Band-aids stuck to a severely infected feet, but he had kicked one off in the hour that I was there and was resting his infected foot against the foot of the bed, exposed to everything that can get into it … When I asked the nurse about his foot dressings and them not staying on, she laughed and said, “Oh, I just did them, that’s what I was doing when you walked in” … again, I did not find the situation as funny as she did … two big band aids? Not a proper bandage dressing? Of course they are going to be kicked off by a strapped down, crazy man …
I assume his feet have been like that since Kerri & I last properly dressed the foot at his home July 1, oh wait, The VA Podiatrist would have dressed it properly during his VA hospital stay July 2-12 … so probably since then …
Remember he is out of his mind and probably can not feel his feet due to diabetic neuropathy, A.K.A. numbness of the feet, so he is oblivious to the pain, when I suggested he should cooperate with IVs, he went ballistic and started screaming at me, cussing me out … He sounded like an episode of Southpark …
His feet have not been taken care of while in the system … how did we get here again … he is on track to have another $1,000,000 dollars spent on him again this year …
If he loses his feet, there will be more cost added … this is ludicrous, crazier than Stuart is … I try to help as much as I can, but I can only do so much and survive myself … I get overwhelmed and am still recovering from my own stuff … I am a super strong woman but get weak often enough … only God can carry stuff like this …
But here’s the real truth … Even if I did everything I could to get his feet issue addressed, taking ALL my time to do so, the insanity of the system or Stuart would circumvent my efforts and render them all useless … speaking from experience here …
The system is broken …
How can you fight up against a system like this? You can’t … I’ve tried and it almost killed me this last year … I feel I had a nervous breakdown related to this shit … trying to advocate for my brother and feeling like I was getting nowhere, only hurting myself more and more with the stress and worry of it all … you cannot go up against the Machine and win … except … if you have a very big God, which I do … so I keep trying when I come back to life after being knocked about by the shit storm of my brother’s health situation … both he and I get depressed after a tumble with Big Brother a.k.a. the Machine of the medical system … just when we start to feel better, Stuart has another episode and it starts all over again …
I decided not to get pulled in this time as I literally thought I was going to have a heart attack or stroke last year … I went to the doctors to see if I had a heart condition … they found nothing …
I went to the neurologist yesterday to see what is going on with the ongoing, migrating pains I have throughout my body for the past few years … he said stress and anxiety can do that … more tests to follow …
I tried to get compensation from the VA for taking care of my brother but was denied … I need to work, I am the only member of my household, I can’t not work and take care of Stu and if I take care of Stu, it is all consuming, I get pulled away from work … this is the proverbial Rock and a Hard Place … if I don’t take care of Stu, he ends up in the hospital with his feet about ready to get cut off because no one is paying attention … what to do, what to do … not sure … seriously … being serious here … I am so torn I could get torn in two and then I would be no good to anyone …
Anyone else with this kind of decision to make? Anyone? Again, being serious here … looking for people who understand …
Here’s where people THINK I am inviting comment … no I am not … I asked if YOU understand, not suggestions on where you think I can find them, because I know where I can find them, but they are not always there either …
I can go to mental health support groups and find more broken people who now want to lean on me because I have been doing my brother’s mental health journey for 38 years and have a ton of information and am a VERY capable individual, but that feels overwhelming to me at times …
I have been in 12-step recovery rooms for 28 years, so I KNOW support groups work, but not everyone in them is well … and they take time and work, I have a limited amount of time with all that I do …
Wait … I do not need to explain why I do not need you to fix me or make suggestions you think will help me … I just am venting here … and bringing this to light for awareness … this is the bigger picture folks, its not about me … its not even about my brother, it is about the system being broken and it feels like no one cares or is trying to fix it …
My brother and I are not the only casualties of the system … there must be countless others falling through the cracks just as we are …
I went to the Senators last year … wrote them a letter … never heard from Suzi Cream Cheese … I mean Catherine Cortz Masto … Jackie Rosen’s team had a guy call and listen to me, sent him tons of my writing for information, they even called for a congressional inquiry, they asked a couple of questions, never heard another word … then, they sent me a review link to ask how they did. How did you do? WHAT did you do?! Nada, Zilch, Zero …
My friends do not understand … I have tried to talk about it and they glaze over, listen but can’t grasp, make fun of it, make suggestions that I have thought of 10,000 times (They should know me better than that, I think, which is another hurt altogether), say things that aren’t relevant, or sometimes even hurtful, or just ignore it … they don’t mean to … they do not do these things on purpose … they just have no frame of reference to this kind of stuff … sometimes I need to remove myself and not talk about it to people who do not understand so I do not have to field questions or comments that drain me … they try to do their best but sometimes it feels empty and very lonely …
I have two bits of hope: 1. I feel, is in Prayer to the Almighty, Who can move mountains … or not … He can, but will He? … depends on His plan … the answer may be ‘NO’ and I have to accept that … I tear up as I write this because that sends me back into hopelessness … but I do know that if the answer is NO, then I will accept it as His all-knowing, omniscient answer. That does not mean I will stop praying for resolution and healing … sometimes, these things take time and a lot more lessons need to be learned along the way that you can only see in hindsight. 2. Keep writing all this shit down and sending it out into the world/universe, hoping people will see it and help do something to change it … I am recording this … those who write, write history, so I am preserving this for future generations to hopefully learn from and change … or not … who knows … I feel I am doing my part and the best I can do with what I’ve got, who I am and what I have to work with … that’s all I can do …
Update: Stu was found to NOT have osteomyelitis presently which calmed me down a bit … I went through the roof pissed off and sprung int o action to get him transferred, when I first saw his feet coming out of Spring Mountain into Valley, as they were clearly, badly infected and had not been taken care of … I was beside myself until I heard he was clear for Osteo, which means no amputation for now … what a fucking roller coaster …
I am going to post this report as written up to this point … Stu was transferred to Harmon Hospital August 30 and more ‘fun’ occurred … will write that up in the next post …
Thanks for listening, reading, helping, praying …
Please fuck off if you are judging, criticizing, pontificating and/or being a know-it-all – Not helpful …
Appreciate it!
FIC