I had said in a previous entry this week that I had two major things to talk about. They both involved suicide attempts made by two other patients.

When my roommate K arrived, she was almost in a catonic state. She did not respond to anything, and then i showed her our room and she climbed in her bed and for almost two days did nothing but sleep or stare upward. On K’s 3rd day as my roommate, I was taking an afternoon nap, and i suddenly sat straight up ( I usually wake up groggy). I went straight to the bathroom and the door was locked, so I said “K, are you in there? and got no response… so my instinct was to run to the nurse station. When the tech got down there and opened the door, she told me to run to nursing and get everyone… and all kinds of nurses started coming from every direction. What the tech told me as they were walking her limp body out of the bathroom was that she had tied a sheet around so tightly and even though the shower rod failed, she was then too weak to intie it and she was about to turn blue. The nurse on duty told me “60-90 seconds… and that would have been it”. I did not really feel like I “saved her life” but something wpke me up and then instinctually took me to the nurse station… K came out of her shell about two days later and started doing very well.

Throughout my stay I came to know another woman named C. We would sit in the smoking room in our “spot” all the time, and she had a tape player and we’d listen all the time. We had a lot of fun and serious talks, and hysterical moments in that room… but I digress. Because C could neither read nor write, I had been taking down some dictations forher to give to her doctor to kind of understand how she was perceiving and processing things. She had talked about suicide before, but I think everyone in the hospital talks about suicide half the time anyway. She had told e some different plans she had made for ending her life when she “got out” of the hospital ( which isn’t going to happen because the state took coustody of her and now sheis committed). Anyhow, the night before i was to leave, she asked me to take down a dictation for her. I of course said yes. This dictation was very different than all the rest, besides being psychotic, there were sections that were being referred to as the last will and testament, and what she wanted to be said at her funeral. She also was sayin g things like “the car goes to… an the whatever goes to so and so… Of all the dictations I had ever taken , this one had a different flavor… a definitive flavor.

Well, I knew she had a plastic bag in her room because several days earlier she told me she got it out of the laundry room to tie to her towel bar because the cleaning lady took her garbage… fair enough. She asked me if I would watch her stuff for a second while she grabbed something… so I said SURE. now… since she can’t read, all the pages of my dictations looked the same to her, so I snagged the one I had just taken from her ( 4 pages) . I waited until after we were supposed to be in our rooms, and then I snuck the back way to avoid her room, and went to the nurse station and handed the pages in to the tech there, I also told them for a fact that I knew sshe had a plastic bag in her room. Well, they searched her room and did not find it, but as a precaution, she had to sleep with her door open and get checked every ten minutes rather than every 45 like the rest of us.

Well, the tech on duty came into my room at about 3am. He told me that C wanted to talk to me… and on the way to the smoking room, the tech told me that while he was doing regular rounds, he passedby her room and she wasn’t in bed, so he knocked on her bathroom door, and sshe did not respond. He opened it… and C was on the floor with the plastic bag so tight around her neck that she was barey ( if at all) conscious. The tech told me he ripped the top off first and then undid the knot.. and it was sooo HOT in there. Somehow.. she survived through the panic stage and was going to really doing it.

Since the smoking room is open 3-4 am, I walked in there and said ” my presence was requested” and she said.. ” you took the papers didn’t you” and I told her yes… (I had never lied to her before so I wasnt going to start). and then she said… “when I came to your bedroom door and asked you if you had seen the papers and you siad no… I just want you to know you are a terrible liar” I chuckled a little, and so did she, and then i looked her in the eyes and asked her to forgive me because my moral obligation , and that even though i gave my word that I wouldnt tell anyone, I felt I had no choice.

She forgave me, and we talked for a long time. After that stunt, or a stunt like K pulled, tthe patient has to go on CVO ( meaning constant visual observation) they cant even sleep in ther room. She was scared to sleep in the main living area cause it felt so big, aso I asked her if we could pull the couches togethger like in a square thingand then I’d come out and sleep there for the rest of the night. Normally, a tech would not allow that, but in this case, and it being my last night there… he of course let me sleep with her out there.

I promised C that I would always stay her friend because she was saying that people come and go constantly and she has nothing consistant in her life… and I am proud to say I have called every day, we’ve been talking, and I told her… see? I told you when I said we’d be friends.. I meant it. My word is gold to me… what else do you have.

As for K, she discharged even before I did, and I dont know whathappened to her, but she was on some kind of happy pills so all was well???

I also wanted to write about my furnature and stuff, hwever writing about K and C really took a lot out of me. Both came within 60-90 seconds of their death… and to think that while i was there… they were the only two who attempted suicide.

The nurses and techs said I saved both of thir lives, but I think I was probably at the right place at the right time… or that i was driven by some force to intervene between the person and the staff.

and now… we present the onset of carpal tunnel syndrome.
I will write more tomorrow-ish

Be good and be good at it
Beth