Part Two

I am sorry it has taken so long to get around to part two of the insanity adventure. I needed some time to get an angle on it. How to tell the story without telling too much. What can I, should I share and what not.

I am motivated to finish it now after just opening the bill for thirty-one hours in ER. $4646.00, NOT including doctors. Just the bed.

So – here goes.

Forty-five-minute ride to Santa Ana. A place called ETS. (I don’t know what that stands for) We arrive, I am rolled out of the back and across a bumpy section of parking lot up to a door with a buzzer. Attendant buzzes and we wait. And wait. And buzz and wait. Seven or eight minutes later someone comes to tell us, wrong door. Go around to the back. More rolling and bouncing through the parking lot. The attendants talk about how confusing the signage is. I’m looking at all the bars on all the windows.

In I roll and off the cart I jump as soon as it stops. I need to stretch more than anything. The attendants are calm and cool but, the new guy looks a bit uncomfortable. 1 point for me.

We sit at a big round table in what looks like a common area. Not a day room, lounge but not a lobby either. Not a dorm room either. Just a space in between these kinds of rooms and the office area securely behind thick safety glass.

First, some questions to make sure I am who they are expecting. Then the all important, ‘where do we send the bill’ information. Then some really interesting info: this place is also an emergency room. Not an inpatient facility. No one can stay for more than twenty hours. Curious. I don’t ask but I wonder. Where will I be going next? A seventy-two-hour hold is more than twenty!

It takes about ten, maybe fifteen minutes to do all the paperwork. The guy asks me if I’m hungry. I am. Very. He says he’ll find me something.

The place is like right out of a movie. Clean but not sterile looking. Kinda worn down. Beige walls, darker brown speckled carpet. All the windows have large aluminium frames with thick Plexiglas over them. A few random holes drilled for air flow. The ‘lobby’ is about fifteen feet wide and forty feet long.

There is an office in the middle of one wall – six desks, file cabinets, shelves, phones and people. Very messy looking. All locked up behind the kind of glass with chicken wire in it.

There are two ‘bays’ on either side of the office with two beds in each. At the end of the bay is a bathroom. No lock on the door, no paper towel or soap dispenser. Just a sink and toilet.

Opposite the office is a day room, a few sofas, a couple of big round tables with six plastic chairs at each. The TV is in a big wood box with a Plexiglas cover and big padlock.

On either side of this room are two more bays. There are four beds in each of these with the same bathroom arrangement. The beds are these large blue plastic boxes bolted to the floor with twelve pretty large bolts. The mattress is a vinyl covered pad about two inches thick and all look like they have been around a very long time. There are twelve beds in this place.

When I got there, the first bay had two guys in beds. There was a woman sitting in the ‘lobby’ at a table talking with another staff member, just like I was doing. Three people. My math says that left nine beds open. Hmmmmm.

The two guys had been in fights – and lost from the looks of it. One said nothing other than he needed clothes. They pulled some out of a closet filled with what looked to me to be donated stuff for just such an occasion.

While I am watching this someone asked me if I want my clothes. “Yes, I would very much like to be dressed”! They tell me I can have my shoes but not the laces. Fine, I can deal. A few minutes later he comes over with a big smile, “Hey, they are going to let you have your laces too”. The joy of joys.

While I am dressing, in the day room, someone brings me a box lunch. White styrene kinda box with the date 6/2/12 and ETS written on it. It is now 6/4/12. White bread, a small scoop of tuna and bruised green apple. I’m hungry, it works. It’s 9:26am

As I am eating the remaining beat-up guy asks me if I am homeless. “No”. He asks where I live. ‘San Clemente” He asks me if that’s a good place to be homeless. “Yea, I guess so”.

He proceeds to tell me all about how the gang members are out to kill him and that is why he is in here. He beat his own head/face on a wall to get in here to get away from them. Unfortunately, they were able to follow him and were watching him as we spoke. I didn’t see them but he did. Right there where we were. He ate my apple. I don’t like green apples.

At 10:05am a psychiatrist comes to talk to me. He introduces himself. He has a heavy accent, I am thinking he is Haitian. I extend a hand and introduce myself. “DON’T DO THAT”! he shouts as he recoils from my hand.  “Sorry”. I sit down.

“What did you do to get in here’? I started to tell him the story. After about six, perhaps eight words he stops me. ‘No, just tell me the exact thing, the one thing you did”. I begin again, “OK, well, it was last night..”. ” I don’t want to hear a story. Just say the one thing that got you here. That’s all. Can you do that”? Sure, I can do that.

I tell him – I challenged a cop to shoot me. He asked what led up to that moment. ‘A fight with my girlfriend”. he asked me two questions about her, how long we have been together and how old she is. I told him. Aaannndd – I quote him exactly – “You’re a fucking idiot. She is going to leave you no matter how good, well you get. She’s having sex with an old man to see what she is NOT missing”! “I don’t even want to talk to you. I’m giving you to someone else”.

Wow. I tried to tell him some stuff but he was not interested in what other things were going on. Not at all.

About fifteen minutes later a nice Chinese man introduced himself -a name I missed- and told me he was my doctor now. He looked in my chart. “Oh, you were drunk when this happened”? “I had a few drinks. I was X.XX, just over the limit”.  “You need to stop drinking! I want you to start going to AA and listen to them there”.

I asked about mood stabilizers, anti-depressants, all the things my therapist mentioned. “Go see your regular psychiatrist and go to an AA meeting every day”.

Aaannnddd – I was done. My stay was over. Ninety-one minutes and I was no longer a threat to myself or anyone else. They called someone to come get me.

As I waited, beat up hallucinating guy was let out. The woman was leaving to go to a court appearance. The staff was talking over claiming zero or three on W-2.

Lunch got here at 11:25. Some creepy colour of red fried chicken, rice and brussel sprouts. At least it seemed fresh.

They come to tell me my ride is there and give me all my personal items. The Chinese guy says, “Go to meetings every day and you will be fine”.

All the way home I was somewhere between very grateful and very upset. I do not believe I got the help I obviously need. I did get a good story out of it.

I’ve been going to meetings every day and two on Fridays. I went to my regular psychiatrist – even though I cannot afford her. I’ve not worked since I got out and am future tripping on bills, rent.

I do not think I will challenge a man with a gun again. I will not call the police again on myself. I have no other will/wont’s at this time.