Rain, rain, go away.....

..... come again another day.....

Here I sit in the middle of the Occupational Therapy room at Emerson Hospital, waiting for 1pm to arrive.  I have been here now for 3 weeks, and it looks like I'll be here for at least 4 before I'm allowed to go home for good.

1pm is when Paulie is coming to pick me up, and I have a pass home for 6 hours.  We are going to Momma and Dad's, where the rest of the Grande clan will be waiting to have a nice visit.

The interesting thing about this stay in the hospital is that I have some memory loss because of all the ECT treatments thus far, so I'm not sure exactly how my life will pick up again when I'm home to stay.  I know that I want to sing a lot more, as well as write, and that my thoughts will take some time to come back together. I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that this will all be for the better once I'm home, especially with the results of the ECT.  I feel like a million bucks the day after each treatment. The day of each treatment I don't, and I know that's because the medication they give me to sleep makes me depressed that day, but once it's out of my system I feel great.

I suppose there isn't much more for me to say.  I'm excited to see my family, and I'm hopeful that the treatments will continue to make me feel well and things will improve more and more.

Little Laura wants to play, Rain rain go away....

Lovely, dark, and deep...

I am keeping my promises.

Last week, an article came out in the Boston Globe about spouses and mental illness.  The picture gracing the beginning of the article may have been familiar to some of you. There we were, Paulie and myself, having a laughing moment in the Dracut Public Library, where I work.

That was one of the only laughing moments there have been of late.

I have been inpatient at Emerson Hospital for the last two weeks, as of today.  I will be here at least 3 more, as I am undergoing Electro-Convulsive Therapy (ECT, or "Shock Therapy" to those in the biz) for the foreseeable future.

I will receive these treatments every other day for the next 3 weeks.  I am wheeled down to a surgical unit, and an IV is started. A blood pressure cuff is placed on my ankle, and leads are glued all over my forehead.  The blood pressure cuff on my ankle is so they can see when the seizure in my body is taking place, the leads are for giving the electroshock current.  I am given a mask of oxygen to wear and breathe in deeply as the surgical staff do a "time out": they repeat my name, date of birth, procedure to be performed, and other relevant information to the procedure.  They lower the head of my bed and tell me the medicine will burn in my arm for an instant before I am asleep.  After I am asleep, they will administer a paralytic, so that when my body seizes, the only thing that moves will be that ankle and foot, below where they had placed the blood pressure cuff at the beginning of things. Once the seizure has taken place, I will "come back" into the room, awakening from anesthesia.  Then I get wheeled back to the unit, and I continue with my day.

There are those who may be horrified by the idea of what I've just explained, but the fascinating part is that this is considered one of the most effective, safe, and "miraculous" treatments for refractory (or "treatment-resistant") depression.

I live most of my days here in a feeling of profound depression.  I sleep too often, eat too little, and just want to go home. The woods of Robert Frost's "Stopping..." are lovely, dark, and deep, just like the sleep that washes over me during ECT treatments.

But I am keeping my promises.

What's Next?

Anyone who watches "West Wing" knows that one.... what's the next thing to be tackled?  Who needs to be taken on?  How do we claim triumph over the next set of obstacles?

These are the questions I ask myself in a hospital room in Concord, MA.  By now, I figure I've lost at least half my reading audience.  I figure this mostly because I write about THE SAME SHIT OVER AND OVER AGAIN.  But I can't help it.  This is the stuff of life that eludes me, and I will continue to write about it until it makes sense. I swear, I'm not trying to bore anyone.  But this is the course of my life.  If you're bored with the monotony of hospitalization after hospitalization, can you imagine how I feel?????

I ask "What's next?" because I (and a team of highly-trained specialists) have come to a conclusion: Laura is very good at being bipolar.  Laura is also very good at singing & acting in high-pressure, high-level musical productions.  What Laura is NOT very good at is doing both at the same time.  Since kicking bipolar disorder to the curb doesn't seem to be in the cards right now, I am taking a hiatus from performance.

The thought of this makes me nauseous. This is not "ok, go do this difficult thing without a net".  This is "you've been doing this difficult thing without a net since you were three years old, now just fucking stop". The idea of it brings on waves of depression, devastation, confusion.  I feel like someone just pulled a rug out from under me and told me there was a floor to walk on, so just go do it.  But the floor is covered in tacks & nails.  How the FUCK am I supposed to walk across this new floor?  I don't need a net, I don't need a map; I need feet of steel.

I know that there's nothing telling me not to sing EVER.  I'm allowed.  My throat works.  I remember the notes and words and rhythms.  I just can't do it in front of anybody for the foreseeable future.

AND I AM PISSED.

I have some thoughts.  I won't stay away from music.  I'll continue to take voice lessons.  I'll continue to work on my piano playing (when the titanium screws in my right hand don't give me too much trouble), and I am hell-bent on learning to play the guitar.

But this feeling of not singing feels like someone is trying to pull my heart out of my chest... through my right eye socket.  It's a ripping and tearing that I can't even get my brain to comprehend.  I need some steel plates in my head and heart to go with those feet.  I need to walk across that floor.  How the hell am I going to get across that floor?

What's next?

Vignettes Part II

Another excerpt from from hospital travels. Names and such have been changed. 

Gerald

Gerald laughed again, his perfect brown skin sliding easily over chiseled cheekbones. His laugh and winning Hollywood smile were infectious, and all packaged in a dapper frame. His entire demeanor spoke of a cool fall day in 1952, a radio softly playing jazz with a fedora lying on a nearby chair. 

Gerald's personality literally filled a room. The room just happened to be in my mind. 

I found myself seeking Gerald out. Maybe his mania was exciting, a perfect dance partner to my sluggish depression. The fluidity of speech that only made sense to him was like a Miles Davis riff. I wanted to lean back against my chair and let it wash back and forth, a breeze blowing through the window on that afternoon in '52.

I think Gerald is good for me. I think Gerald is my escape.