Pete's Writing Place: Schizophrenia

Showing posts with label Schizophrenia. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Facing the schizophrenic demons as a family...

Facing the schizophrenic demons as a family...

ARTICLE: First published at Fortitude.

by peter petterson

To follow the ongoing story of my grandson's journey with schizophrenia in the latter months of 2009, I would suggest you read my earlier article, "The demons of schizophrenia unleashed"(link below). To help you identify with my grandson it would be easier to know his name. So for the next little while, lets just call him 'Billie'.

You will have read in the previous article that his nurse took some poetic licence in ensuring Billie could be admitted into the psychiatric system. Her comments caused some reaction from the law who descended on our home in force convinced that Billie was determined to do himself some physical harm; actually in fact he had no intention to inflict more than a breath on his person. But the invading posse which included a sergeant armed with a holstered Glock were determined that this young eighteen year old would not be allowed to self mutilate himself. There were at least six policemen that day who entered or were immediately outside his bedroom.

He was taken into custody meekly and quietly, despite his deterioating psychiatric state of affairs. Billie had never resisted police on any occasion he was involved with them. He was met there by his psychiatrist who accompanied him to the mental health unit at Hutt Hospital in central Lower Hutt city. With the necessary paperwork completed Billie was admitted into hospital, something we had been attempting for a number of months. Previously the 'Arm' of the Mental Health Act: Was he a danger to himself or anybody else — had prevented him being admitted. But despite the fact he didn't fit that category, the poor young man badly needed psychiatric treatment regardless.

Now that he had been admitted and would be examined by one of the resident psychiatrists in the unit, we, his grandparents and caregivers, could get some badly needed rest and leave our grandson in the care of the health professionals for a few days. It is the family members and caregivers who are often ignored and disregarded, despite the fact they care for their relations and charges, 24/7, and know by instinct just what is necessary.

Over the next few days he was observed by doctors and nurses, and had his basic medication changed...this time to Clozapine, the gold standard medication which was once the basis of a Time magazine leading article. Clozapine was reserved for patients who resisted all other anti-psychotic medication. But there were strings attached to using this medication — because of the danger of deterioation of his white cells,and also potential dangers of getting infections through colds, flu, cuts and abrasions etc, he would have to have weekly blood tests to monitor his white cells, firstly for eighteen weeks, and then monthly for the rest of the time he would be treated by Clozapine — perhaps for the rest of his life! Clozapine was not actually a new medication, but the earlier dangers of the medication had not been known at the time, and a number of patients had died. As a consequence the drug had been banned by the American FDA for many years. In recent years safety precautions had been developed to monitor the drug, as previously explained, and the drug was now administered widely around the western world. It was now the gold standard of anti-psychotic medications.

After a few days Billie was allowed some home leave for a a few hours at a time. We were then able to take him home on extended leave. But we had not been warned of the potential side affects of this new drug which, along with his existing medication, caused him to become deeply sedated and lose control of his bladder for some considerable time. We would continue to have problems with his medication, for a number of weeks to come, but that is another story for our grandson Billie and we as a family.

Published on Fortitude August 25, 2010

Copyright 2010 peter petterson

All Rights Reserved

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

All over bar the shouting - heading down the hill to schizophrenia without realising it...

Image via Wikipedia

All over bar the shouting - heading down the hill to schizophrenia without really knowing it..

ARTICLE: First published at Fortitude

by peter petterson

My previous article concerning mental health was really a historical account concerning my grandson's problematical life in childhood, adolescence and his mental breakdown at the age of fifteen years.

Here we will hit the keys and see where we end up tonight. Do you ever get like that: Just freewheeling your way through some writing, letting you brain and fingers do the walking? Just like an advert for Yellow Pages — let your fingers do the walking!

So what do I remember about his mental breakdown? Not a lot really. In such situations I don't think you really know a lot. Who knows what goes on in a person's brain? They can quiely deterioate without anybody realising it. In point of fact the youngster cracked up, after his session of drugging, drinking and not sleeping. It was all over bar the shouting when he told his grandmother he was a 'pussy' and didn't want to fight with one of the boys anymore.I didn't even know that was what he had been doing to try and prove himself with the 'normal' teens he was associating with there in the neighbourhood. Trying to be just one of the boys in the 'Hood.

Well it happened. He went all quiet; quite a change from the hyperactive kid he had been most of his life. He was taken into the local hospital, admitted into a ward for the night from Accident and Emergency, and the next day was taken to the regional youth mental health unit, about 20 miles away. He was on his way, on a journey he will be on for the rest of his life. The controversial little pain in the backside he could often be, to the frightened little rabbit he was before he went into hospital.

He would not return as the youngster we knew, but he would return and continue developing into the schizophrenic young man he is today. All that in less than a month! He was prescribed and regularly given Risperadol, an anti-psychotic medication he would be on for a couple of years or so. And it had side-affects like other medication he was on and others he would be on in the future. Like the mood stabiliser called Lithium. He had to have blood tests every three months because it could have detrimental effects on his renal functions in time. I can't remember when he started talking to himself — was it when he came back from the mental health unit? I'm not really sure about that. But he certainly became different and difficult. He was obviously hearing the voices pretty early in the piece; but we aren't sure when he obviously began to respond to them.

But we became concerned with the side-effects of his medication in future months. We found it difficult to get our points of view through to his health professionals — doctor and social worker. We did not have a good relationship with his social worker because he did not respond adequately to our questions and concerns for our grandson's well-being. The doctor was nice enough and tried to cooperate with us when we thought he was on too much medication — but we were ignorant and inexperienced with mental health problems. The dosage of his Risperadol was a bit like a yo-yo for a few weeks as the doctor tried to find a balance in his medication.

Finding a balance in the dosage of psychotic medication is something we would learn about in future years. Side-effects are something we would also discover too. It wasn't too long before he had a relapse and ended back in hospital again. He was now well on the road to being a confirmed schizophrenic. We knew also that alcohol was good for him in only small quantities, and marijuana was a poison for him in any quantities. The latter would be confimed by other mental health patients we knew on later occasions. We would also learn that you never recover from serious mental disorders — doctors can only manage the illness through the correct dosage of the right medication. Medication had now become as important to our grandson as food and drink. Yes, he was well on the road, alright!

Published on Fortitude July 10, 2010

Copyright 2010 peter petterson

What does the average person know about mental illness...

Image via Wikipedia

What does the average person know about mental illness...

ARTICLE: First published at Fortitude .

by peter petterson

What does the average person know about mental illness, I wonder? Not very much I would suggest. Until just a few years ago I didn’t know much either and had very little contact with people afflicted with what can be one of the most complex and often heartbreaking conditions possible.

If a person has a broken leg, it is very easy to treat it. Take the patient to the hospital radiology department and have the leg x-rayed. Put the broken limb in a splint and plaster and let nature do the rest. A few weeks later, without complications, the patient is usually back on the road to full recovery.

If a person has a wound, take them to their doctor or the emergency department and get it treated, and stitched up if necessary. But not mental illness. It is so very complex indeed.

There are a variety of mental health conditions: The most common is of course depression, and also very hard to diagnose correctly. Schizophrenia is becoming more known about and also bi-polar as well. However, schizophrenia is the one I have become more familiar with over the last few years. It has become evident right there in my immediate family – in my grandson. He has now suffered with schizophrenia for about four and a half years, and the doctors have struggled to contain it, to find the right balance of anti-psychotic drugs to treat it. You never cure it, just contain it and help them to live with it. His condition is that much more difficult because he has a dual diagnosos — he suffers from a mild intellectual handicap as well.

As a preamble to discussing how my grandson became mentally ill and perhaps what brought the condition on — because that is the difference between physical illnesses, conditions and injuries. Let us just drop back into his past for a few years.

From a young age he displayed some unusual and at times some strange characteristics and actions. He was hyperactive, his behaviour was unusual and he found it difficult to get on with other children. He got into situations that most children would not – he had no consequences for his actions – he didn’t learn from his mistakes that most normal children did.

At school it was discovered he wasn’t able to read or write and had some serious learning difficulties. At the age of six years he was assessed as having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Oppositional Defiance Disorder and a measure of Conduct Disorder. A lot of people still don’t, and didn’t back then accept these as genuine disorders, but take my word for it – they are. It helped to explain the difficulties some children I grew up with and met at school had so many years ago. Back then there were no labels for these conditions – just bad kids who needed a good kick up the backside. They needed some good strong discipline. What they really needed was to be understood, but society didn’t have the knowledge those days to be able to do that.

From the age of six years until his late fourteenth year he had difficulties at all his schools and with senior school authorities who refused to accept that parents, or in our case grandparents, may actually know more about their child than they did. The outcome was predictable and usual – he was suspended and eventually expelled because he was a little round peg that didn’t fit in with the school’s square hole!.

But just shortly before his fifteenth birthday he had what is known these days as a psychotic episode. He had mixed with other boys of his age-group and a little older, drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana and not sleeping properly, and having that delicate disposition was pushed over the edge into a mental health disorder. The poor young fellow displayed some evidence of what we used to call madness!

He was admitted into a youth mental health unit for a number of weeks until doctors were able to control his behaviour with anti-psychotic drugs. He has periodically over four and a half years had a number of psychotic episodes, been admitted into the local mental health unit a number of times and had his medication changed as his disorder had worsened. It is also true that he was not treated quickly enough or properly at the time, and his condition had deteriorated to the point he is now on Clozapine, the most strongest and potentially dangerous medication available for mental health patients who have not responded to regular medication.

This then, dear readers, is my grandson that we still look after and have raised from the age of eight years, because there is nowhere else for him to live but in the arms of his family. New Zealand like all other western countries decided to close mental hospitals and homes and keep people in the community. Some of course have no family to look after them and others have been rejected by their families as an embarrassment.

In closing here, let me state I have had a very good education about the effects and requirements to treat schizophrenic patients – the ‘talking to voices’ syndrome. And our now nineteen year old grandson remains with us still . We hope to be able to find some way to get him able to move out into the community more without the family, and in some small way we are working towards this by having support people take him for car rides, shopping and just recently we enrolled him in a local gym to help his physical state – his weight is ballooning out because of his new medication. We hope this will prove beneficial as we try to prepare him for an independent future – we are in our sixties and won’t be able to look after him for much longer. At a later date I will discuss my grandson’s journey in more detail.

Published on Fortitude June 29, 2010

Copyright 2010 peter petterson

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Facing the schizophrenic demons as a family...

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Wednesday, August 25, 2010

All over bar the shouting - heading down the hill to schizophrenia without realising it...

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What does the average person know about mental illness...

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