Well it's been a couple of weeks since a post here and I'm a guest author today November 28 2011.
I and my significant other were arrested in 2003 for sales of marijuana and won our case in 2004. After that we decided to celebrate the win with a big party just for Medical Marijuana Patients, their caregivers and families. We camp out and have a big BBQ dinner Saturday night and a band and pretty much all the good bud you can consume. It runs from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon and is just a really good good time.
The second weekend of this month we had our big party again. After the first one we had to make it a twice a year tradition. Full Moon in June and Harvest Fest times for are our parties and we've had 7 harvests and 8 June parties.
Every party a wrench gets thrown into the storm that is planning for a party to feed 100 people and this last Harvest party was no exception, except, that the wrench thrown was not a printer going out or running out of ink or such, but the sudden snap of my very bipolar best friend. Yeah, she up and decided that she wasn't going to take anymore medicine; period. None of it!
This was not a good thing. My friend was on heavy narcotics, Xanax, and she had to take thyroid meds as hers didn't work anymore. For those of you out there who don't know the significance of needing thyroid replacement medicine; the thyroid controls the heart rate and other vital processes. Without thyroid hormones you die.
It was weird how I was able to watch the SNAP of my friend's mind. I've flipped out before but had never seen it. And once she snapped... It was like all of the sudden she was enraged and there were no words to calm her. I had to ride that rage all the way home. Ahhhh!
I was instantly angry too! How dare she do this to me three days before my big party! So now not only do I have to worry if I got everything for this party but I have to worry if my friend is going to kill herself. She said she wanted to die. NOT ON MY WATCH!
So this is Tuesday before the party when she flips. She drops me off at home and I'm freaked and look it. She goes on home too, she thinks to die. NOT ON MY WATCH.
The next morning another couple of friends went to check on her at my request. They took food and were hoping to talk her back to compliance. However, she was not having any of it. So they went to the fire department up the street and reported her as an attempted suicide. The cops came and she threatened them and then had a seizure. They ended up taking her to the local ER where she attacked a nurse and ran away. The cops found her at a church, curled up in a ball on the floor crying. They took her back in and she went to jail.
Now, I thought she went to 3-B at KMC or something like that. I did not know they just took her to jail.
So, we have our party, and it goes off without a hitch. It's Monday and I get word that my friend is in jail not a hospital. OH NO! So I make the call to the jail and tell them I have information about an inmate and I need to talk to medical or they could have another death in custody! I get transferred and am able to tell the nurse what's up with my friend and that she wants to die. She transfers me to the mental health nurse, who I again tell, and she thanks me, and I feel better. I know now that she will get the attention she needs.
The next morning I get a call from a lady, identifying herself as my friends case manager at KMC's 3-B ward. She tells me that my friend is there and her thyroid condition had been diagnosed and treated
and she was after a little history. I was happy to oblige. I was even able to give them the name of her endocrinologist which the manager knew. After we were done she told me I probably saved my friends life. Ha! She's not suiciding on my watch! In Jail or not!
My question is; Why was she sent to jail without life sustaining medications? It's not like she wasn't brought in as a psychiatric patient in the first place. But somehow after she assaulted the nurse and made her escape, her psych problem got forgotten, along with the rest of her medical history, including the thyroid. So she went to jail with nothing. Will there be any lasting damage to her heart or other organs from being without her thyroid meds for almost a week? I guess we will see.
Right now my friend feels great! Newly off the narcotics she's riding the high of sobriety. I am newly off morphine so I kinda know the feeling of having that weight lifted off. I just hope she doesn't crash. I didn't, but I'm hot as radically bipolar as my friend. I just hope she's ok from now on. No more wanting to die.
wow! I like the guest writer! Not bad Not Bad at all.
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