The Day After

Even though I feel like I’m dealing with Daughter’s hospitalization pretty well, I didn’t sleep well last night. So on very little sleep, I was playing catch up today while dealing with lots of phone calls. Sister kept calling me to find out if I knew anything new. I finally pointed out that I couldn’t visit until 6:00 this evening. The irony is that when I called her after I visited, she didn’t pick up. I left her a voice mail—and no information. I know; I’m cruel.

This afternoon I had a meeting about our children’s ministry. I suggested that to become effective, we needed to be willing to throw out all of our preconceived notions and traditions. So, they did. I was pleased by the enthusiasm that was part of our meeting. It felt really good to be able to do something worthwhile and constructive on so little sleep. The group willingly agreed to another meeting this month to finalize details, and a meeting at the end of September to tweak the program.

Daughter was depressed when I saw her this evening. She said she hadn’t felt good and had been dizzy most of the day. She spent much of it sleeping, apparently. Psychiatrist has increased her lithium. Daughter asked her if she had a prediction as to when Daughter could come home. Psychiatrist told her that they had to wait for the increase in the lithium to kick in and had to make sure she didn’t have any side effects. In other words, who knows? Fortunately, Daughter was satisfied with that answer.

I talked to Case Manager at the workshop today. My intuitions about Daughter’s friends were confirmed. Boyfriend probably has at least one other woman on the line. Best Friend seems to be playing 4 men right now. It is a soap opera, and Case Manager did not think Boyfriend is good for Daughter. He is too much older and too much more experienced than Daughter. I don’t think the ongoing drama at the workshop caused Daughter’s problems, but I don’t think it is helpful to her. They are discussing the possibility of putting Daughter and Best Friend in groups at opposite sides of the workshop. Currently, they are in the same group. The separation would reduce Best Friend’s opportunities to pull Daughter into her drama.

Of course, Daughter asked me to bring Boyfriend and Best Friend with me to the hospital tomorrow evening. Not going to happen. I hope that tonight will be a better night. The house just seems empty without Daughter. Cat and Kitten miss her, too. They were sleeping on top of me last night, which didn’t help my attempts at sleep....