MY TIME IN THE PSYCH UNIT

 I wake up in the middle of the night and find myself lying on a thin plastic mattress that feels like a cheap cot.  I sit up on the side of the bed and put my feet  to the floor.  The floors are hard and cold. The bed next to me is empty.  My mind feels foggy.  My vision is blurred.  I look out the window and see a helicopter landing pad with a red sock.  Christmas is only a week away and it looks like the red sock was put there purposely, with a little red light on the end to represent Rudolph’s nose. 

I decided to make my way to the bathroom.  It is also cold and sterile and there is no lock on the door.  The sink is odd and looks more like a mini-drinking fountain, so I bend down and take a sip of water.  I look in the mirror but I don’t recognize the person looking back at me.    
 
I don’t know how I got in this hospital-looking place but decide I will just leave.  Once outside, I will  just find someone to give me a ride home.  I begin my escape.  Right outside my room is a door.  I try to open it, but it’s locked.  I walk down a deserted hallway and at the end I come to large double doors.  There is a nurse’s station on the left.  That’s ok, I thought, they won’t see me.  I try to open that door and it is also locked.  I go back to my room and I sit there, on the side of my bed, for what seems like hours.  I’m locked in this deserted hospital-like place and I can’t leave.  Where’s Tim?  Where are the girls?  How did I get here? 

I close the door to my room and I lay back down on my cot-like bed. Someone keeps opening  the door and shining a flashlight on me.  This happens all night long about every hour.  Every time they shine the light in, they leave the door open, but I get up and close it again so the room stays semi-dark.  I don’t sleep.  I just lay here and wonder how I will get out of this place.  Where am I?  Why is my brain so fuzzy?  

In the morning, I walk back down the hall.  There are people now stirring.  They look strange to me.  They are all kind of dazed and in a zone.  Are they also drugged like me?  They walk without picking up their feet.  They talk to themselves in the hallway.  Their hair is all crazy looking.  Do they see me?  Who are they talking to? 
 
I walk to the activity room across from the nurse’s station.  In there, is a table with about 8 chairs.  There are people around it eating breakfast.  A lady named Mary says to me, “come and sit down and I will get your breakfast.”  She walks in the hall and there is a tray of food.  On it is a slip of paper with my name.  She puts it in front of me and I pick at it a bit.  I don’t talk to anyone, because I don’t belong here.  I eat my breakfast and they give me a slip of paper and a dull 3-inch pencil to select my own meals for tomorrow.  There are two white thermoses and Mary tells me there are two kinds of coffee – one is with caffeine and the other is without.  The only way to get the caffeinated coffee is to get there early, because one of the men in the unit will drink it all himself before anyone else gets any.  I need my coffee, I think to myself.  But is it really caffeinated?  It doesn’t taste good.  I go back to my room.  I look out the window for hours.  There is the Christmas stocking, with Rudolph’s red-noses light on the end.  I don’t fill out my menu for tomorrow, because I don’t belong here.

Someone comes to me later and says its group activity time.  On one side of the activity center, opposite the breakfast table, are two cold brown vinyl couches and a TV.  There are also books and games.  Everything looks old and sterile.  Pictures hang on the walls; they look like they were painted by children.  Is this what the group activity is all about, coloring pictures?

There is a counselor and she asks a question – we go around the room and talk.  Everyone looks strange.  They talk about wanting to kill themselves.  Some have bruises on their arms.  Others have large bandages around both wrists.  Some talk fast, some talk slow.  Some seem angry, others are indifferent.  Some stare at the counselor and some stare at the ceiling.  Me, I don’t say anything.  Why am I here?  

Visiting hours are only once a day from 6 pm to 7 pm.  Tim comes to visit, so do my mom and dad.  “Please don’t let the girls in this place”, I tell them. Don’t let my sister come up to see me either.  I don’t want them to see me in this place.  I don’t remember what happened during their visit, I guess we just sat in my room and talked.  I don’t ask to go home.  I hear things that aren’t real.  Visiting hour is over. I fill up my water from the water cooler at the nurse’s station.  I start to hang out with three of the other women patients.  Their names are Mary, Sonia and Andy.


Mary is in here as it’s the fourth time she’s tried to kill herself.  Mary lives in a well-to-do subdivision in Huntley.  Her family never came to visit Mary.  Not her husband and not her adult children.  She’s in this acute unit now for over a week and has  bipolar disorder.  She reminds me so much of Tim’s step-mother in Utah, Angie.  Her voice, her body, everything about her is Angie.  Sometimes, she seems so normal to me, I often wonder if she is a “plant” and is really a nurse.  I try to “behave” when I’m around Mary so that she thinks I’m normal and should be released.  

They are giving me a lot of drugs.  They force me to take Risperidone every night.  They think I am either schizophrenic or bipolar.  I keep thinking, “How can this be?”  But deep down, I believe that this is true based on how my brain is working right now.  Yet no doctors are treating me.  One comes and sees me every day and asks how I am.  I say I’m fine.  Then he leaves.  That’s the extent of my patient-doctor interaction.  Then I go back to staring out the window at the red sock or lying in the bed just questioning how I even got here.
 

There is a pay phone in the hallway.  I see people sitting in the chair talking on that phone all day long.  I find out that I can also use it so I pick up the phone to call Tim.  It is dead.  I go to the nurse’s station and she tells me the phone isn’t turned on until 9 am.  I go back to my room and look at the red sock.  There are no clocks anywhere, so how will I know when the phone is turned on? I wonder if the people I see talking on the phone are actually talking, or are they delusional.  Maybe the phone doesn’t really work at all.  

I go back to the phone later and there is a dial tone.  I call Tim and talk to him.  He’s going to come up to the hospital later.  The phone really does work!  It’s exciting yet I think they are listening in on my call to see if I am normal or not.  That’s what I think is happening.  This whole place is a set up.  Trying to make me think I’m crazy or something. 

Tim brings me two magazines, “People” and “Us.”  After he leaves I look at the pictures and try to read.  I can’t read anymore, because my focus is all gone. I re-read each sentence over and over again, but the words don’t make any sense to me.  I can no longer concentrate at all so I stare only at the pictures.  The hospital and staff must have sold Tim these magazines, because the pictures are all distorted.  The women in these magazines all look fat.  Looking at these super thin movie stars looking fat is all part of a big plot to make me feel better about my own body.  But it’s not real and it’s not working.  There are also all these ads in the magazine about drugs.  One is an anti-depression drug to treat bipolar disorder.  Another “plant” by the hospital staff trying to trick me.  There are three pages of small print all describing the warnings.  It’s a trick to see if I know it’s not real.  They do not believe the drug Chantix brought me here, so they are trying to convince me that it’s ok to be either bipolar or schizophrenic.  

The TV is also a “set up” to try to trick me.  It’s not showing real TV.  The commercial are a trick to see if I’m sane or not.  And get this - the nurses have names that apply to my life.  There is a nurse named Jennifer.  There are several named after people I work with.   I look on the white erase board in the nurse’s station that lists bed numbers and patient names.  My name is on there.  I hear someone talking on the phone.  It’s about me.  I hear my name.  It’s a trap.  They all think I’m crazy.  When I walk up to the nurse’s station, they put on a “skit” to make me feel I’m crazy.  I remember my mom and dad saying, they had no idea a place like this existed, but that they were so happy it did.  It’s all a test to see if I’m sane or not and everyone is in this together.

About four days later, I feel better.  I want to go home.  I see my social worker and ask her what I have to do to go.  “Can I just leave?” I ask.  She says no.  I would need to file a court order to be allowed to go.  It looks like I’m a ward of the state now or something.  I tell her I will hire an attorney as my rights are being violated. At this point, I’m getting pissed off so I must be getting stronger.  They tell me that an attorney would have to file an order in court which would take five days to be heard in front of a judge.  What the hell is going on here I ask myself?

The psych unit is locked.  Similar to prison, you cannot come and go freely, nor stand on the other side of the locked door.  The feeling of confinement is so great, that even me, a 47 year old professional woman, sat in a room with a psychiatrist crying and begging to be let out after five days.  “Please let me out I cried.  My children need their mom right now and it’s almost Christmas.  Please let me go home.  I will be good and will never need to come back to this place again”, I promised.  Two more days the doctor said, as I continued to beg.  

I would give up anything just for the chance to be released … so I tell him with all the energy I had left in an emotionally frail state, “But doctor, I have something these other women don’t have … I have a strong support system at home, a husband that loves me and would do anything to help me, two teenage girls that are literally scared to death because they don’t know if their mom is dying or has gone wacko, and parents that would give their life for me at a moment’s notice.  Please, please, please let me out.”, I begged of him.  After what seemed like hours of pleading my case with tears in my eyes, he agreed to set up a meeting between a hospital social worker, me, and my husband.  In the end, I agreed to a five-day outpatient group therapy session at the hospital starting on Monday.  

For the first time in my life, I see my husband in a brand new light, that of a true protector.  When I was weak, he was strong.  When I was impatient, he was patient.  Thank you God, for allowing me to see the good in my husband 18 years ago when we first met. Thank you God, for helping me to love him more than ever today.  And thank you God for putting your hand on his back to give him the strength he needed on what was also one if the worst weeks of his life.     

It was a great feeling walking out of the cuckoo’s nest …. or what seemed like the hospital straight out of the move “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”  I’d rent the movie, but at this time I may find it a bit too painful to watch.  They handed me my personal belongings which consisted of two things that had been locked up for my own safety.  My tennis shoes as there are no shoe strings allowed in “the nest” and my confiscated iPod.  I say confiscated, because I was caught with an illegal iPod shuffle Tim had snuck in for me.  Even though it was a “head set” type set up, one could hang themselves with this type of apparatus.  You see, “the nest” has to be very cautious with any type of item that patients could use to commit suicide.  Even things most people wouldn’t consider, such as bed linen frequently used by patients to hang themselves or even a 3-inch dull pencil.   On my last morning in the nest there was a handsome middle aged man who must have been admitted in the middle of the night.  Unfortunately, he had two bandages wrapped around his wrists from the failed suicide attempt.  The bottom line - rules like this are in place for a reason. 

Other precautionary measures are also taken in the nest.  For one thing, this unit uses medicine to sedate patients when needed.  At one point in my visit, a young normal looking guy in his 30’s was getting belligerent in the hallway while talking on the community hallway phone.  He was gently escorted to his room by two police officers, followed by a nurse ready to administer a healthy dose of… something … which they did.  For about three hours after the injection, we did not hear a peep from him.  We all knew what had happened to him.   

As for me, I was set free. Thank you Pfizer for giving me Chantix to help me to quit smoking. Now I leave this place as a 47 year old woman wondering what my new life would be like living with a severe mental condition such as bi-polar disorder or schizophrenia. Only time and a lot of medical treatment would tell. 

AM I STRONG ENOUGH? Damn Straight!

AM I STRONG ENOUGH? Damn Straight!
And it’s time I start fighting. It’s been several months since I last wrote on my blog and figured an update is in order. The top three questions people want to know, but may be afraid to ask goes like this. 1. Are you still smoking? 2. Are you back to normal? 3. Are you seeking legal advice? My answers are as follows:

• No
• Pretty much, and
• Damn straight!

So am I still smoking? It’s ironic but Chantix worked for me! I quit smoking within a week of taking Chantix and have not had a smoke since. Last night, I went out with a friend to watch the Blackhawks get their butt kicked on TV. This event would have been the perfect opportunity to “sneak a puff” but it didn’t enter my mind. What does enter my mind when I think about smoking is being locked up in a psyc unit. My mind goes back to sitting in the activity area every morning when the nurse making her morning round to administer anti-psychotic drugs would also pass out Nicoderm patches. It seems that many people in the psyc unit that week were also smokers. But not me! I had taken Chantix, so smoking was no longer on Tina’s “messed up” mind!

So am I back to normal? Pretty much so. This past Wednesday, I had an appointment with my Psychiatrist who specializes in addiction medicine. My panic attacks have been non-existent for the past several months, which could be partially due to the anti-depression medicine I take. I also keep a bottle of Ativan pills in my purse as a “back up plan.” Ativan is a prescription medicine that belongs to a class called benzodiazepines which are used for sedation and anxiety disorders. I have not touched this bottle since January but I keep it in my purse as a type of “back up plan” in case my mind should go wacko again. It gives me a sort of “peace of mind” just knowing it’s there. The good news is that my doctor doesn’t need to see me again until July, at which time it’s my goal to completely get off of any type of anti-depression medicine. I find it quite pathetic that I’ve traded smoking, for Chantix, for anti-depression medicine. But the good news is that I’m one step closer to being completely back to normal.

So am I seeking legal advice? Damn straight!
A few weeks ago I met with an attorney. We are in the process of completing the paperwork so I can be part of the Chantix Product Liability Litigation: MDL-2092. I will be one of the individual plaintiffs in this Master consolidated complaint, in the United States District Court of Alabama. This complaint was officially filed on March 23, 2010 at 8:48 AM and I was given the 95 page document to review. What lies below, was copied directly from the complaint:

Clinical Trials Reveal Serious Risk: From a 52-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled study conducted between October 2003 and March 2005, Defendant discovered that 20 out of 251 patients on CHANTIX experienced “psychiatric disorders,” while only 3 patients out of 126 on a placebo experienced those disorders. The relative risk that CHANTIX patients would suffer psychiatric disorders was more than three-fold that of patients on placebo, a relative risk that was significant both clinically and statistically. This fact was not disclosed in the publication of the study, on which Kathryn Williams, then employed by Pfizer Global Research and Development, was the lead author.

Further, “three participants experienced serious adverse events during the non-treatment phase. One study participant, a woman in the CHANTIX group experienced suicidal ideation which resulted in hospitalization 11 days after completing the CHANTIX treatment. She had no previously diagnosed mental and/or psychological disorder. The study investigator considered this case to be attributable to the study drug [CHANTIX].”

In the 4th quarter of 2007, CHANTIX accounted for 988 serious injuries in the U.S. reported to the FDA, more than any other individual drug in this time period. By comparison, the FDA received a median of 5 reports of serious injury for 769 different drugs in the 4th quarter. Only 35 drugs accounted for 100 or more reports.

By July 1, 2009, the FDA reported that CHANTIX accounted for 4,762 reports of serious psychiatric events since CHANTIX’S 2006 approval. Of these, 188 reported attempted suicide and 98 reported completed suicide. Many of the cases received and reviewed by the FDA were reported for patients without any prior history of psychiatric illness.

Can you imagine how ANGRY I was while reading this document? I would have never rolled the dice and taken this drug if I had known just half the information disclosed in this document. How dare Pfizer, the manufacturer of CHANTIX, put this mind altering drug on the market? Of course I know the answer to this question …. It’s all about profits. It’s not about the people whose life could be turned upside down by this drug. It’s not about the families left behind due to suicide.

AM I STRONG ENOUGH? Damn Straight! And it’s time I start fighting. If you are so inclined, help me with my ONE GOAL …. To get CHANTIX off the market. Share this story with anyone you know that is fighting to stop smoking and considering taking CHANTIX.

Am I Strong Enough?

Brave. Courageous. Strong. Selfless. Since my blog first appeared, these are a few of the words friends and family have used to describe me. I am so grateful to all of them. However, as each day passes, I keep asking myself am I brave enough? Am I courageous enough? Am I strong enough? Am I selfless OR am I selfish?

The fact of the matter is this Chantix induced psychotic “event” happened to me over two months ago. It was December 15, 2009, the day that changed my life forever. Was I really brave and courageous? Up until the Channel 2 news story was about to air, I had not widely shared my story with some of my closest friends and family. There are several reasons. First, where do you begin to tell someone you were “locked up” for 5 days in a psych ward? Secondly, I believe in my heart that people that love me will always look at me without judgment, but what about others? Will they look at me and wonder if I’m really back to “normal” or about to break down? Or will they look at me in judgment and think that in some way, I was responsible for what happened to me?

So am I selfless or am I selfish? I would say that telling my story is an act of selfishness. Why? Because sharing my story is in many ways all about healing. And letting people know that I am a different person today than I was on December 15, 2009. Many people have a moment in their life that will forever define them. Of course, there are the happy life-defining moments, like for me, the two days that my beautiful daughters were born.

But what about the deepest darkest moment in one’s life that defines us? Mine was December 15, 2009. When was yours? Or have you experienced it yet? Was it the day your dad had a heart attack and never woke up? Was it the day you learned your child had a brain tumor? Was it the day you stood over your mother and watched her take her last breath? Was it the day you were sexually abused by a loved one who you trusted with all your heart? Was it the day you found out your brother was dying of lung cancer? When was your defining moment? Mine was December 15, 2009. Perhaps you haven’t had it yet – but one day, something may happen so dark that it will define you.

So how can I possibly compare my defining moment with someone with a child with a brain tumor or someone who has been sexually abused? How dare I! How dare I say that the potential side affects of the drug called Chantix are more harmful that dying of lung cancer! How dare I! Am I selfless or am I selfish?

Let me take you with me, just briefly into my defining moment. Let me share with you only what I am strong enough 60 days later to share with you … the rest will remain in my head until I’m ready to let it out through my own selfish act of healing.

On December 15, 2009 my dad died. And I cried like a baby for hours and for days. My dad -- my rock -- he was gone- taken from me forever. I would never see him again, and I was trying to be strong. I had to be. I’m the strong one in the family and I had to be there to hold up my mom. Dad kept winking at me, and saying “don’t worry about your mom, she will be ok.” And when my dad hugged me, I felt better because I was in his arms. But it wasn’t really him, because he was dead. He held my hand in the ambulance to the hospital. He was the only one that I would let ride with me. “Dad, it’s ok” I said, “I am strong enough … as long as you are holding my hand, I am strong enough.” I thought to myself, I know you are dead Dad, but I am strong enough to let you go. “I will take care of Mom.”

My husband wanted to kill himself. Oh my God, how could he do that to me and the girls? How could he be so depressed that he would take his own life? I knew that things had been really hard for him, losing both his mom and his dad within the last few years. Just like a typical man, he’d been holding it in all these months, but now, he can no longer deal with the depression. Going from his parents dying to my dad dying will be way too much for him to handle. Then there’s the situation with his job. I have to be there for him. “Please dear, please don’t kill yourself” I begged of him. “I am strong enough and I will be there for you to hold your hand and get you through this!”

Then there was God’s voice, which I was hearing over and over again in my head. He was telling me He was walking with me and that he had saved me. “Thank you God for saving me” I said. I told my sister that I had been saved and I felt high on life, yet I was crying when I told her the news.

Have you ever hallucinated? Do you know what it feels like? Have you ever been locked up in a psychiatric ward for 5 days? Do you know what it feels like? Have you watched your mom take her last breath? Do you know what it feels like? Have you had a defining moment in your life? What did it feel like?

As you’ve likely guessed, my dad is still alive and my husband was never suicidal or depressed. But on December 15, 2009, I believed these things were happening, and to this day, I believe God saved me that week and He was talking to me.

And with that said, let’s spend less time in judgment of others and more time helping others. Let’s spend less time being selfish and more time being selfless. I do not have the right to judge you and you don’t have the right to judge me. God does.

The reason people that are sexually abused don’t tell others, is that they feel they were in some way responsible. My dear friend, you are not responsible. Was I responsible for what happened to me? No, I was not. And neither are you. Tell your friends and family what you are going through. We are all struggling with something right now. Be there for one another. Listen more than you talk. Be selfless not selfish.

There’s not an hour that goes by that I don’t think of what I’ve been through and wonder if I will ever be back at 100%. But one thing I know for sure is that my life is better today that it was before December 15, 2009…because I love stronger and have reprioritized my life. And if I were truly a selfless person, as I hope to one day become, I would realize that this isn’t about me at all. It’s about a mission and I am just a voice. I keep telling myself to realize that no one is looking at me. No one is judging me. And that I am strong enough.

My Chantix Story

First Post 1/29/2010
Every once in a while, something happens in your life that is simply unimaginable and difficult to talk about, even with your closest family and friends. It could be a lot of things from a serious illness, to depression, to an addiction. The unimaginable happened to me recently and I’d like to share it with you.

In the past several weeks I have experienced a few things I never imagined could happen to me. Being confined to a psychiatric ward without direct access to my family or my belongings, looking down at my arms and not remembering where the bruises came from, and sitting in my living room with a CBS news reporter. I'm sharing my story because what happened to me could have been prevented. I also believe that one person can make a difference in this world and I’m hoping that by simply telling my story, I can be that one person, just for today. So if you read my story, and you think that someone you know could benefit from it, feel free to forward it on to others.

So here it is: I am an ex-(closet)-smoker. There I said it! That may surprise some of you that are close to me, because I hid it well. In fact, I was so far in the closet with my smoking addiction that even my own teenage daughters didn’t know I had started up again. I had successfully quit smoking at least 4 times in the last three years, but always went right back to lighting up. In September of 2009, I finally had it and out of complete and total desperation, I began taking a drug called Chantix, the prescription smoking cessation medicine made by Pfizer...which has brought me here today with ONE GOAL: TO GET CHANTIX OFF THE MARKET. In my opinion, Chantix is a mind altering drug that should be banned. But don’t take only my word for it...just Google "Chantix" and you will find many results with multiple attorneys waiting to hear from people who have lost loved ones due to suicide to join in class action lawsuits. Look a little deeper and you will find out how the FAA banned Chantix for airline pilots and controllers, yet bus drivers that drive your kids to school can take Chantix. Search further and you will find stories of people whose lives have been turned upside down due to paranoia, aggression, anger, and severely altered behavior changes. As the FDA continues to analyze tragic stories, and people continue to hire attorneys, this drug is still on the market.

After I started taking Chantix, I successfully stopped smoking about a week later. And with Chantix, it was actually very easy. I felt confident and seemed to manage everything on my plate (work, school, home) and didn’t feel depressed at all, in fact, quite the opposite. I did have a few small “quirky” things going on, but in general, everything was going well.

In the middle of December, I stopped taking Chantix and immediately displayed extremely erratic behavior. This included paranoia, anger, aggression, panic, anxiety, confusion, and hallucinations. I was ultimately taken by ambulance to the emergency room. My medical records state it took the assistance of approximately 4-5 EMS and firefighters. I was uncooperative, agitated and combative, causing them to apply a 4-point restraint system on me. From there, I spent 5 days in an Acute Behavioral Health Unit (aka psychiatric ward). It was a locked facility and a place of extreme darkness, where I was administered various drugs and interacted with other patients through group therapy sessions. It was there that I met some of the strongest and bravest people in my life, who struggled with a lifetime of serious behavioral health issues (God Bless you Mary, Sonia, and Andy).

My only exit from the locked facility was when they wheeled me out to do other tests such as MRI’s, Cat Scan’s, EEG’s, etc. to confirm I did not have any more serious brain disorders. After five days, I was released and have now been officially diagnosed with a “Substance Induced Psychotic Disorder” and "Anxiety Disorder". Prior to this event, I had never had any type of mental health issues or been on any type of anti-depression medication. I have no history of depression or other mental health problems. The doctors believe my psychotic episode is the direct result of stopping the Chantix medication and the Anxiety is due to the events which followed.

What I experienced is a typical “black box warning” of Chantix. But here’s the deal...I was desperate to quit smoking and I thought it couldn’t happen to me. For those of you who know me best, you know that I’m a Type“A” personality and a highly functional individual, managing a family, full-time job, and MBA program. Those that don’t know me will have to take my word that if this can happen to me, it can happen to you or someone you love.

The bottom line is this, it is my opinion that Chantix is a mind altering drug with serious consequences. If you feel compelled, please share my story and help me with my ONE GOAL: TO GET CHANTIX OFF THE MARKET. Feel free to contact me and share your own Chantix story here.