October 24 to 25, 2011
Gabriela was past me and headed to the front door. Both Susan and I were down the stairs after her. I reached ahead of Gabriela with one hand and blocked her attempt to open the door long enough to maneuver myself between her and it.
This unlit entryway was where Gabriela, Susan, and I were to spend most of our evening. Gabriela would dash up and down the stairs countless times that night. Each time she returned to the front door wanting to wait on the porch for “the arrival.”
Gabriela stood on tip toes to peek through the peep hole. I could see the calves of her legs quiver from the strain, and then she would beg me to let her wait outside. I stood firmly between Gabriela and the front door. She was frantic.
Susan urged me to call Dr. Wreck again. I explained that I had called several times this week already, and that as of this morning they weren’t in the least interested in helping.
Susan and I decided to set the house alarm so that I wouldn’t have to man the front door.
Despite my having kept Susan up to speed while she was out of town, she was blown away by this evening’s activities. Gabriela was non stop, back and forth, up and down, listening, crying, and laughing. From one minute to the next we didn’t know what to expect.
Finally, Susan called 9-1-1…. She was in a better position to have this conversation. She knew what to say, and could handle this while I handled my daughter.
Susan recommended that I let Gabriela wait on the front porch; after all, the officers would be there in minutes. She instructed Gabriela to stay on the porch and that if she moved off of it she would have to come back into the house. Surprisingly Gabriela did as she was told.
The officers walked up to the house strategically, one officer on each side of the driveway. They attempted to engage Gabriela in a conversation from a distance, slowly closing that gap as they walked toward her.
Susan and I went outside to talk with the officers. One handled us, the other approached Gabriela.
Susan was taking care of our conversation … she had gone into police woman mode.
I listened to my daughter, who had managed to pull it together enough to tell the officer she was fine, she was an adult, she didn’t need their help, and “thank you.”
She told them she was not suicidal, she had no desire to hurt anyone, and she just wanted to wait outside because she was expecting someone. She was so convincing!
Both officers understood that things weren’t right in our house but they had very specific standards for a hold and couldn’t help us. They left.
My roommate and I discussed Gabriela, the conversations I had had and all of my attempts to get help.
Susan called her police sergeant. She spoke with him for a few moments, brought him up to speed, and then walked over and handed me the phone. He took the time to explain a “hold” and how difficult it would be to meet the requirements. Then he calmly advised me that it may be in my daughter’s best interest to perhaps make things sound worse.
There was no sitting down for my daughter that night and no sleep for any of us. Our neighborhood had long since gone to bed. The weekend was over, it was Monday morning, two AM, but a work day nonetheless … it had been maybe an hour since we called 9-1-1. We watched as Gabriela became more and more disconnected, standing motionless with that upward stare, tilted head look, occasionally answering questions that had never been spoken.
Susan’s the kind of person that believes there is an answer or solution to everything. That endless evening had really gotten under her skin. There wasn’t an answer, there wasn’t a solution. And that wasn’t acceptable to her.
She wanted me to call Gabriela’s neurologist, be insistent! “They need to come here and help!”
Susan’s sister and brother in-law are both doctors, she couldn’t understand the apparent lack of concern on the part of my daughter’s neurologist and of the on-call neurologists at the hospital.
I called both doctors one more time.
Dr. Southland, who answered his own phone at two in the morning, discussed my daughter again, and again said he was very sorry but her case was so complex that the only choice was to see her standing neurologist.
Dr. Wreck’s office was my next call. When I spoke with the “fellow” on call it was obvious she was nervous about any comment she might make about her boss’s patient, but said she would discuss with Dr. Wreck in the morning.
With no choice, we called 9-1-1 again.
The EMTs arrived, Gabriela was in the unlit dining room. The senior EMT spoke with her, but this time her conversation was not as convincing. She did manage to let them know that she was an adult and appreciated their interest, but didn’t want their help.
The police that had been to the house earlier popped in, they discussed something with the EMTs away from me and from Susan, then they all left our house. I will always believe that the EMTs would have put Gabriela on a hold that night if not for the police showing up and that quiet conversation they had.
After the EMTs left, Gabriela stayed in the dining room, individually pulling out each chair at the table , setting it in the middle of the room, sitting in it for just a second, then turning to the next chair and repeating this ritual until all the chairs were scattered around the room.
I spent the next couple of hours blocking Gabriela’s attempts to leave the house. First at the front door, then to the back.
Gabriela had been pretty passive the last couple of nights but tonight she had intent and anger.
Susan and I felt that she might leave the house and that this night might not end as it had the last two nights, with Gabriela finally sleeping at five in the morning…. This was a night of no sleep. It would run smack into the next day and continue on from there.