Sunday, March 3rd
I have thought many times over the week about writing, and I never did, so now I have to summarize the entire week in one day. Argh! There's no way I can remember anything specific happening on any one day. Everything was pretty routine. The liquid soap I was using for showers ran out. Mom had found two bars of soap, but they were nice hand soap for next to the bathroom sink. They did not work well as shower soap. My sister got me a bar of Dr. Bronner's soap. That's my favorite! It lathers wonderfully and rinses clean. Yippee!
My biggest accomplishment this week involves my neighbor. She has schizophrenia and frequently talks to herself for hours at a time. I have gotten pretty good at being able to distinguish her from her voices. When K is lucid, she is a kind-hearted, good natured, easy going person. Her main voice, J, is a mean drug addict. Of course everything she does ultimately comes from her, but she is only given the standard drug. There is no therapy working toward integrating everything so she can operate from one point of view. The nurses and staff mostly do not acknowledge anyone but K, which is entirely appropriate but not effective for solving this problem.
Over the past two or three months, K has been gaining weight at an alarming pace. During the day, K does everything she can to lose weight, but during the 14-hour stretch between dinner and breakfast, J takes over and makes her ask for food for her imagined(?) hypoglycemia. I knew in order it to be effective, K had to be invested in the solution. I also knew it had to be handled delicately and the solution had to fit within her parameters. I talked to her and presented the problem to her in a way that made J the scapegoat and gave her a way to stop eating the extra food.
I know my friends are only interested in me, but I am so proud of how I was able to solve that problem that I couldn't resist mentioning it. If I am going to lie here day after day I will do something productive. We get weighed at the beginning of the month, but I could tell a difference in the way she was talking already. I want to be careful because I do not take influencing someone's life lightly. Some people go to medical school for a long time before they get to work with a patient like this. Not that I am equating myself with a doctor, but I have a ton of life experience with this disease. I am glad I could nudge her in the right direction.
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