Two Sparks and a Fat Guardian Angel Weed

"Are you my guardian angel? You look just like a weed I picked on the side of the canal and I thought it was beautiful," said one of the patients to me. Over and over and over.........oh, and over and over and over again.............never a dull moment in the mental ward ~~ :o)

A quick update on my Brother. I visited him at the mental hospital last night for one hour. He wasn't doing so great physically, mentally or otherwise, but he was actually relieved to see me.

Physically he's a mess. He was shaking like a person with severe hypothermia, hard and uncontrollable. His heart is unstable, with a racing 180 beats per minute average and blood pressure doing it's own sky high to rock bottom acrobatics. His kidneys are close to shutting down and his liver may be kaput. The normal detox medicines aren't doing enough to stabilize him, so he was on 10 minute intervals of checking vitals by the nurses and they were thinking about transferring him back into the medical ward to have him monitored by machines. (I said..."what are you waiting for? A heart attack?" which is a very real possibility)

They were perplexed by his lack of response to normal detox meds, but once they finally understood through me and my Brother his actual daily intake of alcohol, they realized they weren't dealing with the 'normal.' For me, I'm tipsy and giddy off 1/2 a glass of wine. Ben was up to a case of Captain Morgan's Rum (thats 12 bottles!!), chased with case after case of beer per in days, sleep was occasional short pass outs. 99% of  humans would die from alcohol poisoning from a margain of that intake, but not my Bro~~

Mentally, he still wishes he had died and ended his suffering. Which personally I think is good, because normally he would be charming the nurses and test takers into a pleasant euphoria of 'cured' and he would be out on the streets in a couple of days. For once, he's maintaining honesty. As of last night, he just didn't have anything left in him to live....but I hope that changes.

I did see Ben smile, ever so slightly, because of a patient who hovered like a bee to honey next to us. This man was convinced I was the messiah, a guardian angel sent from the heavens above to break him out of the mental ward.  He was also convinced I was a weed, a beautiful weed, but a weed nonetheless. His insistence that I was a beautiful weed is what triggered a small smile from my Brother.....priceless, I'll be a weed anyday if it sparks life into my Brother!!!  This patient promised me he would pick me some flowers if I wouldjust tuck him under my coat and sneak him out the locked doors.

When I hugged my brother good-bye, he did toss one more spark of life at me, he said, "You feel good, my nice and fat guardian angel." Now, under normal circumstances that should be an insult to 100% of us female gender humans, but to him it meant I felt healthy. The fact is, I'm 5 foot 8 inches. He is just shy of exactly 6 foot. I weigh 138 pounds.. Right now, my brother weights 131 pounds of skin and bones. He hadn't eaten a single thing in 6 days, and lost another incredible 26 lb. between hospital stays. When he's healthy, when he's ok, he weighs 170 lb. on average. I told the nurses to fatten him up~~

~~~~~~~~~~

Now, I have something to say, to all of you.
I wrote no comments please on my last entry.
I didn't want anything.
You ignored my request, repeatedly through comments and emails.

~Thank You~

Want and Need.
Two entirely separate definitions, but can produce the same results.
When my daughters say, "I don't want any medicine." I will say, "You may not want medicine, but you need medicine and I care about you, so your gonna get it from me."

In a way, you all did the same thing.
I realize now, I didn't want sympathy, or pity or drama inspired anything. I didn't get that. I got good old fashioned medicine of the caring and compassionate kind filled with heart and kindness and hope.

A wise mentor of mine says...
Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.

I thank You.



Edit: Thank you to Julie and first commenter. I just called the hospital to check on him and he was transfered back to the medical part of the hospital right after I left last night. This is a new hospital for me to deal with, in a city away from me. The two mental wards in my city were full Sunday night, so they transported him 40 miles away. New system, new nurses, new doctors, new hospital=more frustrations. Getting information over the phone is like extracting a tooth from an cat who wants to keep it's teeth. After 5 transfers, the best I could get was "The doctor is seeing him now, yes he lived through the night. No, I'm not sure if he is still critical. Blah Blah Blah"