I haven’t finished the story of n’s admission to the hospital last Friday, or the story of his time in the hospital. I will leave that for another day and just skip to the news today (Thursday January 27).
He was discharged from hospital this morning. Once again, the good news is that the medical staff don’t think he has a major mental disorder. His breakdown was due to amphetimine use. The hospital let him stay until he was stable, and he is stable again. They don’t offer drug treatment although they will help him find it if he wants it.
His acne has cleared up. He makes sense when he talks unless he choses to be difficult. Danielle has not visited him and he says he has chosen to break up with her. He says he is thinking about drug treatment but he hasn’t made that move yet. CFS isn’t willing to give him any place to live except the Salvation Army shelter.
Two counsellors from the TRY program, Lyle and Cindi, came to his discharge meeting and explained that they will help him into part-time employment if he is stable for two weeks. They want him to stay in one place, check in with them for counselling, turn in some assignments and keep his appointments. They have offered to let him take classes for school credit that will help him get back into the school system (he was kicked out of Argyle school in November 2003 and has to get a credit somewhere else before he gets back into Argyle or any regular high school). They explained that this will be the path to getting out of the Salvation Army and into a situation where he can support himself.
He didn’t want to stay at the Salvation Army he repeated his thinly veiled threat to start using drugs if Jan or I don’t let him stay with one of us. We told him, again, that his staying with one of us didn’t seem to have worked to help him control his drug use and take responsibility for his life, and that trying to supervise him and protect ourselves when he lived with us was harming us.
He called me this afternoon. He had gone to the Salvation Army and checked in. He has a locked single room so he is safe and has some privacy. He has a curfew. He asked for money for food because he doesn’t like the cafeteria food. I said I would meet him and buy him some meals but I would not start handing out cash for food when he has other resources. I offered to meet him at 4:00 but he said he was meeting someone. He said he would be back at the shelter in the evening, and I offered to drop some clothes and take him out for a meal. He said he would be back at the shelter around 8:00 PM and he said he wanted me to drop a power adapter for a Gameboy.
He called around 10:00 PM. He had visited friends in St. Vital. He said we was taking a bus downtown and wanted me to meet him downtown. I agreed, because I had promised to meet him and give him that adapter. I picked him up at a bus stop on Graham near Winnipeg Square and drove down Main to the Salvation Army shelter. He said he had been with Mark’s girlfriend Brittany and some other friends (Mark is in jail). He seemed to all right. He said they had chilled and played video games and smoked some weed, and said they had not used crystal although he had been craving it.
He said he was going to go to the TRY program and meet Lyle and move on with that.