The discharge conference was continued on Friday morning August 27. N. was being discharged – he could not stay at the hospital even if he wanted to, and was not going have a continuing relationship with this doctor. Medical psychiatry is focussed on sedating and housing people who act out and fit within a few diagnostic categories. Adolescent anger, dangerous life choices, addiction, even personality disorder are not issues that psychiatry claims to fix. How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one if the bulb really wants to change. Psychiatrists don’t often acknowledge the limitations of their art, and when they run into an impossible situation, they can find lots of reasons why they can’t help. The dramatic trope that if only the patient had been diagnosed and treated sooner is familiar. The mental health professional tends to imply that she/he could have helped the child if the parents would have been different, or if other things in life had been different.
The resident who had been involved on Tuesday was there again. There was a second resident too. I think the conference was intended, from Dr. Perlov’s perspective, as a teaching conference for the residents. I went in understanding that he had encouraged Jan and me to tolerate some of n’s choices, to stay in touch and to support him emotionally. At the same time, he had been vague.
At his invitation I covered the events since Tuesday. N. got restless and Dr. Perlov interrupted me. He said I had a pedantic style and I was boring him. It was a power play. He had taken this conference to show that he had been involved in n’s care but it was becoming a waste of time for him. The good news for n. – he does not get identified as having a major disorder and all that comes with that. The bad news for Jan – no one is going to give n. the resources he wants and that she thinks he deserves. But he showed Jan and n. he was prepared to take n’s side. The take-away for me – n. has a hard time listening to me.
Staying connected
N. came to my house Wednesday evening August 25. We had dinner and watched some episodes of Clerks on DVD. He went into his room and got some clothes. He took some accessories from his old Gameboy to use with a Colour Gameboy that he picked up somewhere. He took some Ramen noodles and Lipton soup packets. He did wander around a bit, which made me nervous because he has used other visits to the house to help himself. I thought the visit went well. I told him I needed to know when and where to pick him up on Thursday for Court. He said he was not going back to the hotel and he wanted me to pick him up and get him to Court.
Discharge Conference – Part 1
During the first session of the dischage conference on Tuesday (August 24) the resident reported that n. did not present the symptoms of bipolar disorder, with the qualification that n. had not been willing to discuss his thoughts with the team. The senior psychiatrist, Dr. Perlov, did not disagree but suggested that there may be a bipolar disorder which has not been diagnosed because it is hard to diagnose in teens with n.’s temperament and history of drug use. He qualified his remarks by saying he was not involved with n.’s assessment in February or last week and had taken over temporarily while n.’s assigned doctor, Dr. Katz, was away. He said he only had a brief time to review the material and a brief time with n.
Discharged
N. was discharged from hospital yesterday morning, and was put into an “emergency placement” by CFS, in his case a largely unsupervised placement in a motel on Portage Avenue West near the Grace Hospital. By the time I got the message and called the motel, n. had left to see his girlfriend. I checked again this morning and he did not come back last night. I have a phone number for the apartment where his girlfriend is staying, and I called him. He took the phone but he ended the call quickly with an excuse that somebody else needed to use the phone. He called me back later on my cell phone. He said he had returned to the motel and he was talking with a mouth full of food. He wanted to get some clothes and he agreed to have dinner too.
Hospitalized
n. has been staying at PY1 – the Adolescent Psychiatry inpatient unit at the Winnipeg Health Sciences Center – since Friday August 13. He has been a voluntary inpatient for assessment. This represents a little progress. In February 2004 he had been admitted for a few days and started an assessment but he ran away.
On the first day of his hospital stay, he seemed to be confused and frightened. He was honest with me about his drug use and, at least that day, he appeared to be sincere about getting help to stop using all drugs except marijuana.
Edmonton 2004 – Sunday
The forecast for Saturday night and Sunday had been for rain. It didn’t rain. It was a cloudy, cool day but the sun came out and it warmed up enough for me to put my fleece away during the afternoon.
I started my day with a session that I will remember for a long time. The session leader was Brian McNeill, and the other participants were the new Quebecois group Genticorum, and John Reischman and the Jaybirds.
Edmonton 2004 – Saturday
It was cold and cloudy all day, but it did not rain. Claire and I arrived around 10:00 AM, a short time after the gates opened but well before the first sessions of the day. I had a good day, and enjoyed several acts. I wanted to see Ron Kavana and Brian McNeill, singer-songwriters from Ireland and Scotland. I have read about their music, but I haven’t seen them perform. McNeill’s discography is rather thin for such an accomplished and experienced writer and performer, and not very accessible in Canada.
Edmonton 2004 – Friday
On Friday, the Edmonton Folk Festival offers sessions (at some other festivals these would be called workshops) on 4 stages from 6:00 to 9:00 PM and three acts on the mainstage. The weather was warm, but not hot in the late afternoon and it was cloudy. There was a forecast threat of evening rain, but it did not rain during the evening. It cooled gradually.
Edmonton 2004 – Thursday
Claire and I stayed in Canmore on Tuesday after the Canmore Folk Festival, and drove to Edmonton on Wednesday.
We had planned to try some hiking and camping those days but we adapted to necessity. We had the car in a garage in Canmore to look at a transmission fluid leak, and managed to get it looked at very inexpensively, but we had to wait for the work. We spent the time with camping stuff – taking care of camp, cooking meals, walking, reading. We went directly to my friend Randy’s house in Edmonton and I had the car looked at again to deal with a problem I had noticed in Canmore which had not been addressed at the garage in Canmore.
We arrived at the Edmonton Folk Festival site in Gallagher Park in time to exchange our tickets for the weekend wristband passes and to pitch a tarp halfway up the hill.
Canmore 2004 – Monday
This counted as one of my better days, among many good days at summer folk festivals. It was sunny warm day, with moderate winds and I was able to leave the cold weather gear in the dry sack.
We started with the Canmore Pancake breakfast – pancakes and sausages served outdoors in front of the Legion Hall, no charge, donations for the Bow Valley Food Bank taken with thanks, with local amateur musicians playing rock and blues standards. We went to line up at the main gate to buy our day pass, and we had a spot of luck. The main gate wasn’t supposed to open until 10:00 AM and meanwhile people with weekend passes would be admitted through the other gate at 9:30. However the ticket sellers at the main gate came out and sold passes at 9:15 and we were able to enter and to get a spot in the first ring of trees by the main stage. We had warm sunshine during the first part of the morning and shade during most of the afternoon.