When I was at home and saw children playing or a toy commercial on t.v. I would start crying. It hurt so bad. I finally went to the Miami Beach community mental health center, told them what I was going through and that I thought I was going crazy. The doctor told me it was a terrible situation and gave me a prescription for valium.
When Joy had been in the hospital almost 9 months I got a call at home (Becky and I had separate visiting hours at this point) telling me that Joy’s shoulder had been broken. A nurse turned her too hard, or too quickly (she had to be turned every hour or so to prevent bedsores – but she was so stiff from her body fighting the erratic signals from her brain stem that turning her was sometimes unwieldy). I thanked the person, hung up, and sat there.
I thought of Joy going through the night in pain, screaming that it hurt, but only in her head, as she was turned off and on that broken shoulder for an hour at a time.
I sat there.
Thinking of Joy laying like that for 30 or 40 yrs. Never seeing. Never moving. Never laughing.
Thinking of Joy struggling to breathe as she was suctioned.
Thinking of unseen hands suddenly turning her without warning, scaring her because she couldn’t see or hear them coming.
And I thought of her lying alone in a large, empty room. Alone and afraid.
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