We approached the triage nurse with Max in tow. He'd been oddly quiet on the ride. Nothing was thrown, he even kept his shoes on. I wanted it to be unnecessary, and we second-guessed ourselves the whole hour there. We parked in front of the pediatric emergency room. I was shut down inside, feeling nothing, but on the outside, I was the perfect mommy. We approached the triage nurse, and I suddenly realized I didn't know what to say. Was I supposed to say that Max had a “fit”, that was Max called it, or did I say a “tantrum”? An “event”? No one had told me what to say. Dr. E. had said that Max was "ruling in for bipolar". She loved the technical lingo.
First they took our name, and then asked why we were there. “Um, my son has bipolar disorder, and...he's out of control, and his doctor thought we should come.” She smiled kindly, asked for his meds list, and had us take a seat. We got in quickly and were led into one of their special psych rooms, where they can close off the wall, so that there's no access to medical equipment or anything a suicidal child could use to hurt himself. It was room nine, and we spent 6 hours there.
A social worker came to take the history before anybody else. It was a screening, really, which as a nurse I recognize might be necessary, but as a mom...I'm certain that it doesn't matter how many drinks I have per week. My kid was sick, with a biological illness that lives in his head. Probably I was having too few drinks per week. My one to two glasses of sauvignon blanc were not the problem here. But I knew not to joke about things like this, knew that, if I did, the social worker would write it down, write down her concerns that maybe mommy drinks. I got through it, pretending to be solemn and take it seriously. I thought that maybe it I acted like this was normal, it just would be.
We met a nurse, smiling brightly, “how are we doing?”. I didn't say “I'm in the fucking emergency room because my kid has huge fits that are tearing my family into bits. How the fuck do you think I am?”. I said, “fine, thanks for asking”. We met a psych fellow, an Indian woman who mentioned her own kids. Max watched endless episodes of Sponge Bob while Dave and I just stared at each other, silently.
Eventually, it was agreed that Max needed to be admitted to the unit, known as Winchester One, or “Winnie one”. The fellow went over to make sure there was a bed, and to give report on max to the nurses. She came back an hour later, reporting that the acuity on the unit was high, and that, for our child's safety, she recommended that we take him home. She felt that she couldn't guarantee Max's safety if we left him on the unit. There were many older kids acting up, and the staff was stretched thin.
It was impossible, this offer. It was everything we wanted to hear. Of course, she wasn't saying that Max wasn't sick, which was what we still wanted to believe, but we didn't have to hospitalize Max. We were being told to bring him home with us. We were drained, deflated, we'd been wondering if this was the right choice for our 5 year old for hours, now a doctor was telling us to bring him home. So we did. We'd eventually get a bill for the ER visit. We had to pay because he wasn't admitted. Insurance wouldn't cover it. I called and explained what had happened, but they denied that we were told they couldn't keep him safe. They said no one would ever tell us that.
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