After three days of having to be at the Greene County General Hospital; I was not expecting this one. Even Moms five minute x-rays didn’t require being there more than maybe twenty minutes all in all. Most of that was waiting and waiting to register more than the actually x-rays.
There was a moment on Friday night when I thought I caught my parents say hospital, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. I was more focused on the Christmas movie and cross-stitch I was working on at the time. I didn’t realize things would be different in just 24 hours.
Chemical inbalance. Others call it a mental illness. There are so many names for this very broad interpretation of this illness. My family has been dealing with his in different ways since I was a young teenager. My brothers didn’t fully understand and really even as the oldest I didn’t actually comprehend things until later on. We dealt with it though when it was whispered about and not talked about in public. Now I can talk about it not that it’s so easy to traverse my past and remember every little thing.
In college a fellow classmate thought our experiences with this issue could make for a good final Speech. She had written up an entire presentation for another class and she used her guidelines and me and our 3rd partner added our own personal narratives to our speeches. I think it was just that she already had this done and didn’t want to work on a whole new project and yet this was the same girl who was the over achiever so I don’t know maybe she just saw it as an easy A which is what we all got together and individually. I ended up in tears because unlike the others I had witnessed a family member after ETC’s Electric Shock Therapy. I was also the finale of our group to end our project. It was hard not to get emotional delving back into my history which hadn’t been all that long ago when this speech happened. I still have her whole presentation on Bipolar after all this time. I couldn’t throw it away.
Mom went into the ER with my brother. Dad and I stayed in the lobby. Dad had made plans earlier on Thursday to get a radio put into his new car, because the radio didn’t work. So he stayed with me for thirty minutes until time for that appointment. For the next two hours Mom would call me or Dad with updates or call me and have me call Dad. It took 4 hours before Dad and I went to get some food. By the time we got our food my brother finally got some dinner. Then after I had eaten I realized I wasn’t really needed as badly and we had two cars to get home. So I thought I could go home and let my parents come home together and have some alone time.
Mom and I had brought my brother up with us so I thought I would be better help at home doing something there. They didn’t tell me no and I think Dad thought it was a good thing so I took off. Within thirty minutes of me leaving they finally found my brother a bed but it was in Indy. Thank goodness it was not Lafayette again. It was in a different facility than we had ever been to though we would have to learn the hours of visitation and calling times and what not. It was a step in the right direction though.
It just wasn’t easy. Another backstory to this is that we were at Regional Hospital. This was the bathroom where Uncle Mike initially died back in 2012. The ER looks a lot different than it did back then. I can still that day though when he fell in the bathroom and hit his head. Memories haunted me even as I had to go to one of those bathrooms that still look the very same as that day. I attach memories to everything songs, places and dates. I can tell stories because they stick so easily to me and they are so darn hard to forget. Especially when they deal with those I love.
As I was most of the way home I got to Booker’s Corner and Dad called me saying that they were just about a half hour behind me. A room was found for him and they were sending him in an ambulance to Indy. So I immediately turned there and eventually passed by my Grandpa and Grandma Alsman’s gravestone and Uncle Mike’s on my way home. I haven’t been going that direction much due to the excessive rock on the road. Fortunately the rock has worn down since it was first thrown down earlier this year.
Mom said when she got home that she felt like she was missing something… someone. The feeling is difficult to put into words sometimes.
Jewells of Thought 
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