3:30 In the Morning Comes Quickly

3:30AM.  A good time for a coughing fit.  A practical time for one's bladder to call to duty.  And evidently an opportune time for waking a guy up out of a dead sleep to inform him that he's being transferred to another state hospital all the way on the opposite end of the state . . . and he's got ten minutes to prepare for the move.

It's funny in a very NON-ha-ha kind of way how a few minutes can alter the plans and schemes of man, and big sister in this case, leaving very little room for proper reacting and adjusting.  I mean, what can a guy -- pretty sure we all know I'm referring to my little brother, Gary -- do but grab his pants, sputter out a few grunts, pee, and maybe squeeze in a decent question?  When the powers that be say 'you are outta here,' then you are outta there.  Concepts like two-week notice or good-bye parties just don't figure in.  All that matters is where a patient falls on the spectrum of 'naughty' and 'nice.'  And though baby brother isn't brokering any major drug deals out of Columbia, he hasn't exactly been squeaky clean these past few months. 

A state institution exists as its own kind of community, no matter how altered a state that community is, and gossip flourishes every bit as much as hard truth.  So, if a guy is caught up in perpetuating his drug habit and has a reputation for smooth-talking and hustling a good deal, it isn't a stretch to start wondering what else he might be up to.  Or for someone else wishing to cast the light of unwanted attention off himself and onto another to toss out a few believable untruths concerning a certain fellow client.  Before long, things begin to snowball and take on a life of its own.  That's when the house cops start covertly removing patients in the still hours before dawn.  Quietly.  With little attention and fuss.  And a reduced opportunity for floor wide pandemonium to take hold. 

Somewhere there is a list of names known only to a few.  Someone higher up feels that these wards of the state represent a possible risk to the low-security facility that is known as Napa State Hospital.  And since the death of an employee at the hands of a patient last fall, fear of any danger has heightened and played upon the sensibilities of the entire town of Napa.  Though several staff members didn't believe that my brother had made that list, he has been worried about that very thing for months.  Personally, I struggled to believe that anyone who'd read his file would consider doing this to him because the place IS considered a hospital and NOT a prison.  A large part of his personal pain, his issues with his past, revolves around being abruptly ripped from his surroundings without warning or practical plans for a relocation, unable to have the closure of goodbye or the security of a safe place in which to land, thrust into situations a child could not comprehend.  As a young adult with a history of running away, juvenile hall and foster home placements, jail and prison, that painful pattern was repeated, and thus reinforced, again and again and again. 

Evidently, it didn't matter what I believed.  It didn't matter that next Wednesday I was scheduled to fly out of Nashville and land in San Francisco.  It didn't matter that I'd sent in my money and reservation for the family Thanksgiving meal for Thursday.  That Gary and I had planned to visit and celebrate our birthdays together with cake and food and Scrabble on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  That I would be his FIRST outside visitor since November of last year when our brother, John, shared the aforementioned meal with him.  Or that the professor-doctor who meets with him every Tuesday for individual therapy sessions wanted to officially meet me and talk about things.  Or that other people had made plans on several fronts to accommodate my visit.  All it took was ten minutes, six hundred seconds, to render null and void all of it.

So, after the initial shock of his call from Patton State Hospital on Thursday last, tears and sobs spent on the back porch so as not to upset my convalescing daughter and her boyfriend, and a well-timed visit from a dear friend bearing pho soup and spot-on food for thought concerning the bad news from California, I pulled my chin up and began examining this development from other angles.  But until a second call from Gary two days later where I heard for myself his take on the event and the place and staff, I reserved my judgement. 

He had a lot of time to think on his eight hour drive.  Time to be amazed by the private transport driver who was driving at 100 miles an hour while texting.  "It was a WILD ride," said the man who gave a few wild rides and chases in his day.  Trust me, the irony of the woman's illegal actions while transferring a mentally-ill criminal on a state-funded trip was not lost on me.  I didn't know my eyes were capable of rolling that far back in my head.

Instead of losing his temper and causing a scene -- which was his standard at one point in time -- Gary accepted that there was no turning back.  No tantrum, no series of expletives, no amount of standing his ground would change the fact that he was leaving and not going back.  His recent change in thinking per his situation was still wending its way through his awareness.  Thank goodness!  Upon his arrival, he noted instantly that the atmosphere at the new place was different.  The staff was professional in the sense that one knew right away there would be no manipulating the situation.  If he chose to act up, he knew they would simply render him harmless with an injection that would mess him up for a couple of days.  The employees seemed to treat their positions as actual jobs they wanted to keep.

Patients HAVE to wake up in the morning and are NOT allowed to hang out, unsupervised and left to their own devices, in their rooms all day.  Almost every staff member runs a group of some sort and runs it with bonafide authority about the subject at hand.  He's heard from other clients, including a friend of his who was transferred there ahead of him and does NOT want to leave the hospital, that patients are more likely to rehab from this location than the one in Napa.  In a nutshell, based on my experience at Napa as a visitor and as a caring relative who often heard about what was going on in the background there, and what Gary had to say, this recent move may actually benefit him in the long run.  Due to the long-term severe nature of his immersion in prison life, my brother is so institutionalized that the lack of firm structure at Napa probably HURT his chances of kicking his habit and dealing with his mental illness.  The high-security ranking of this other establishment calls for a few more rules and this may bode well.

Gary must sense this himself because he brought up the subject of him needing to expect more out of himself and my need to expect LESS from myself where his rehabilitation and reintegration back into society is concerned.  Easier said than done, but done is must be.  We both realize the truth therein.  I feel as if I've already done quite a bit of stepping back but he's telling me that I can put myself in reverse a bit more.  Enjoy my life more and allow him to sweat his more.  We talked about how though he says he loves people, he's never really had to SHOW that love.  He has more than witnessed my ability to enact love; he has more than often made excuses for why he can't love that way.  But whatever epiphany has turned the switch in his brain and heart, it also left him feeling a whole lotta responsibility for the 'coulda, woulda, shouldas' in his adult life.  Who am I to argue?  It's a step toward recovery.  Let him make it. 

Another positive that he mentioned: his Tuesday doc from Napa called down to Patton and touched base with a colleague to ask after Gary; set up a phone conference so that they could have a proper good-bye (this moves me the most); and request that they look into continuing his one-on-one weekly counseling sessions with a psychologist on staff.  For new clients, the waiting list for such sessions is appallingly long and it's almost a perfunctory gesture to add names, much less hope for an opening!

But hope is what I'll do.  It's what I'm best at doing.  A gift.  A talent.  My cross to bear.  Especially where Gary is concerned.  And if I want him to roll with the punches and adjust accordingly, the same should be expected of me..  Isn't that what big sisters are supposed to do?