Well I left off my last post at just before Christmas 2008 and now we are at just before Christmas 2011. Things were better then than they are now...
After a few days in the adolescent ward three years ago and some heavy doses of anti-psychotics Dr. Teshima said he could be an outpatient and just participate in the day program. At this point Kit was quite scared of his diagnosis and wanted to comply to get better. After two weeks there he came home and we had a great Christmas with him in Toronto. Guelph University was amazing and they just erased his first term from their records so that he wouldn't have the marks from those courses reflected on his transcripts. Kit went back to Guelph part time taking three courses from January to April. He took the bus to Guelph every Monday morning, had a course on Monday afternoon, Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning. Then he came home every Wednesday evening. He took his meds. He was pretty happy. Things were going quite well. We all took a deep breath and thought he's going to be okay!
That summer we went to Africa with Kit and Robyn for three weeks. It was a fantastic trip, spent two weeks helping in an orphanage near Nairobi and then a few days on safari in the Masai Mara and then to Zanzibar to have a beach holiday. A few days in London on our way home finished off our trip. In London Kit showed some agitation, but we really thought it was due to the stress of travelling, but in hindsight he was probably off his meds at that point...
After the summer Kit transferred to Ryerson in September 2009 - taking about three courses. He was living at home but not doing super well. By Christmas we knew things were bad again and after a difficult Christmas in Vermont we came home and asked him to leave. He refused. Said he was fine - didn't want to go back to school, would get a job. Had not been taking his meds. So - we had the police come and remove him from the house. That was one of the hardest things we ever had to do. He was taken to CAMH where he was admitted on a Form 1, but couldn't keep him very long as he was not a danger to himself or others and two days later we dropped him at Covenant House as he did not want to go back on his meds. We had decided with advice from his psychiatrist that in order for us to support him at home he had to take his medication. So he stayed at Covenant house for five months, hung out on Yonge Street, spent time at the Yonge Street Mission's Evergreen on Yonge St. and continued to use street drugs to treat his symptoms. The worst mix you can have. By May 2010 he was in rough shape and he finally brought himself to St. Mikes hospital where we found him and brought him home.
He went back to see his psychiatrist - Dr. Lewis at Sunnybrook and started back on medication. This time they tried olanzapine and he seemed to get better quite quickly. He got a job at the local Valuemart working in dairy and spent the rest of his time hanging around the house. He joined Pure Fitness and was doing quite well. Had a great summer with us, Christmas, then a family trip on a cruise in March 2011. At some point around then he went off his meds again. Had a hard time going to work, was frustrated easily and then finally we had to ask him to leave again in May 2011. He moved down to Covenant House again where he stayed for about three months. He then started believing that he had some kind of sinus infection - that he was rotting from the inside out. He went to Mount Sinai, Toronto General, we took him to St. Mikes but there was nothing wrong with him. He was so distressed but absolutely believed something was wrong physically. He tried to aspirate this fluid from inside him with needles but that didn't work but Covenant House found the needles and kicked him out accusing him of having drug paraphernalia. He then moved into the YMCA house at Queen and Spadina where he spent the next three months. His typical day was get up, eat breakfast at the Y House then walk up to Ryerson where he could still use his student ID to get access to the internet. He would download movies or old TV shows and spend the day watching them. Lunch at Evergreen and then back to the Y House for dinner. Shower, sleep, repeat... He seemed to be coasting along at this level, functioning to a degree, but not well. Adam suggested that he move into his basement apartment which we thought would be worth a try. At first Kit said no, but then changed his mind. He would move in December 1st. Dave & I paid Adam rent for December and were pretty excited about this new brother relationship in the works. On November 30 we called Kit, no answer. No response from messages left at the Y. Same thing on December 1st. We were quite worried and those awful privacy laws make it impossible to get any information. Finally on December 2nd the Y told me after I begged them to let me know if he was okay that he had been there that night but had been very disruptive. I was relieved to know he was safe and thought he really didn't want to move in with Adam and he was avoiding us.
That afternoon - Kit called Adam, but he sounded different. Adam and Dave picked him up at Yonge and Gerrard and realized he was in bad shape. He was only rhyming words, kind of rapping and ranting but making little sense. They brought him to Sunnybrook Hospital on December 2 where they immediately put him under a Form 1. Seventy two hours in the hospital against your will. He spent two days in Emerg, in the same room as the first time and then went upstairs to the adult psych ward on Sunday afternoon. On Monday the doctors gave him a form 3 which is 14 days in hospital. They started him on anti-psychotics and gave him an injection as well. We want him to have bi-weekly injections so that we know he is actually taking his meds. After three years of being the pill police it's the only way. He finished up his two weeks on Monday and although he is less agitated and speaks properly now, he is still delusional. He truly believes he is in a virtual reality - part of a video game - like the Matrix. He was given a form 4, renewal of form 3 and is thirty days more. That's where we are now...
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