Apple Family

Apple family

This post is not meant to diagnose, treat, or save you from mental illness, if you or someone you love is in danger, please get help. You can text HOME to 741741 to be connected with a crisis counselor. I personally have. You can also call or text 988 for suicide and crisis help.
http://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts

*Trigger warning: this content may be hard for some people to read and digest. If you or someone you know is experiencing a life threatening emergency, CALL 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.

“Mom” is at Saint Anne’s hospital, she came into town for thanksgiving on 11/28/24 for the holiday as well as my daughter’s birthday, which happened to be the same day. She did well, sitting at the table and listening to people and their stories, but she was very tired. By 6 pm when was ready to lay down and go to sleep.

Although she doesn’t live with me, she wanted to stay in town that night and go to Costco the next day, all the while (with her daughter) forgetting that the next day was Black Friday. She was so excited to stay in town for one more day, as living an hour away from you family can feel very, very far when you are entering senior hood and you have an accompanying chronic pain and drug problem. Having never gone to rehab Malerie has trouble with dosing her medications well, often taking too much or not enough and having to report to a pain clinic since 1991. On Black Friday, she woke up bright and early feeling pretty well, albeit a little tired from her recent travels to Toledo. See being 60 years old and having congestive heart failure, early emphysema, a broken neck in c-4 to c-9 vertebra, anxiety, depression, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease can have its difficulties. Which diagnosis do you treat first, what’s going to work for this patient and make her quality of life the best it can be? On 11/29/24, Black Friday Valerie took her daughter to Costco with her and added her, Lauren, to her executive account. Having “forgot” it was Black Friday and wanting to spoil her grandchildren, Malerie tried to shop. However Costco was too big, how could she lift and carry everything? Her daughter thats how, and an electric scoter; she was blessed enough to have asked her daughter to show up. Lauren didn’t get much sleep the night before, suffering from insomnia, obsessive compulsive disorder, anxiety, and Bipolar 1. Lauren did her best on 3.5 hours of sleep to follow her mother around the store. Lauren tried to please her mother by filling the flat bed cart with everything her mother told her to; unfortunately it was exhausting. With the maze of people and lack of sleep, Lauren was having a hard time: trying to keep up with the scooter her mother was driving, maneuvering the sea of people, and trying to please her mothers want to Christmas shop. The cart kept growing, despite Lauren’s best gentle efforts. Malerie was having trouble too: she couldn’t breathe well and she hadn’t let her body rest fully from the night before. She hadn’t had the time to even understand fully what she was taking, why and what that meant for her recovery. Malerie has been in recovery since 1991 for a back/neck injury. She has never been to a recovery or rehab facility for any of her ailments. On 11-29-24 Malerie was tired enough to extend her stay in Toledo. According to her daughter, she had planned the long weekend to watch the Michigan/Ohio State game with her daughter and her daughters neighbors on 11-30-24. The night of 11-29-2024 Malerie was checking into the Marriott hotel on Secor road in Toledo Ohio, with her grandchildren in tow, whom she had begged for. Valerie had made many promises when she took the children: Bert, 8 yo, and Rosie, 7 yo. Malerie had told her daughter she was going to be back to Lauren’s residence on 11-29-2024, she said she would have a late checkout but that she would be no later than noon. Lauren had a good night sleep the night of 11-29-24, it was her husband Robert’s birthday and she was exhausted from her holiday, the trip to Costco, and her own insomnia and mania. On 11-29-24, at 7:13pm, Lauren spoke with her children on her mother, Malerie’s Apple cell phone. It should be noted that the evidential phone does not work well in the hearing piece, the children use speaker phone. The children had enjoyed fun in to hotel pool and were staying in the hotel room for the night. The children knew not to leave the room, that they were not allowed to leave, they had to say with their grandmother. Rosie ,7 yo, is very intellectually intelligent when it comes to medical education.

On 11-30-2024 at 1:10pm Lauren called her mother’s phone, and what the children said scared her to her core, it felt like all the blood rushed out of her legs. She was told by her children: “Mica peed and pooped the bed”, “Mica’s in the bath room, its been over and hour”, “We’re hungry mom and we haven’t eaten anything all morning”. Lauren, knowing her children were not allowed to leave the hotel room, quickly grabbed four apples (two green and two red) and a Costco size jar of Nutella. She got in her van from her home and drove to the hotel (behind Texas road house on Secoor road in Toledo, Ohio), {Lauren is transcribing all of this and down not know the address}. Lauren had called her husband and told him the same info, before Lauren arrived to the hotel. Preparing for the worst, yet knowing exactly what to do:

She called 911.

Lauren had spoken to her daughter on the phone while she found the hotel room, Lauren hadn’t know the room number ahead of time. Her son, 8yo Bert, had told her. “520 mom!” he said. “Rosieeee SHUSH”, he told his sister. “It’s 520 Mom”. “Good boy,” his mother Lauren responded. Lauren was good with names, faces and people, but never with numbers. She walked into the hotel in a slight panic in front of where he mothers vehicle was parked. She went up to the front desk and asked for her mother’s name. No reservations. She was stunned, but only for a moment, the woman pointed to the other hotel and started to say something, but Lauren was already out the door. She had gone to the wrong hotel. The two had a shared parking lot and Lauren knew that her mother always parks in handicap. But damn wrong hotel, she ran to the other and was taken a back by the lobby this hotel was nicer than the last and she had never known that it existed, Secor road has many new hotels. Lauren stood in the lobby for a count of 8 seconds before she politely, waiting her turn for 35-40 seconds, asked the lovely beautiful black woman at the front desk where room 520 was. For some reason, Lauren didn’t this time ask for her mother’s name, she just wanted someone to point and she’d find it. The woman at the front desk said “down the hall” Lauren was already moving, faster. “To the left take the elevators” she said in a beautiful accent. Faster faster, Lauren hadn’t sped the entire way there, not a needle flick above the speed limit, just nice and slow, as traffic laws state, Lauren knew the way, almost too well considering she had spent 1/3 of her life in California. Lauren knew because her family had once stayed at the same hotel years ago after her family suffered a house fire. Faster faster. Lauren could hear the beating of her own heart in her ears, she started counting reps again 30 pumps to 2 respirations she knew CPR with emergency oxygen. She also knew that he mother had been passing out like this her whole life, whether it be on the kitchen floor, the chair in the living room, the garage, her car in the drive way, or the toilet, her mother could often find her way to the toilet, Lauren knew that’s where she would find her: on the toilet. She went to the elevator and pushed the button. “Four, five, six, seven”, she counted loudly in her head, alone in the elevator. It took exactly a five second CPR count for the elevator to open: 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 6….the elevator door slid open discretely, as elevator doors do.

17, 18, 19 Lauren looked up for a room number on the wall 520 was just to her left, first door on the right. She had already called her brother, saying very little, her sister in law, saying very little, and her husband, saying “you might need to come get your kids from the hotel”. She tried to describe where she was. “Behind the Texas road house” she had said. Lauren had her daughter on the phone while she was in the elevator, 21, 22, 23 her hearth thumping in her ears. “I’m going to knock on the door baby, okay ready, 1,2,3” she said gently. Valerie said “okay Momma” and Lauren knocked on the door. The little girl slowly opened the door, her eye lighting up as she saw her “momma”.

The smell of the room hit Lauren in the face like, not actually, but like the aftermath of a house fire. It was burnt popcorn mixed with cigarettes, the room was fully of carcinogens. “Look momma we made the beds!” the kids said proudly, “good job” she muttered somewhat hopeful…

-A Manic Monday