It happened on a Memorial Day weekend in Georgetown, Texas. I was vacationing with my husband, and we had fun things planned. First, I wanted to see my mother who lived in a small group home in Round Rock, just a few miles from Georgetown. Since she had fallen a few days before our arrival, we visited her in the hospital.

On our way out, I spoke to the neatly dressed nurse and decided to check on Mother’s medication.

“She is on her medication, right?” I asked.

The nurse looked confused.

“She is on her anti-psychotic medications?” I asked again, assuming the answer would be in the affirmative.

“I don’t see anything like that listed,” she said as she thumbed through Mother’s chart.

“We need to contact the doctor right away,” I said firmly. “She NEEDS her medication. If she doesn’t get her medication, you will have a problem on your hands,” I tried to emphasize as politely as possible.

“Okay, we’ll contact her doctor, but he is on vacation.”

I assumed the hospital, the doctors and the nurses would work in tandem regarding the stelazine and other drugs Mother had to take for any resemblance of sanity. I telephoned the woman who oversaw Mother’s group home.

“The doctor is out of town, and Mother is off her medication,” I told Sheri.

“I gave them the list of medications,” she said emphatically.

We both knew a tsunami would hit if my mother was not kept on her prescribed anti-psychotic medication. I struggled to have a good time with my husband on our short trip to Austin; however, my mind was elsewhere. It was on my mother who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia since she was in her twenties. Paranoid schizophrenia is a horrible disease. We try not to discuss it in polite society. “Break the stigma,” some mental health advocates say. I wish they would come up with a new slogan. Break the disease is what I would like to do. Find a cure is what needs to be cried from the rooftops.

On our way back home to Dallas, we stopped by the hospital to check on Mother. As soon as I stood at the entrance to the unit, I could hear Mother’s screams. The nurse I had spoken to only days before was running back and forth from Mother’s room to me.

“What do you do when this happens?!” she frantically asked me.

My heart sank. Mother had been off her medication for three days. It was evident.

As I listened to her loud, persistent cries, I knew there was no way I could help her. There was no way for the nurse to help her.
What do I do when this happens?

“I don’t know what they do! I can’t do a damn thing! She has to go to the psych hospital when this happens!!” I said stunned that this horrible situation had happened and could have been prevented had the doctor returned the phone calls that the nurses made, but he was on vacation.

That simple event of the lack of necessary medications caused a spiral effect. Mother continued to spiral down due to more delusions, paranoia and hallucinations. No talk therapy could have helped her at this moment. No amount of prayer was going to cure my mother from the severe anxiety she was going through.

Nothing but medication was going to help her. Not only did she suffer, but the hospital staff and other patients did as well. It took valuable resources that could have been used on people who were physically ill. It caused distress on other patients who had to hear my mother’s screams. It caused her family anxiety and depression because there was absolutely nothing that could be done.

What if doctors, nurses, and families worked together to help those who suffer from schizophrenia? What if a cure could be found? It would be a more hopeful world for the patients and their families.

Nancy Gilbert is a born and raised Texan. She tried living in another state but got back to Texas as soon as she could. She is a Brené Brown and Ann Voskamp fan, a genealogist, a lover of cats and dogs, and cares deeply about many things. She enjoys good books, good friends, and good wine on occasion. Find her on her blog: runningtowardhappy.wordpress.com.

Header photo credit: Nancy Gilbert