Mikey and Me by Teresa Sullivan

Author:Teresa Sullivan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2017-05-23T04:00:00+00:00

food

Mikey had been at Camarillo nearly four years. She was transferred to several different units. One didn’t seem much different than another, and they all had a charge nurse who said, “She doesn’t belong here.” Who knew that better than we did? Mikey wasn’t being helped; she and other patients were in danger there. No one seemed to have any idea how to care for someone who was so developmentally disabled, someone who couldn’t communicate her needs and was blind. Mom and Dad tried, over and over, to make someone see that Mikey would do better in a quiet unit, if one existed. The vicious cycle of new doctors and medications continued. She always had bites. It was impossible to know the source of her bruises.

Mikey had always been slender, but she became noticeably thinner. I doubt anyone took the time to cut food up for her or tell her what was on her plate. She was expected to use utensils rather than touch her food and pick it up with her fingers. Soft-serve institutional food—oatmeal, mashed potatoes—would have been impossible for her to pick up even if she had been allowed. No one knew what she meant when she held out her hand.

We started bringing her home again, to feed her. She stuffed herself there, grabbing everything quickly off her plate, stuffing it into her mouth until her cheeks puffed out, then swallowing quickly. We filled her plate again. She seemed desperate to get as much as she could into her mouth before someone took it away.

She couldn’t consume enough calories on a weekend to compensate for the lack at Camarillo, and her weight continued to drop, so we began to take groceries to her unit. We made it as easy for the staff as we could. Nothing needed to be heated or cut up. Canned cherries (we included a can opener), canned hominy, cardboard boxes of juice, peanut butter wafers, sliced luncheon meat. Nutrition would be nice, but calories were critical. We suggested that they put her in a quiet place and put some of the food on plastic plates that we provided.

Her weight continued to drop. It seemed that she had given up. I believe her world had become so unsafe, so horrible that she had become unable to function.

When her weight dropped to sixty pounds, her bones protruded sharply. Her back was red and bruised from rocking against her vertebrae. She was apathetic, weak, and couldn’t walk steadily. Her cheeks were sunken, and her lips were parched from dehydration. Perhaps it would have been humane to let her die of starvation and dehydration. My parents brought her declining condition to the attention of the unit manager and the doctors many times. Finally, she was admitted to Camarillo’s medical hospital, which was located on the grounds. I can’t imagine why it took so long for her doctors to admit her. Did they just not see what was in front of them to see? What happens to patients

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