Against Medical Advice (15 page)
Read Against Medical Advice Online
Authors: James Patterson
DAY 23
The pickup truck arrives at base camp just after noon.
I will be its only passenger.
I shake hands with each of the other kids and the counselors who have assembled to say good-bye, my brothers in the wilderness. There is a mutual respect and an unspoken jealousy felt by the other campers. Some of them will stay for a few more weeks. The one who has already been here for four months still has no idea when he’s leaving.
But I’m going home.
Before getting into the truck, I turn for a last look up at the snow-covered mountain that I climbed when my body kept trying to stop me. I’ve suffered more here physically than I ever thought possible.
I’m leaving the mountain a different person than I was when I arrived. I’ve lost sixty pounds and am free of my addictions. I am stronger inside and out and have gotten past fears that none of the medicines I’ve taken could conquer.
My tics haven’t left, but now they are more like nuisances, not overwhelming problems.
Mainly, I feel as if I can do anything I set my mind to.
The trip down the mountain takes a half hour on trails barely wide enough for our vehicle. Eventually the snowpack gets thin, and there are patches of dirt and bleached-out grass here and there.
Soon after that, we get to a rough country dirt road that leads back to the main street and the modest two-story house that serves as the camp’s headquarters.
There are a bunch of new teenagers on the front lawn, boys and girls about my age fixing up sleeping bags for their trip to the mountain. They look fresh and rosy cheeked and seem like nice kids, but I know they’re here because they’ve got problems. I wonder if they understand what lies ahead. I wonder if they’ll be able to make it.
As I pass them, they stare at the kid with blackened hands who is back from weeks of cold and deprivation but is walking tall.
I turn from them to go into the house, and I see my father standing outside, waiting for me. He sees me and waves. “Hey,” he calls. In the end, no matter what, he’s always there. My mind is flooded with a thousand thoughts, but mostly I am proud. A big grin spreads over my face as I reach out for him.
He holds me and grabs my shoulder tightly. “You did it.”
When we hug, I can feel his body shaking with emotion, almost as much as mine.
Leap of Faith
I SIT ACROSS THE TABLE from an absolutely beautiful teenage girl who breaks my heart every time I look at her. I’m at the adolescent OCD ward of the world-famous Wellington Neurological Center, a thousand miles from where my father picked me up at the bottom of the mountain.
Six of us patients are in the cafeteria to eat lunch, but what Noelle is doing is like nothing I’ve ever seen in my life. It kills me just to watch.
Noelle is a teenager from somewhere in Canada. She has long black silken hair and flashing eyes with dark circles under them that must be there because she doesn’t sleep much. Her parents have sent her all over the world for different kinds of treatments, and none of them has helped. She’s been at the clinic for a long time, and from what I can see, she shows no signs of getting out.
I try not to stare as she picks up a small portion of food from her plate, then stops the movement of her fork after lifting it only a few inches. She holds the fork there for as long as it takes her to complete some unknown counting ritual or some need for symmetry.
After about twenty seconds, she gathers herself for another move. A second lurch of her right arm brings the fork higher, but she stops it before it gets to her mouth. Something else must be completed in her mind before she can go any farther.
Finally, when she is able to get the food into her mouth, she chews and swallows in a certain regulated way. It’s exhausting just to watch her. And so damn sad that I can barely stand it.
Noelle has multiple obsessive-compulsive rituals so complex that it can take her more than a minute to eat a single bite of food. Getting through a simple meal takes forever, and she usually doesn’t finish because time runs out.
By now the rest of us have gotten used to eating with her, but today’s lunch is so protracted that we’ll miss our therapy sessions if we don’t leave. So finally the aide who has come with us gently urges her to stop.
Noelle does what she’s told with a gracious smile, and slowly she lowers the fork to her plate. My heart breaks for her again. She must be incredibly embarrassed by what she has to do, but she doesn’t show it. I’ll never get used to watching her go through so much hell just to feed herself.
Despite her sickness, Noelle is amazingly smart, maybe genius level. I’ve been told that she can speak four languages, but she’s so deeply afflicted with her ritual disorders that her intelligence isn’t any help to her right now. These days she usually just sits there, her eyes wide open in a dazed, sometimes frightened look, and seems almost paralyzed. She might say a few words, but very slowly and as if she’s gasping them.
Most of the time she has a gentle way about her and an angelic smile. But yesterday that changed abruptly.
A few of us were in the common room using headphones to relax with tapes we’d made. All of a sudden we could hear a horrible screaming, which was getting louder as it got closer. Noelle was running down the hall. At first I thought she was running away from someone, but she was heading right for us. Her screaming seemed to be coming straight from her soul, as if all the pain in her entire life could no longer be contained and burst loose in pure fury. She was so out of control I’m not even sure she knew what she was doing, and if it hadn’t been for one of the strong nurses who caught hold of her at the last minute, I swear she would have gone after us. It reminded me of my own rage attacks.
The saddest thing about Noelle is so painful that I try not to think about it too much. Sometimes I hear her screaming in the middle of the night. I lie there thinking it’s that she realizes, in the endless darkness of her mind, she’s alone and lost in a place where no one can reach her, and she is so unbelievably frightened to be who she is.
FOR THE FIRST TIME in my life, I’m being consistently sensitive to other people and not mostly concerned with myself.
About a week into my stay at the ward, a tall, quiet guy named William appears in the common area without a shirt on. The fact that he’s partly dressed is a huge breakthrough. For many years before he came here, William hadn’t been able to wear any clothing. Just having fabric touch his skin gave him an unbearable feeling. I don’t know how he got through life to this point, but they’ve been working with him here, with some obvious success.
Even though the rest of us are in our teens, William appears to be in his thirties and is easily the oldest patient around. He’s really intelligent, and his long wild hair makes him look like a mad scientist or some kind of wizard. It seems that most of the people I meet with Tourette’s or OCD are unusually smart. Maybe that’s just nature’s way of compensating, but sometimes I think it’s not such a good thing to be so smart and think so much about everything. To be
inside
your mind so much. Maybe it’s too easy to get trapped there — like some of us do.
Except on rare occasions, William keeps to himself and stays in his room, which is why I’m surprised to see him in the common area. His obsessions and compulsions are very different from Noelle’s, but, like her, he has an awful lot of them. Two of his problems are in direct conflict with each other. He has an extreme phobia of germs. His food has to come from sealed containers, and no one can touch it or be around him when he eats, which is why he never eats with the group. At the same time, another fear makes him deathly afraid to take showers.
William also has a fear of shaving, so his beard is long and scraggly. And he’s afraid to lie down on a bed or sit in a chair, so I don’t know how he sleeps. Every time I see him, he’s standing. He’s been standing for so long that his ankles and legs have become terribly swollen.
Germs aren’t the only small things that terrify him. One time when he ventured out of his room, he ended up near a girl who was working on an arts-and-crafts project, and she accidentally spilled a bag of glitter. William went totally crazy when he saw it, and he went running off down the hall. I don’t know what would have happened if some glitter had actually gotten on him. It’s so hard to understand how someone as smart as William can be so irrational about something as harmless as glitter, but that’s OCD for you.
“Hey, man,” I say as he passes by. He keeps his distance, not because he’s antisocial but because he’s afraid of any kind of physical contact. He can’t touch or be near anyone, even his doctors, so you don’t shake hands with William. I can’t imagine he’s ever high-fived anybody in his entire life. Someone coming up to hug him would probably be his living hell. I wonder how that must have made his parents feel . . . or William himself . . . having to live a life without any physical affection,
ever.
One of the guys I’ve become friendliest with has really made me think about what bizarre tricks nature can play on a person’s mind. If you ran into my friend Chester somewhere indoors, you’d think you were with an ordinary, fun-loving guy. He’s about fifteen and as all-American-looking as you can get. His interest in rap music isn’t unusual either, but his degree of interest is. He always has headphones on, rocking out in the halls, rapping to his favorite songs.
Except with him, it’s not just because he likes music. He
needs
to like music, especially songs by the group Linkin Park, whose music he plays over and over again and sings along with. Still, you wouldn’t think anything was that different about him.
But something is.
Chester is deathly afraid of daylight. He hates going near the window. And if by accident some sunlight falls on him, he literally freezes in place like a deer caught in the headlights. The one time I saw this happen, he had a look in his eyes as if the world were going to end. Go figure that one out.
IF YOU HAVE extreme OCD, then Wellington is a very comfortable place to be. Everyone here understands you and could care less if you’re different from other people. If I wasn’t so homesick I’d have to say I like being here, and I like the kids better than any I’ve known back in my hometown. They get me, and I get them. They have
empathy.
Most people don’t, they really don’t.
This is my best week with my clinical psychologist, Mr. Kenneth Roberts. We’ve been working hard on a number of therapies for almost a month. One is called
cognitive behavioral therapy
, and it is slowly helping me change my everyday thoughts and the way I act.
Wellington’s approach to my Tourette’s and OCD is completely different from most other approaches. Just like my being sent into the wilderness, this is not the standard treatment for my illnesses. Far from it. It’s like a
second
intervention for me.
The main goal now is to deliberately expose myself to my obsessive behaviors, including my Tourette’s tics, in order to gain control over them. Before this, my doctors did everything they could to suppress my symptoms.
Every day I focus on my most extreme tics and try to refrain from performing them for longer and longer periods of time. This is part of tic-reversal training.
Right now I can go more than fifteen minutes without doing any unusual movements. There are days when it isn’t that good, but little by little I’ve gotten back some control over my body.
Mr. Roberts thinks that anxiety is at the root of all my other conditions, so he’s teaching me a progressive relaxation technique. To help with this, I made a tape that I play in my headphones when I need to calm down. Learning new ways to breathe also helps control my anxiety.
Aside from the treatment, the most important thing about being here is just being here, living in a world where no one is reacting badly to me or judging me.
SIX WEEKS AFTER arriving at the Wellington clinic, I stand with my suitcase packed. Mr. Roberts rises from his chair in the training room.
It’s a hard moment for me because of the feelings I have for him. As my main therapist, Kenneth is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. He seems to instinctively understand what I’m thinking and knows what to say to get me to help myself. I also consider him a friend and a hero to all the people here.
Three of the other patients have assembled in the lounge to say good-bye to me. One college-age girl comes up and hugs me. “You be good,” she says with tears in her eyes. “I’m sure you will, Cory.”
I know the tears are not only for me. I saw that same look when I bid farewell to my friends at wilderness camp.
You’re leaving. And I’m still here.
“Stay in touch, man!” Chester yells, his headphones still in place.
Chester honestly seems happy for me. Maybe he’s glad to see that someone can get enough help to go home. Maybe it gives him hope.
I wish Noelle was around. I’m going to miss her and I know I’ll always think about how she’s doing. We have been part of a very unusual and close community where we are all safe with one another and the staff. Not like the world I’m about to go back to.
“How are you feeling today?” Mr. Roberts wants to know with his typically serious but gentle and caring manner.
“Really good, I think.”
“Can’t talk you into staying a little longer, I guess?”
“You can try.”
“Hey, that’s . . . a change.”
“But it won’t work. I’m outta here.”
He shoots me a disappointed but playful look. “You’re gonna keep working on that anxiety, right? Do your exercises?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“It’s easy not to do the exercises when you’re back home, but they’re important,” he says. Right to the bitter end, he’s still working with me. You gotta love a guy like that.
From across the room, William’s eyes meet mine. He nods, and I return the gesture. We don’t need words.
One of the nurses shouts an upbeat good-bye from behind her station window. I take a last look at all the people I’m leaving and feel a wave of guilt that they have to stay. But every one of them is better now than when I met them. And so am I.
When I turn, I see my father at the end of the hall. I can tell that he’s been standing there for a while, not wanting to interrupt the ending of this part of my story.
His eyes are glistening. Just like they were at base camp in Wyoming. That’s my dad for you.
