Crazy

You will have read my article “All Visiting Suspended” www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/all-visiting-suspended-colleen-qvist which was about the harsh reality of not being able to visit my Dad in hospital when he was recovering from a stroke. As a family we are incredibly grateful that my Dad has made a miraculous recovery and continues to get stronger and fitter every day. We are grateful for healthcare workers who went the extra mile, to the hundreds of people who kept him in their daily thoughts and prayers and to my Dad and his fighting spirit that conquered a bad stroke, pneumonia, gout and chicken pox in the space of five weeks.

During his stay in hospital and to a lesser extent when he was in stroke rehab, he would share what seemed like crazy stories. In the beginning, when my Dad was in ICU and I was not able to speak to him, I was told the crazy stories by hospital staff. Later in medical ward, I was able to speak to Dad directly on the ward phone which the staff would take to him and so I heard those stories first-hand.

For much of the time, my Dad saw himself as being in an hotel with different rooms. He believed that my Mom was renting the rooms in the hotel. Sometimes he would ask me which hospital he was in and I would tell him and he would be surprised because he was sure that he was in a hospital in Durban or Newcastle in South Africa. Another time he was convinced he was in Australia, I think because the TV was stuck on Australian football.

Anyone who knows Dad will know that he is a rule-abiding man and so when staff would tell me that he was trying to escape over the side bars on his bed it sounded rather strange. His numerous attempts at trying to run away resulted in sedation and later restraints. I asked him, “Dad, why are you trying to escape?” He replied that I should try and stay in a little bed with side bars for days and days with no clock and no window. “Let’s see you not try and escape.” He said he was so tired of hearing, “What’s your name? Where are you?” His least favourite was “Mr. Skinner – what are you doing?” probably when he was trying to escape.

Later he offered to take me and anyone else on a tour of the rooms he had been in (in a private hospital) and we would see what hell it is really. He believes restraints are evil.

During his hospital and rehab stay, Dad spent so many hours writing business plans – in his head. He would tell me to tell my brother to look into X or Y and who knows how many plans he constructed for the hospital group. He kept on telling me that we needed to do stock take on each room and the best way would be to take a photo of each room. I suspect that this was from staring at the plaque on his door showing the room number and number of beds. In rehab he even managed to look under his bed to see how it worked.

One time I phoned Dad and he told me he was busy on the train and he could not talk and hung up. The following day he told me that it was a most successful operation and that he had rescued fifteen people and it involved six vehicles. Or the story that mom should send the minister for the guy next to him as his wife has been killed in a hale of bullets. My mom and I heard that story often and we never did work it out. He did have a neighbour, but no bullets were involved.

Many of his stories seemed crazy to the hospital staff and I suppose they got tired of him being in an hotel or a market or in a different hospital. He insists that he went for his MRI in another hospital by helicopter. He went by ambulance. I know that my brother was not able to entertain the weird stories and he flatly refused to enter into any strange talk. I on the other hand was willing to explore my Dad’s reality and to ask questions or to be with him in his story. It made me realise how easy it is to be labelled crazy and to be locked away. I know that some of my Dad’s stories were less crazy than they seemed because I knew the background for example to him saying he had a broken rib. The staff kept on telling him he had a stroke, but he had broken his rib before the stroke as he was fitting a water filter in a cupboard.  Also, his medical history that he shared sometimes came from 40 years prior but was shared as being recent. He was also upset that the ambulance guys did not know a specific set of letters and numbers and I was all set to go look for it in stroke protocols when my brother mentioned that it was an air or oil filter part number. Clearly Dad got to see the filter on the ambulance when he was taken to hospital. Also, the things that had been worrying Dad before he went to hospital like an expiring driver’s licence morphed into an expired passport in his stories.

In his head, my Mom relocated to London and that is why she did not visit him. When we finally got him to understand Covid and lockdown he introduced that into his stories that he was outrunning Covid with each room change. In rehab the news story of the "dug graves" which must have been seen on the news became his reality and he kept on saying he needed to get out before the graves swallowed him.

After he had left hospital, I had this conversation with my Dad.

Dad – tell me about the train.

It was a train from Kitwe to King Williams Town.

Oh – was it a school train, Dad? (Dad went to boarding school at Dale College in King Williams Town)

No – it was a train with my entire family on it. The train was leaving the station and I knew that it did not stop and my family kept on getting off the train. I was trying to get them on the train. And then the train left and I was driving between stations to try and get the family members. Your brother and his wife were two of them. I knew the farther the train got, the more likely I would not be able to catch up to the train. Finally everyone was on the train and I could relax.

Dad may be a rules man, but he is a family man first and so it did not seem strange that he would break rules to save his family in his reality.

Later when he told us that my niece would take his suitcase down from the cupboard in the hospital or that I spoke to his physio often or that my brother knew what drugs he was on because he had taken the drug list off the trolley next to Dad’s bed, we would remind him that none of us had been there.

He replied, “Yes yes, Covid, I know, but believe you me you were all there. Mom sat with me every single day. Only some days she disappeared and I did not know where she went.” Maybe on those days, mom went to London, who knows?

 Some more crazy talk? I do not think so. Maybe that is how thoughts and prayers work. Maybe our energy transmutes and we appear to the person who we are praying for.

Why am I sharing my Dad’s stories?

• I would like you to have a glimpse of what it is like for a patient, especially one with no contact with the outside world, except maybe for a telephone call.
• It is easy to stick the CRAZY label on to people and situations when we do not understand.
• People in an altered reality are really in that reality and they are not just being difficult or strange.
• Open your heart to joining the person in a reality different to yours and ask questions.
• The effects of a long term stay in a small box of a room with no visitors takes its toll.
• The effects of powerful drugs and little food should not be taken lightly.
• How many people incarcerated as being “crazy” aren’t really?
• Just because it is not in your range of understanding, does not make it false or the person crazy.
• Should we be looking for a different way of working with patients especially when they are not allowed visitors?

Colleen Qvist is a Daughter, Life Coach, Business Coach, Facilitator and Speaker.

Contact her on [email protected] and visit www.cqconsulting.co.za

#lifecoach #businesscoach #healthcare #parent #daughter #Covid #crazy