Day Nine

by Amanda Munday

  I turn on the water in the shower and let it run. It’ll take at least seven minutes for any sign of warm water to reach these taps. I suppose the climb up nine flights of water pipes is a long one, but waiting for warm water is annoying when I know the people outside the bathroom door are watching for how long I’m in here. Maybe they reroute the hot water around the ninth floor to prioritize the patients who need warm showers to heal their bodies. Maybe the mind doesn’t need hot water the way heart-attack patients do.

  When the water warms up enough that I can tolerate it, I climb into the tiny shower and rinse my hair. I leave the glass door open to avoiding feeling even more like a prisoner locked in a cage. I think about all that has happened since Fiona was born on June 17. How many days ago was that? Why didn’t anyone warn me that having a child could mess with my mental capacity? All my life, I’ve been really good at setting a vision for a future state — the wedding I was planning, the school I wanted to attend, the big presentation I wanted to kick ass on. I could visualize myself standing on stage in front of a big projector screen, thanking everyone for the praise while they applaud one of the most insightful marketing workshops they’ve ever attended. I believed that if I planned enough and worked until I was sure I had nothing left to prepare for, that I could and would succeed. It always worked.

  But I can’t visualize what life will be like outside of the hospital. I can’t see myself rocking Fiona to sleep in her green nursery or taking family vacations to Italy. The only thing I can visualize is life inside the hospital, and it scares me.

  When I was pregnant I read countless mommy blogs that described the dramatic postpartum relief that’s supposed to come with a good shower. I don’t feel relief in this shower. I feel claustrophobic and cold. When I’ve finished rinsing myself down, I step out and use the one small towel, which Gordon brought me from home, to wring out my hair and pat my body dry. On the bathroom floor are a few drops of bright red blood — I’m still bleeding from the birth. Nothing about my life seems easy today. It’s hard and uncomfortable in so many ways. Taking a shower in a room where I know anyone could walk in on me is painful — I have no sense of privacy even in this most intimate of settings. Listening to my sister try to reclaim forty dollars for a train ticket because her big sister is a lunatic was maybe the most painful of all this morning.

  As I settle back onto the bed my sister looks up and smiles. “Feel better?”

  “Yep, all better. I think today I’ll ask for that day pass.” It’s time to breathe real air again.

  The very mention of my wanting to go outside sends Gordon running into the hallway to ask for our doctors. “My wife is ready to leave the building,” he says to the first doctor who shows up holding my chart. Gordon looks over at me with my wet hair and says, “I will do whatever it takes to show you that life outside the hospital is better than life inside the hospital.” He seems unconcerned that there’s a doctor standing directly in front of him.

  For our first time out, I’m warned that I may feel overwhelmed by the outside world. “The stimuli are more significant than they are here,” one of the residents lectures. He assigns me a thirty-minute pass. Just thirty minutes to experience non-hospital life again. The first time I’m allowed breathe outdoor air will be short-lived, but it’s good enough for Gordon, who’s ready to pack up all my things and make a run for it the second we step out onto the curb.

  “Maybe leave Alice and the baby here,” I suggest. “I think it’s better that just you and I go out.” He’s a little insulted by the suggestion that my sister and our child are fine alone in the psychiatric ward, but I feel like going out to University Avenue, a major four-lane road in the heart of Toronto, with my younger sister and baby in tow is far too much exertion for just thirty minutes. He hesitantly agrees to go solo with me, and before I can change my mind he’s looking for a nurse to unhook me from all the IV equipment.

  When we step outside I am overcome with emotion. The sun is much brighter outside than it is inside my hospital room. The first thing I notice is the wall of heat. I’ve become accustomed to the too-cold air conditioning and forgotten all about Ontario summer humidity. There isn’t even a whisper of a breeze. It’s a struggle to hear birds chirping, because the city ambience drowns them out. It smells like summer — the delicious mix of sunscreen and hot asphalt and hot dog carts. Sweat builds like a sticky layer on my forehead and runs down the back of my ears. I remember how hot and sweaty I felt at home, how it tightened me. I can’t enjoy this sweet summer season. I don’t deserve to. People are rushing through their weekday lunch breaks. We cross the street and anxiety takes hold.

  I look up to Gordon. “Are we allowed to leave the hospital grounds?”

  “Of course we are, babe. We can do anything we want.” He pulls my hand so we move into the sunlight, away from the shade and cold concrete of the hospital entrance.

  He holds my hand tightly and leans in with his other hand to smooth my still-wet hair. It won’t dry in this humidity. It will just stay damp, unkempt, and unfinished. Gordon suggests we walk down to a nearby coffee shop to get a cold drink, but looking south down the four-lane avenue, the nearest café seems much too far away from the hospital and our baby.

  “It’ll take up too much of our time,” I protest. “I’d rather just sit over there on a bench.”

  Gordon will agree to any of my requests during this excursion; he’s clearly pleased that I’m willing to leave the hospital at all. I let my mind wander for a few moments, imagining him throwing me over his shoulder, carrying me away from the hospital, putting me into a cab, and whisking me off to a beach resort, where he, Fiona, and I settle into a suite by the beach waves. In this daydream, he strokes my hair and says, “I knew we would be better together as a family, away from all of them. All of the madness. I knew if it was just the three of us you would feel safe.”

  We settle onto a bench on the concrete island in the centre of the road and, as the cars driving alongside us honk and swerve around traffic, I’m reminded that we’re very far from a beach escape. I’m sure these benches were put here for hospital staff on their lunch breaks. The hospital I’m locked up in is one of several in Toronto’s “hospital row.” From the bench I see SickKids, an internationally renowned hospital where geniuses save babies. New questions flow through my mind: Should we have gone to SickKids instead of the hospital I went to? Would they have had an appropriate “mothers only” mental health wing? Would a hospital for sick babies treat mothers with tiny babies, even if the baby herself is completely fine?

  While I’m thinking about alternative treatment options that might have kept me from the psychiatric ward, I feel guilty about even entertaining the idea of using hospital resources — provincial tax dollars — for myself instead of super sick babies. You are a greedy, unworthy mother, I tell myself. You don’t deserve to be saved.

  “What time is it?” I ask Gordon.

  “We’ve only been out here seven minutes, babe,” he says patiently. I know he loves me and I can feel his strong, skyscraper-high support for me. I can also hear that my husband is exhausted, but my worry about him is quickly replaced by the sense that we’re breaking the day-pass rules.

  “I think we should go back now,” I say.

  “I don’t want to bring you back yet, but I will if you’re serious,” he says. “I just want you to get some fresh air and maybe a nice cold drink. There is no way that hospital food is helping you to heal. Let’s just sit out here a little longer.” I know he feels bad for me, but I also need him to understand that right now the hospital is the only place I feel safe. By taking away any risk — by removing any possibility that I can hurt myself or the baby — I can focus on rest. And I’m struggling to rest here outside. The sounds of cars honking and rushing by, the beeping of the crosswalk signal, the laughter from two women enjoying a coffee break on the bench beside us — it’s all too much to handle. I long for the familiarity and safety of my boring, bland hospital room. Doesn’t he
realize that it would only take me one second to step out in front of these cars?

  A man is sitting in the shade outside the front doors of my hospital. He has the same white hospital bracelet around his wrist that I have. He’s sitting on a concrete edge, smoking a cigarette. I recognize him from my floor. He’s a psych resident, too.

  It’s in this moment that I realize I’m part of a program — a routine in a journey to sound mental capacity. I’m part of a new community now, a community of patients who’ve said out loud what many people think but don’t vocalize: that they’re questioning their reality and the state of their mind, and that their thoughts are intrusive and horrific. Maybe this man physically harmed himself, so they put him in the ward with me where he could do no further harm. I wonder why he’s alone out here?

  When we return to the big silver doors that mark the entrance to the psych ward, a tiny nurse with short messy brown hair welcomes our return. “How was it?!” she asks, with a huge warm smile.

  I like this friendly nurse — she often coos at my baby and asks less accusatory check-up questions than others do, like whether I’m drinking enough water to stay hydrated and encourage milk production, and if I’ve taken a break from being a mother to rest. She has kids of her own, and has said on multiple occasions that she understands what brought me here. “It’s the hardest thing to go through, having a child. You’ve given all of yourself to her. Today the baby is fine and you are not. You need to fix you.”

  This kind nurse was the one who unhooked my IV equipment so I could go outside and the one who offered to watch over my sister and daughter while I stepped out into my artificial freedom. I’m relieved to see her when I return to the hospital jail.

  My mother and my stepmother, Jane, both arrived while we were outside. Jane is rocking the baby by the window, having clearly swooped her up from my sister at the first chance. My mother is sitting in one of my two plastic green chairs, making small talk about the weather with Alice. When Gordon and I walk into the room and see both mothers, I start to cry. Everyone has put their summer on hold to be in the hospital with me. I look over at the white board that was once used to separate the two patient beds but, because we have the room to ourselves, just serves as a barrier for my “guests” who want to catch a little sleep during their visits. Jane has filled the white board with family photos — of me and Max and Alice when we were much younger, of my sister playing with toys, of me as a high school student with short orange-streaked hair and a rainbow prom dress.

  I’m guessing these photos are meant to remind me of my family and bring me a sense of calm and familiarity. But they only serve to remind me that I am no longer the happy girl in those photos. The photos bother me so much that they consume my attention. I have no ability to recount the details of our outside walk or check in on the baby or ask how everyone is feeling. I can only stare at the photos and wish they weren’t there to mock me. The walk outside was nice for a moment, but it made it hard to return to this room and be reminded that I’m still a prisoner. I am not free. While I was out, the place was decorated with memories that I don’t really want to revisit. And it’s only photos my stepmother had in her home — a distilled version of me that never really captured how I felt day to day. There aren’t photos of my closest friends, of my life outside of high school, of my university years, or my postgraduate career.

  I’m sad that my father isn’t here with the moms here today, though I understand why he stayed away. When I was in university my father attempted to end his life. He overdosed on ibuprofen and cough medicine and passed out in his bed. My then thirteen-year-old sister found him after school covered in vomit. It rocked our family and sent Max into a years-long struggle with anxiety. Dad is doing much better now, back to a reliable job and apparently taking his medication. Even with all that, I can imagine seeing his daughter in this state, having faced it himself, would be impossibly difficult.

  Sometimes I still perform the “eldest daughter conquers the world” show when I visit him. The photos my stepmother has put up on this whiteboard remind me that I pretended every other weekend, and even now I pretend every other month, to be happier than I am. I often show up and entertain everyone with stories of a huge work milestone or recent promotion, without really getting into my fears or obsessions. Now I’m sitting in a room where both of my childhood worlds have collided — my mother and my stepmother, sitting together awkwardly, jockeying for who will take care of the newest baby while their child suffers from postpartum depression. It’s hard to feel relaxed here.

  My stepmother’s intention in bringing me the family photos was clearly to remind me that I am loved and that I was once a happy teenager. But the photos feel like they’ve removed my entire current identity. The me of today is erased.

  We all agree that my sister should go with my stepmother and spend a couple of days at home with our father to rest and catch up on her sleep. It’s a luxury I would like to joke that I no longer have, but of course I do have the luxury of sleep now. You can have all the bed-check-filled sleep you want when you’re locked up in the psych ward. Other than bed checks and the nightly piano show, the rest is plentiful.

  By 10:15 p.m. all my family members have gone home with the baby and left me to sleep alone. I start pacing back and forth in my room. It’s the time I’m normally supposed to take my meds, but no one has brought them to me. At 10:30 p.m. there’s still no sign of the nursing team. I’m becoming more panicked that if I miss my dose I’ll be sent into a deeper disconnection from reality, so I pull on some socks and talk myself into leaving the room. Do the doctors want me to miss my dose? Am I supposed to be responsible for making sure I take medicine on my own? Is this a test? I wish Gordon or Max were here with me; they would have been right up at the front desk demanding that the dose be administered at the correct time. Without my husband or brother here to advocate for me, I feel lost and alone.

  I pull open the big heavy door to my room and peek around the corner. The lights have been lowered for the night and I don’t see any other patients. It feels like a safe time to go out and walk around. Instead of taking the fastest route to the nurses’ station, I decide to walk all the way around the ward. It feels risky and vulnerable to be an exploring patient. I am invisible here. I’m a stranger. I walk past a common room and hear The Bachelor — or maybe The Bachelorette or some other cable reality show — on the TV. I peek in to see a very thin, almost gaunt woman with long dirty-blond hair sitting at the art table, painting while she watches the TV. She is taking her own health care into her hands and I admire her for it. I want to join her, but then I’d be using the services of this place, which would mean admitting I’m crazy. Plus, if I leave my room for too long others might hurt me. I can’t stop thinking about all the ways others might hurt me.

  The woman glances in my direction and I send a small, cautious grin her way. She looks back down at her painting and I scurry past the room. I walk up to the nurses’ station to ask about my medication. “I’m supposed to take two pills at ten o’clock and it’s already almost eleven. Can you help me?” Glares and attitude come my way in response. No one answers for what feels like too many minutes.

  “Go to the medication window and wait for someone to help you,” says a nurse finally, without looking up at me. I am a criminal. It suddenly feels a lot cooler in the hallway than it did in my room. I’m only wearing a thin tank top and shorts. I should have grabbed a sweater before I left on this adventure. I’m an idiot.

  I last wore this tank top at home — when I came down to greet Max and see what was happening with the baby, and he commented that I looked like I’d lost the baby weight. I made a mental note that this shirt was flattering on me, because I clearly haven’t lost any baby weight.

  While I’m standing in line at the medication window, two more men show up from around the corner and line up behind me. Then one walks away quickly, leaving me alone with one younger man. I guess everyone was missing their medication tonight. We�
��re all anxious to get to sleep.

  “Do you have cell service here?” the young man asks me. He’s shorter than me, with wavy brown hair streaked blond. Even though I’m taller than him, he seems strong, with bulging muscles showing through his white T-shirt. “They took my fucking phone away and I need to call my brother to get me out of here.”

  I am not sure what the protocol for patient complaining is here, or how it will be received by the staff, so I just nod and look in the other direction.

  “How long have you been here?” he asks me.

  “About a week,” I reply.

  “Oh, I just got here last night. Fucking cops.” He is shifting from side to side, the volume of his voice increasing and decreasing erratically, leaning in too close to me as he talks.

  “Yes, fuck that,” I reply in my best “I’m one of the cool ones” tone.

  I want to scream that I don’t belong here, but who would believe a patient in the meds line in the psychiatric ward screaming that she doesn’t belong? Maybe all of us belong here a little. This close-talker seems aggressive, sure, but insane? No. What were the magic words that landed him here? I wonder.

  He takes a step even closer and leans in to whisper, “Hey, you know, you have a great body. Do you work out?” Is this guy really hitting on me in a meds-pickup line in an in-patient psychiatric ward? I feel the cool forced air on my arms. It swirls my arm hair around and reminds me of the way tall grass sways on a windy day. I could feel flattered that the attention is on me in this evening’s hallway meds line, but I’m not. I feel uncomfortable and exposed. Regret starts to climb up my ankles and make its way up my spine. Why did I pick this see-through tank top to wear on this medicine run? I am stupid. Now this guy can see my nursing bra through my tank top. He can see my leaking nipples.

  “You look really fit. Really fit,” he continues.

  “Oh, thanks,” I reply quietly, not wanting to make a scene or anger him by rejecting his advances. I hate that women have to do this — accept unwanted advances as compliments to avoid turning invitations into abuse. I am used to this song and dance; usually I’d have already planned my escape route. In the psych ward, however, there is no escape.