The Battle That Few Would Have Survived

I didn't want to go to bed without giving you the latest update on Julie.

The hospital is going to keep her for now. They are going to run tests to see if she damaged anything - heart, lungs, kidney, liver, etc. Additionally her blood pressure was very low and her blood sugar was very high - so they are going to try to stabilize all of that as well.

Mom said that she told the ER about the police going out to Julie's house twice and Julie lying to them to get them to leave her alone. I think the nurses were surprised that they did that. It makes me wonder though.... if my sister had long-term damage because she waited all this time to get checked out - what would I hold the Sheriff's office responsible for? They received two phone calls from two different people within hours telling them that Julie had overdosed. They went out to her house twice. Both times they left her there. Alone. That just... seems wrong to me. Very wrong.

I emailed my pastor and our prayer minister tonight about the situation. The prayer minister, Bill, told me that "Julie is in a battle that few would have survived at this point". Is that not exactly correct or what?? Julie is probably the luckiest woman I know right now. The fact that she has overdosed as many times as she has and that she still has working kidneys, liver and such is a miracle in and of itself.

Anyways....

The hospital is keeping Julie tonight to check her out fully. Then tomorrow they will call in psychiatric and see if she needs to be bakers acted for the depression. If they do that, they'll send her over to Bay Life, which Julie HATES. But... she's got to do what they want her to do if she wants to get any better.

A funny story about mom leaving the hospital. Mom spent all afternoon on the phone with me as I was trying to convey how worried I was about Julie to her. She drove from Tampa over to St. Pete to go see how Julie was. When she too thought Julie needed to go to the hospital, she convinced Julie to leave the penthouse of the beach resort (you can imagine that was NOT an easy task) and to go with her to an emergency room. Mom did her best to help Julie... she brought her clothes with her. Julie thought she left her cell phone charger in the car so mom checked for it (and it was not there). Keep in mind mom just had a total knee replacement - and she's doing all this running around. Anyways....

When they say they are going to keep Julie, mom and her husband go to leave for the evening. Julie asks them to leave the door open. As mom walks out, the nurses say something about them transporting an inmate and that they needed all doors closed. They asked mom to close Julie's door, which she did.

Mom gets out to the car and her cell phone rings. It's Julie. What does she want?? To express gratitude to mom for worrying about her all day? To tell her she loves her? To say 'thank you' for going all those miles to come and take care of her? For going above and beyond in getting everything together for her (list of medications, bag of clothes, etc)? Nooooo.... Julie wanted to chastise them for shutting her door when she said she wanted it open.

Funny.

On to not-so-funny news. While dealing with the Julie crisis earlier today, I was also dealing with a Kayte crisis. Kayte got a message on her cell phone. It was a friend of hers crying uncontrollably. She said, in this recording, that she was very upset and that she was 'cutting' herself and she needed to talk to Kayte. Kayte was beside herself - she was SO UPSET. I could tell Kayte wanted me to do something, but I wasn't sure what. I know she usually thinks she can take care of anything herself (ah, teenagers). But I wanted to help if she gave me permission to do so.

So... I asked Kayte... "Do you want me to call her mom?" She said - much to my surprise - yes.

So, Kayte calls the mom and gives me the phone. I tell this mom about the phone call. I tell the mom that her daughter is a cutter. She doesn't believe me. I told her that she had just left a voice mail and that I heard it for myself. She told me that her daughter was just upset because she was not allowed to go to the mall. I was shocked at this woman's lack of really caring about the information I gave to her. Although, she wasn't rude about it, she was cordial and thanked me for calling. Still I was shocked at her lack of caring. Hopefully it was shock or she was holding it in... and hopefully she's done something about it. But Kayte and I both think it was the right thing to do.

So.... do you think I had a pretty mentally tough day? Yeah... I sure did. And on that note, I'm going to BED!

Thank you all for your continual prayers!

Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. --Winston Churchill