electro convulsive therapy

My aunt Cathy has been suffering from mental illness for almost 40 years. The past 10 years have been the worst, where her medicines aren't working anymore and because of HIPAA laws(first comprehensive Federal protection for the privacy of personal health information), we're not sure which medicines she IS taking and NOT taking, and she doesn't have to tell us. For at least the past five years she's been in and out of in-patient facilities. She has wild blonde hair and smokes and screams. She hears a man named Oppenheimer who is trying to kill her. In the past there has always been hope, a glimmer behind her eye that made you feel like, she understood, even if it only lasted for a minute.

Cathy was my favorite aunt when I was little. She used to tell me that I'd get curly hair if I ate the crusts on my grilled cheese sandwiches. So, I ate 'em up so I could look just like her. My mother tells me that in high school everyone told her she looked just like Marilyn Monroe. She was full or herself and bossy, just like beautiful people often are. She held a full time job for a long while, and then a part time one and managed to do crafts, when the medicines made her hands shake she moved from knitting to ceramics. And, in the past five years? Eight years? All of this has dissolved.

She got sick when she was my age and married. She had a son named Patrick who was 2 years older than my older brother. He died when he was 7 and before I was born. It so tragic for my entire family that he died, this little innocent. He was sick in the hospital and was given aspirin before they knew about Reye syndrome. A disease that occurs after viral infections like chicken pox and may be inflamed by the use of aspirin. Our family photos always had Patrick in them, because he was my brothers' best friend and often stayed at our house when things were difficult for Cathy at home. He was like a brother to my brothers. And, in some way seeing those photos has been this eerie and awful way to learn about not only what death is and what suffering is, but who my family is as an entire unit. No one ever got over the loss of him.

It's been difficult for us to watch my Aunt deteriorate even further, especially in this last year. She's been in the hospital over and over again and has only been home for short periods of time. She lives with my grandmother who sometimes talks about her as though she is a nuisance or is misbehaving. And, I know, especially for my mother, it has been so hard to deal with such varying levels of empathy in her family.

This week, the doctor told my grandmother that they were going to have try something new. My aunt's levels of ammonia were so high that any more psych drugs could kill her. They have to try electro convulsive therapy. ECT is just what it sounds like, but doctors assure us that the movies have made it seem much worse than it is...And that now it's our only chance. The side effects range from retrograde amnesia to brain damage. She will most likely not be able to recall the last two years of her life. "maybe that's for the best..." I say to my mother over the phone, who is so worried her sentences started trailing off. And then I thought about it more and realized how scary it was to say it was the for the best that she couldn't remember things. I wouldn't want to forget anything because someone shocked my brain. We don't technically have any decision-making clout. That's another difficulty. They need to get my aunts signature, but here she is screaming and taking off her clothes and in such agony and turmoil, is her signature binding, anyway? Oh and my grandmother? She is 88 years old and asks "will it fix the yelling" as though the yelling was the disease and not the symptom of it.

I can't think of anything more sad than severe mental illness. To want to hug someone and not being able to because they've become violent. To love someone and being so helpless in their recovery.