Sympathy for C

This is a hard post to write. One I have been putting off.

I got a call from M. M told me, calmly, but voice trembling a little bit, that C is in the hospital again. He had a set back. A relapse. I dont know what you call it, but it got so bad, he is in the hospital again, and the doctors want to use ECT. Electro Convulsive Therapy.

It is completely irrelevant that I have heard of some massive improvments with ECT. The fact is that sometime this last week, a young man, just a kid really, and not a kid that different from where I was just a few years ago, had several hundred, or thousand volts of electricity run through his body.

Involuntarily.

Christ almighty.

I mean, he didn't do anything to deserve that. he just lost some huge genetic lottery. One day the guy was earning great grades in college, probably thinking of girls and summertime and volley ball, and the next moment he is in a hospital without the recourse to make his own treatment decisions, getting shocks.

I feel for C.

I feel for his family. They too have been shut out of the deicison making process. Though they and C executed all the proper paperwork, granitng them the ability to make medical decisions for him, they ommited a power of attorney and now the hospital has used that lousy loophole to steal their autonomy. Its just crappy. And now to watch powerlessly while your son suffers, and is in the hands of someone else.

Its been a while since I was down like C. ButI remember. Not in the visceral way that one might think. No, thats gone. Evaporated. Its amazing how transient memories are and how hard it now is for me to accurately recall what it was like to be where C is. So my symptahy has transmuted to empathy, and my compassion flows to the guy.

C, we love you.