Weekends at Bellevue Read Online Free PDF Page B

black male brought in by EMS on Sunday afternoon. He approached the MTA police asking to be placed in a witness protection program. He’s got elaborate paranoid delusions involving kidnapping, murder, being followed…. He’s denying all psych history and all psych symptoms; the only thing he’ll cop to is that he hasn’t slept in three nights. He’s been pretty wired in here. He thinks the TV is sending him messages and that the news has to do with him. We have him on Risperdal one milligram twice a day.”
    I detail the arrival, diagnosis, and management of another dozen involuntary admissions, before adding, “One more admission: Mr. H is a twenty-three-year-old Hispanic male with a history of bipolar disorder. His mom is too, by the way, so easy when you talk to her on the phone—she sounds pretty manic herself; she’s talking a mile a minute and it’s pretty hard to follow. The patient was brought in by EMS on Sunday afternoon after he approached NYPD on the street, asking to go to the hospital. He was complaining of anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and paranoia to the cops, but here he’s denying everything. He looks intense, guarded, and he may be responding to internal stimuli. He denies alcohol and drugs. Anyway, last week he took a handful of his mood stabilizer Depakote in a suicide attempt, but he never sought any medical attention. His friend says he was talking about throwing himself in front of a bus for the past couple of days. We’re waiting on Tylenol and aspirin levels just to make sure, but he looks okay medically. He should be on Risperdal and Depakote once the labs come back. Can somebody check those and write the orders?
    “Okay, in the EOU we have three admissions. I left some room in there for you guys. Bachelor number one is a thirty-eight-year-old black male … well, she’s a transsexual actually. Okay, bachelorette number one walked in claiming she was raped but was really disorganized and out of it, and at one point she told AES she lied about the rape to get a place to sleep. She was grossly psychotic and definitely high on cocaine. That was Saturday night. On Sunday, she was irritable, still pretty disorganized, and insisting we give her housing. The plan is to discharge today if she’s cleared. If she’s not, give her a bed upstairs. A single if possible.
    “EOU bed two is a forty-two-year-old black male with schizophreniaand AIDS. He was brought in by EMS from his adult home, saying the voices were telling him to hurt someone and he didn’t want to. He’s compliant with Zyprexa, and a second antipsychotic, Geodon, and his HIV meds. We’re hoping a short stay in the bed and breakfast suite will take the voices down a notch. He just came in last night so give him some time to pull it together. He’s a nice guy, actually—genuinely ill and pretty mild-mannered. Wouldn’t hurt a flea, I bet.
    “EOU bed three is Mr. G. He’s a twenty-year-old Hispanic man brought in by EMS Saturday morning. He came here by bus from Massachusetts to meet Wu Tang Clan. He says he’s a famous rapper himself and he has four jobs. Totally grandiose, bizarre, tangential, poor boundaries. He’ll need a bed upstairs for sure, but we’re keeping him in the EOU because he’s all over the place and needs his own room. Also, we’re pretty backed up; the admissions aren’t going anywhere soon, so he’ll need to have his status changed to 9.39 sometime today or tomorrow, when his EOU time runs out. Spoke to mom who says he was doing okay on Risperdal and Depakote, but he’s probably gone off his meds, so we restarted them.
    “On Hold is Mr. W, a seventeen-year-old white male with a history of bipolar. He was brought in by EMS Sunday night from home after throwing some furniture around and getting pretty violent. He’s got a solid history given his age, multiple med trials, multiple psych hospitalizations. He just got out of Saint Vinnie’s a couple of weeks ago. He was pretty combative when he first