On 9/5/2012 at 4:00 p.m. my brother came home. I was told by one of his nurses when I called the hospital to speak to him that he had left for home in a cab, so I waited for him on the front steps of the apartment and gave him a big hug when he got home. He wasn't angry, but seemed to be in very good spirits, and spoke of his stay in the hospital as a positive experience saying that he was the crack up of the floor, and made some friends along the way. He also spoke of a program that he could volunteer in that has socials with trained professionals and other people who have a variety of challenges from schizophrenia to bi-polar disorders. He spoke of this group with a great amount of enthusiasm and even seemed to understand that taking his meds was part of that equation. He brought home a prescription for his psych meds (I forgot what they are called, will have to look that up) and said that he would have to get that filled on the 6th. Unfortunately, it is the 7th and he as of yet has picked up his meds if not even filled the prescription. Yesterday morning he woke me, and asked me about a link I left on his Facebook page about Kevin Trudeau and we have a somewhat lively discussion about his criminal past and about his authenticity as an expert in the homeopathic field of medicinal treatments. My brother follows this man with an almost cult like fervor so getting through to him about Mr. Trudeau's unsavory past and reputation for being a modern snake oil salesman wasn't terribly successful if not straight up counter productive. I will have to make note of that in the future as to a man such as my brother with an illness such as the one he has tends to find pattern in everything even where there is none. So I suppose my brother now is convinced that because the government has sued him, banned him, and imprisoned him, that that somehow legitimizes his claims about the governments conspiracy to cover up their using the pharmaceutical industry and the sick as wallets with pig tails. When my brother came to me yesterday morning, he had been up all night, which in my opinion is not good.
Later yesterday evening, I came home from running errands, and my brother was still up and I began to get concerned. I get concerned that when he is not getting regular sleep, it means that his schizophrenia is usually the cause. However this begins a cycle. He stays up because of his schizophrenia, which in turn makes him extremely exhausted, which in turn makes him more prone to seizures, which in turn makes his schizophrenia worse, which makes him stay up longer, thereby causing him to have more seizures, which in turn makes his schizophrenia worse, rinse, repeat until he completely looses it. I just got home from hanging out with a friend today (9/7/12) at 2:30 a.m. (I am on a night schedule) and walked into my brother laying on the couch awkwardly, convulsing mildly (which means I missed the worst of the seizure and he was "coming down" from it) and the coffee table turned over and all his bills, pills, everything scattered about the floor. My prediction was in fact correct, my brother is having epileptic fits while I am away, and it is due to two things, lack of sleep, and missing his medications. I predict that in a weeks time my brother will still not have filled his psych meds, be pulling 48 hours stints, or maybe even longer as he has been known to go as long as 72 hours or more without sleep and his epilepsy will get worse, he will have more seizures, and being that he is still not medicated with his psych meds, he will get more and more paranoid as time moves on. Honestly, I think that what my brother needs more than anything is a schedule where he gets regular sleep. What a shame that no more than he steps foot into his home that he is back to his regular habits that cause his seizures and schizophrenia. I don't know what to do as if this continues any further, it will get worse. I'm getting exhausted with this.
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