Courageous

I will never forget taking Cory for her first ECT treatment.  She'd been in the hospital for about ten days, poked, prodded, and interviewed by a team of psychiatrists.  Med changes were not helping.  She was what they called "treatment resistant" which was a fancy way of saying that no matter what we threw at her symptoms, they kept right on like a runaway train.

The decision to try ECT had been a difficult one to reach.  More than anything, Cory wanted some relief.  In the face of her suffering, anything was worth a try. 

Mom and I met her in her room, and waited on a little bench in the hall as they arranged a driver to take us from one wing of the hospital to the ECT clinic.  Cory was nervous, but hopeful.  Her main fear was that the agents were in cahoots with the doctor who would be conducting the procedure, and they would make a mistake with the anesthesia.  Ever since her second grade teacher had shared that she'd lost her husband in a routine surgery due to problems with the anesthesia, Cory had feared being put under.  The delusions didn't help one bit.

Later, Cory would declare that the worst part of having ECT was getting the IV put in her hand.  They had a devil of a time with it.  That poor girl was already poked at the lab weekly to track the levels of medication in her system.  Needles were not her friends.

Once she was situated, Mom and I could wait with her until it was her turn to go back.  When I looked down at her pale face, her hair fluffed haphazardly against the pillow, and her arms full- Duck nestled into one and her American Girl doll clutched in the other- I didn't see fear.  I saw strength- sheer strength and a brute determination. 

As we took turns reassuring her -or maybe ourselves- that all would go well, she spoke up, "I know it will.  Rebecca has a prayer cloth tucked under her dress."  she said, and gestured to her doll.  The pastor and elders of my parents' church had anointed and prayed over a cloth, and sent to Cory for this trying time.

I looked down at my girl, who was seventeen, but spoke to me in the same little girl voice I remembered from years gone by.  If I could trade places with her...If I could take it from her, bear it for her...

The clinic sent a clergy person to pray with us.  Cory's face was calm.  She clutched my hand, and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out if she was trying to draw strength from me or pass it to me.

Before we knew it, it was her turn.  I kissed my girl full on the lips, and told her I loved her.  They wheeled her away.

Mom and I were shown to the waiting room.  My insides were a jumbled mess that immediately demanded to be taken to the nearest restroom.  I took the short trip down the corridor, and found it.  When I returned to the waiting room, I was preparing to sit, when they called my name.  It was over...that soon.

In the time it had taken for me to find the restroom, they had somehow (because no one really knows how ECT works) reset the neurotransmitters in my baby's brain.   Amazing.