LabileLobotomy

     Elaine was an elderly woman who still worked on the adult inpatient psychiatric unit. I admired her fortitude; most women in their late sixties would have retired years ago. The problem was, Elaine didn’t feel productive outside the mental ward. She had worked there as an LPT (licensed psychiatric technician) for thirty-five years, and it had consumed her life. Her husband had died ten year ago, and she tolerated his absence by surrounding herself with patients, both lucid and acutely psychotic.
     Elaine shouldn’t have worked in the potentially-dangerous psych ward. She hobbled along with a limp, and was useless during a crisis situation. She had auburn-colored hair that was so poorly-dyed it looked pink. She wore thick bifocals and had a shriveled, red-lipsticked mouth. Often she would grunt when waddling from one end of the unit to the other, her hips waggling, her spine warped with scoliosis from trying to support her obese frame. I also suspected she suffered mild dementia. She forgot simple instructions and asked you to repeat yourself several times, as if her hearing aid had malfunctioned. Honestly, she was a threat to the well-being of her fellow employees. If Elaine was alone on the unit with another nurse, she would not only be helpless during a violent attack, but would also be fair game for several of the sociopath men wandering the halls in search of lambs to fleece and slaughter.
     Still, even though Elaine was a liability, she didn’t deserve what happened to her one terrible night in August.
     Cholo was a 21 year-old paranoid schizophrenic who felt he was always in the FBI’s crosshairs. He saw the world through the distorted lenses of cracked binoculars. He felt helicopters were flying overhead, agents watching him and charting his every move. He also believed nurses would sneak up on him while he showered, injecting sterilizing drugs into his penis with a hypodermic needle so he couldn’t have children. Haldol and Risperdal (anti-psychotic medications) took the edge off his delusions, but he was still labile and occasionally hostile. He couldn’t stand Elaine, who pestered him like a disapproving grandmother.
     Cholo was scheduled for ECT in the morning. ECT (electroconvulsive or shock therapy) was a procedure reserved for severely depressed or catatonic patients. Voltage was applied to the brain with the intent of inducing seizures that would re-align its waves. It was a controversial treatment, and seemed barbaric. The hulking technician who applied the electrodes told me that it was completely safe; the amount of voltage discharged was less than a Duracell AA battery. Unfortunately, even if ECT was successful, it usually wore off in a few months. I had seen patients return from electroshock with artificial smiles, their faces twisted with confusion. They seemed synthetically happy, as if their emotions were manufactured. I often wondered if short-term memory loss took away their depression by making them forget the tragedies that caused their overwhelming sadness.
     One night at 2 a.m., Cholo wandered outside for a drink of water. He wore a white tank-top, a gold cross on a chain, and had a blue/green tattoo of the Virgin Mary inscribed on his shoulder. His lean body rippled with muscle. His head was shaved and he had black stubble on his jaws. Even as he approached the fountain, Elaine tried to intercept him.
     “Mr. Ramirez you can’t have any water,” she scolded. “You have your ECT treatment tomorrow and are nothing-by-mouth.”
     Cholo ignored her, yawning into his palm. The medications left him sedated and mind-numbed.
     “Mr. Ramirez, you can’t have no water,” she repeated, moving out of the nurses’ station through a swinging door. “If you do your ECT will be cancelled and Dr. Drenan will not be happy.”
     “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Cholo mumbled. He grabbed a Dixie cup from the dispenser and rubbed his chin.
     “MR. RAMIREZ.” Elaine’s voice rose an octave. “YOU CAN’T DRINK ANY WATER. IT IS AGAINST PROTOCOL.”
     “You better back off,” Cholo mumbled, flashing her an irritated glance. “You ain’t my moms and you sure as hell ain’t got my respect. Geritol-snorting, hip-replacement bitch.”
     Elaine grew distraught. She hobbled toward Cholo, her eyes panicked. She believed that if Cholo drank the water, it would be her fault if his ECT was delayed. She was an old-school nurse who stood up and offered her chair when a doctor entered the room, even though her joints were rusty with arthritis.
     Cholo’s face twitched. His lethargy washed away and he became stiff with annoyance. He almost crushed the Dixie cup in his fist as he placed it under the spout.
     “MR. RAMIREZ. YOU ARE NOT LISTENING. YOU ARE GOING AGAINST PROTOCOL. THE DOCTOR WILL NOT BE PLEASED. YOU CAN’T HAVE THE WATER BECAUSE YOUR STOMACH MUST BE EMPTY FOR THE ECT. OTHERWISE YOU MIGHT CHOKE DURING ANESTHESIA.”
     Elaine grabbed his forearm. He jerked away and water splashed his tank-top. His gold crucifix was drenched. Cholo stared at the damp spot and his face flushed with rage.
     “WHAT THE HELL,” he snarled, stalking toward her. “YOU MADE ME WET MYSELF. I DON’T CARE IF YOU IS SOME DINOSAUR WITH A CANE, YOU CAN’T TOUCH ME. BITCH, YOU JUST SPIT ON MY CROSS. NO ONE DOES THAT TO THE SAINTS.”
     Cholo grabbed her hair and wrenched it to the side. A wig popped off, showing milk-white scalp beneath. Later I would wonder if Elaine’s dementia was so prevalent she forgot her hair was fake when dying the auburn strands.
     Elaine scrabbled away. Cholo flung aside the wig and loomed over her. He grabbed a potted plant off the counter and smashed it against Elaine’s head. The pot cracked and wet soil dribbled down her face, blinding her. She wailed, then fell silent. Cholo took a sharp fragment of the pottery and slashed her face from eye to jaw line. Then he tried to stuff the plant’s roots into her mouth.
     A nurse emerged from the break room, yanking the emergency cord. Alarms screamed and the unit was flooded with workers, mostly male. Cholo stooped over Elaine for a moment, mumbling incoherently, then dried off his cross with a napkin. He wandered away, holding his hands up and flattening himself against the wall when he saw the workers swarming around him. He smiled and told the “FBI spooks” he knew they were spying on him, because he had seen the camera they installed in the ceiling behind the light bulb.
     Elaine lay motionless on the floor. Blood trickled from her nose. Her pupils looked fixed and dilated. She didn’t respond to urgent hands shaking her. She was suffering from an intracranial hemorrhage (brain bleed) that would leave her with partial paralysis.
     Elaine loved being in the psychiatric center. She had 30 years of experience working with volatile patients. There had been talk for months about whether she should be coaxed to resign because she was “unfit for duty”. Managers thought they would be doing her a disservice by firing her. They didn’t have any evidence to support her dismissal. Now a paranoid, delusional man who confused her for a nagging parole officer had forced an early retirement in which she would lay in bed most of the day, half her body erased, her mind plagued by seizures, her eyes staring at a dingy grey wall that was as bleak as her future.