The Society for Curious Thought

I liked Elaine from the first time I saw her, her thick, black, long, matted, gothic hair, the overdose of eyeliner, her black clothes, she didn’t give a shit about dress code. A no nonsense, principled woman with a teenage daughter. Elaine, proud single mother, just qualified, interested in forensic psychiatry. She likes to read me bedtime stories, hand me malt chewing gum, stroke my head when I lie in the bed stretched across the doorway. It is Nine thirty-three. The doctor is choosing.

 I scratch my fingers down my shaven scarred head, sit huddling, shaking, in the Off Privileges moulded chair. Dragged out from the red lino cell into the corridor, placed in front of the office, first door past the dayroom. Through the wooden doorframe Skippy chuckles in low mumbling gurgles and kicks something that clunks.

Lorazepam.

It has a sleepy-cuddly feeling, like a long lost call from home, a drifting towards numbness, lights slowly being turned down to dim, a falling asleep.

Droperidol.

Has me gasping on the floor, locked-jaw, muscles in my chest contracting, every breath harder to force, breathing a pitched choking gasp. Spinning is the beginning of passing out. My diaphragm then relaxes and struggles for shorter and shorter intakes of air. Start again. My leg, it jerks upwards, tendons tightening, hoisting my thigh up into the air. My neck, it folds sideways towards my left shoulder; cannot straighten my head. Teeth lock,  tongue gets caught. They dig into its fleshy tissue, blood spreading, tasting, inside my mouth. I can’t separate my jaws. On John Clare Ward I had suffered so much to finally grasp, clutch that pink liquid Lorazepam. I had pleaded, begged with Maria while I was on John Clare for that year; ‘Why Droperidol?’

Jerry would say; ‘You get out of that chair one more time and you’ll get an injection and you know what that means.’  Squirming on the floor until the side effects of the Droperidol wore off or until Maria came on duty, took pity, injected me with Procyclidine, or until I slept a long sleep - that’s what getting out of the chair meant! Droperidol with no anti-side effect medication. Jerry and Noel and Dave Weirs and Chris and the Johns, and all the nursing assistants and other staff that turned a blind eye to it, their own brand of negative reinforcement.

They tried to make me to eat meals when I could not force my jaws apart, could not balance their tray on my leg that was trembling at an angle in the air. And then, food spilt, they would start two-hour target again. That heat through the double-glazed Perspex windows of the Off Privilege lounge on John Clare, sweat would roll down my face, sticking the cloth of my clothes to my back and groin and chest. Muscles in spasm. Food scraped once again off the floor back onto the plate for me to try and eat again.

I had pleaded for a year with Maria, Charge Nurse on the ‘A’ shift on John Clare, to take me off Droperidol and in the final months of my stay there Maria took my side. Got it changed to the pink liquid, Lorazepam, a sleepy, doped up feeling with no side effects. Dr Burnett is on call tonight on Herrarward Wake. Dr Burnett, prescribed the Droperidol on John Clare. The staff nurse appears from the short corridor from the clinical room with a medication tot in her hand. A clear fluid.

“I...I am allergic to Droperidol.”

“Dr Burnett has provided Procylodine.” She shoves the tot in front of my mouth. I can smell the bitterness.

Elaine steps forward, crouches down, wipes the sweat sweeping down the sides of my face as my skin cries.

“How much?” I ask,, cringing away from the staff nurse, away from her and the bitter pot.

“Twenty milligrams of Droperidol, and five milligrams of Procylodine if you need it.”

“It’s not, its not a high enough dose of Procylodine, nurse.” Memory crawls through my bones. My gaze freezes as I look at her, her and her coldness. “Dr Holding prescribes fifteen milligrams, fifteen milligrams of Procylodine because I am allergic to it.” I look at her elixir.

“We will give you more if you need it.” The staff nurse walks away.

False, empty, placating promises have a ring that resounds in my ears like the dying dull echo of a bell.

Elaine, Droperidol tot in her hand, gestures it towards me.

“No.”

She casts her gaze at the floor, then looks up, her green eyes lights in her dark eye make-up. “If you get side effects, will, I’ll make sure you get the Procylodine.”

“It’s not enough Elaine,” I whisper, “it won’t do any good.”

Gently but firmly she places the medicine cup into my hand and guides it towards my mouth. “Its better than them giving it to you IM I’ve made sure they’re not giving it to you IM before they give you the chance to take it orally.” She brushes aside her matt of long black hair interfering as she moves her mouth.

“Please take it.”

I close my eyes and let the bitter treacle burn my throat.

It is a waiting game. I watched a girl in the Middlesex Hospital have Chemotherapy. After the first dose she still had a head of hair.  Her mother wanted her to cut her golden locks short so that when it fell out it wouldn’t be noticeable. The girl knew in her head that she would lose her hair, but heart said; perhaps, perhaps, and she hoped she would be the one, the one it didn’t happen to, and said ‘no’ to her mum. Now I hope against my head. Hope, this time, side effects will pass me by. Every twinge in my leg sends my heart into a pulp. Slowly, ever so slowly, the muscles in my legs start to strain in opposite ways, lifting, grating, against my will as I try to push it down. My neck is locking sideways. My teeth, they’re making the noise of a nail on a chalk board.

Gul Davis