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9. Jonah, April 2010: Maintenance Begins
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106 Chapter 9 Jonah, April 2010 Maintenance Begins April 2, 2010 About 6:45, we head uptown for the last in Jonah’s acute series of ECT. Liz isn’t there, which saddens me, because I thought I’d have a chance to say goodbye and thank her for all her many kindnesses . The entire staff at Mount Sinai has been unbelievably warm, concerned, and accommodating. I think sometimes about the accusations levied against ECT doctors like Dr. Kellner by the anti-ECT movement—that they’re just in it for the money. I find this hilarious on so many levels. I can just imagine a young Dr. Kellner consulting with upperclassmen about the specialty he should pursue. “If you really want the big bucks,” one tells him, “forget about plastic surgery. Forget about radiology, anesthesiology, all the cushy jobs you’ve heard about. ECT is where the real money is. People will call you a Nazi and accuse you of torturing patients and violating their human rights, but it’s totally worth the ostracization.” Never mind common sense—there’s actually good, hard data proving that ECT is a bargain compared to other forms of psychiatric treatment because it works so much faster: Canadian researchers analyzing inpatient admissions of adolescents with bipolar disorder found that those who received ECT rang up an average bill of $58,608 Canadian dollars , while those who refused it cost the hospital $143,264—almost two-and-a-half-times more.1 In her 2010 book We’ve Got Issues, Judith Warner examined why parents and psychiatrists give stimulants, antidepressants, and anti psychotics to young people. Although a common perception is that kids are medicated by greedy doctors and hyper-competitive parents worried about whether or not their average preschoolers will get into Harvard, Warner found after researching her book that wasn’t the case: “Almost no parent takes the issue of psychiatric diagnosis lightly or rushes to ‘drug’ his or her child; and . . . responsible child Jonah: Maintenance Begins 107 psychiatrists don’t either,” she wrote.2 And that’s been my experience as well. All Jonah’s psychiatrists—from Dr. Hetznecker to Dr. Wachtel to Dr. Kellner—have shown a tremendous commitment to Jonah’s well-being. They’ve made themselves available to me on evenings and weekends, and have consulted with me so extensively by phone and email without charge that eventually I had to tell Dr. Hetznecker that I wanted him to bill me for his time. Despite all the failed medications, all the times I’ve despaired about ever being able to stop Jonah’s aggression, his doctors have never given up, never ceased searching for the perfect solution. Is ECT the perfect solution? It’s too early to say anything more than that it is helping for now. But regardless of whether it turns out to radically change Jonah’s life or, like so many other interventions, ultimately stop helping, I will never doubt that Jonah’s doctors recommended ECT because they believed it might be that perfect thing. After our Liz-free ECT, Andy and I marshal a wobbly Jonah to the car and drive directly down to Atlantic City. It’s Good Friday, so Andy has off, and we’re taking the whole family down for the first shore weekend of the season. Marina will meet us with the rest of the kids plus the dogs. Even Oat and her husband Brendan are coming, just because they don’t want to miss out on the fun. Jonah’s aide, Amanda, will also be with us for part of the weekend, so we will be flush with help, which is good. The shore has been, in the past, a tough place for Jonah, and I’m wondering how the ECTinduced calm will hold up against the temptation of soft pretzels, French fries, churros, donuts, and so many other treats not even an arm’s length away. We’re the first ones to reach the house, and after unloading the provisions we picked up at a Costco along the way, we call in an order for lunch for the whole gang at our favorite pizza place, Tony Baloney ’s (otherwise known in our household as “Eat Here,” since a large sign, even bigger than the one saying “Tony Baloney’s,” with those words hung over the front door all last summer. Naturally, Jonah deduced the name of the restaurant must be “Eat Here.”) “I’d like to place an...