My World: when SEPTA takes you home to mania

Last week I was working with a client in Philly. I got up early and caught the train to the city. For some reason it reminded me of this book.

specifically this page:

Except, I'm definitely not Daddy's kitty.*

But still, it makes me feel all grown up and shit, like I'm play acting. Which is kind of crazy considering I have very grownup responsibilities and I'm not play acting with those.

So yes, I was in the city all week working with a client in Chinatown. And if you know me you know that meant I had some good lunches while I was there! We had Japanese one day, Burmese one day, and Malaysian one day. Yumm!!

The whole week working there was great, if tiring. I enjoyed the people working on the project for us and we really clicked. The project itself was super interesting and I learned a lot.

The city part of the week was a nice balance to the home part of the week where Noah was rapidly spiraling into mania.

Unfortunately, the two met up when I received a call from the school nurse on Wednesday while I was waiting in the train station to catch the train home.

The call was to tell me that Noah was racing: body, mind and mouth. The teachers were concerned so they brought him to the nurse to be checked out. By then he was speaking nonsense to them. Real words, but they made no sense in the context of the conversation.

I wasn't able to hear well since I was underground, and I knew my train would be there any second. All I knew was Noah was decompensating and that it was freaking the school out. And I was an hour train ride and then another 15 minute car ride away from Noah. 

Fortunately, I was able to get a hold of Noah's behavior specialist who immediately headed over to the school. While I was on the train I was able to get a hold of the psychiatrist and make sure we were on the same page if I got to the school and he was truly psychotic. Her response was along the lines of "you'll know if he needs to go to the hospital. If he isn't making sense that is not good." 

The rest of the train ride, besides finding myself unconsciously pushing on the seat in front of me like I could make the train move faster, was spent running through all the possible scenarios depending on what I found when I got to Noah. 

I arrived at his school about 15 minutes before the end of the day. He was still manic, but he was making sense. He couldn't stop his body from moving, and couldn't stop talking, but he wasn't as bad as he had been. He did not appear to have crossed that line into psychosis, thankfully.

I took him home and managed to get him to go to karate for a class. The instructors worked him hard, but even trying to tire him out he was still racing. But, he was slightly more regulated.

He's back on his mood stabilizer now, and doing better.

*not really sure what that even means.