Click on the link below to see Sherri’s video of what her son’s apartment looks like when she checks in on him.
https://www.facebook.com/sherri.mcgimsey/videos/10214387428258897/
This video shows just a small piece of what fighting to keep your child, with brain disease, alive looks like.
Our Beautiful Mind was med compliant, yet the meds were not working. The VA MHICH (Mental Health Intensive Case Management) team visited every week. A nurse came to give Matt injections every two weeks. One said to me, “Your level of clean is different from another’s.” He was not her child.
We talked every day. We saw him almost every day. We cleaned every week. (The cost to hire someone to clean up bodily fluids was prohibitive.) Matt threw up “the evil,” for years, when he lived in our home and then when he lived, independently, in our community. He was isolated living with us and isolated living alone.
Today will be day 486 of 22 veterans dying by suicide each day, and Day 486 we’re thankful we still have our son. Tomorrow, Matt gets a pass. Today, he’s the best he can be due to care and treatment he’s receiving.
I’ve learned, if you’ve not lived it, you’ll never really understand the struggle. So I’m sharing our struggles, hopefully, for more understanding, more facilities, and more crisis teams. I’m not sure what more I can do, until laws are changed and people truly believe that taking care of our weakest is more cost effective than not caring.
Every day I learn a little more, and this angry mom simmers. What if Matt had received the proper care after that first psychosis? I take deep breaths and hang onto hope that younger moms never have to fight this hard, or have to worry if their child will live to see another day.
Cure schizophrenia. We have to do better and we need your help.