In the winter of 2009, my husband was suffering from an episode of depression. He had been in and out of the hospital a couple of times, and earlier, had been given the drug, Abilify. My husband is also diabetic, and I questioned the used of this drug under those circumstances. At any rate, he had been on this drug for about a year before 2009. There seemed to be no problems with him maintaining his blood sugar levels, but he continued began to, and continued to, loose weight. He developed tremors in his hands as well as cramping in his hands and feet. During this time, none of his doctors seemed to think that there was a problem.
Eventually, in Jan. 2009-he felt that he needed to check into the hospital again, as his depression was not being relieved. During previous 6 months, he had lost over 60 lbs.
While at the hospital they did not take any notice at all of the weight loss, tremors or cramping. They took him off of Ablify, cold turkey. Something which I found out later is never supposed to be done. They only kept him there for a couple of days, and sent him home in as bad a condition as he went in.
He began to develop serious anxiety after a few days. He did his best to cope, but did not function well. His blood sugars were running a little low, but nothing he could not deal with quickly. Then, exactly 4 weeks, when the Abilify would have been completely out of his system, he went into a coma while he was sleeping. His blood sugar was 37.
Ablify, if you don’t know, can cause blood sugar to rise. It is my thought that this drug kept his blood sugar at higher levels, inspite of his weight loss, and when they took him off of it, the blood sugar levels caught up, and plunged to deadly lows. The hospital never took any of this into consideration when putting him on, or taking him off of this drug.
Now, my huband is almost a year into his brain injury recovery, and recovery is a very loose word for it.
He has been shuffled around from rehab to hospital to nursing home and back and forth so many times that I have lost count.
He was doing pretty well at a rehab about 4 months into his recovery. Then, he broke a toe by running over it with his wheel chair. They sent him to the hospital. The same hospital that gave him the abilify to begin with, and they did not watch him, a brain injured person, while he was placed on a high gurney in a hall way waiting for an x-ray. He fell off of the gurney, and recieved a very nasty, brand new head injury.
His recovery pretty well stopped there.
He is in a rehab now, he wear diapers, he crawls around on his hands and knees, he screams horrible words at the top of his lungs, and he has to be fed, washed and cared for by others.
I have not been able to find a support group that I can get to. I am living well below the poverty level. The state took away my medical coverage as they decided that since my husband no longer lived with me, I was no longer covered by his insurance. I can’t get my medication, or see doctors. I have several health issues, and now, some serious mental health issues…but, I can’t get any help from any place.
I am totally alone, I am broke, I am married, but don’t have a husband, and for the most part, my life is over.
I have no hope, I have no dreams, I have no one to hug me and tell me that I will get through this.
Mostly, I miss my husband. I see him, and he looks like my husband, but it is only a shell.
How on earth can you move on from this?