E sther’s Journey Part I
Esther woke up at 2 a.m. to find her 20-year-old son Duvi screaming in the front yard. She did the smart thing and called an ambulance to bring him to the local emergency room. Duvi received a cursory medical evaluation and was subsequently seen by the hospital’s overnight psychiatrist. After hearing Duvi’s concerns about the Mossad and some strange connections related to the lottery the psychiatrist recommended that Duvi be transferred to a psychiatric hospital for further evaluation and management.
At the psychiatric facility Duvi was reluctant to take medications at first. But when another patient told him that he might be stuck there all summer if he refused treatment Duvi decided he’d play ball. The doctors recommended a low dose of an antipsychotic medication which Duvi agreed to try on condition that he’d be discharged sooner rather than later. This was certainly a good thing as Duvi hated the hospital and his mother cried every day when she came to visit.
Duvi’s symptoms improved over the course of a few days and his treatment team started discussing discharge. Later that day Duvi admitted to the doctor that he had been smoking marijuana with a few friends the night he was hospitalized and the psychiatrist told him that this could have been the cause of his psychotic episode. The next day at his family meeting the psychiatrist told Duvi and his mom that he might not need the antipsychotic medication in the future if he could stay off of drugs.
Duvi left the hospital before Shabbos and even though Esther was happy to have him home she had no idea what to do or where to turn. Her son appeared relatively normal on the outside and kept talking about how he was looking forward to enjoying the last weeks of the summer with his friends before returning to college.
