While I found psychiatrists and new solutions for Nick, and drove endless miles to visit him in hospitals, and Julie learned how to live with him, hire his nurses, and fold his laundry, John provided, at times, something even more important. As a mother, I deal in the practical and the concrete. I buy shoes for the kids, take them to the dentist and the doctor, watch them at ballet, make peanut butter sandwiches, and buy them new toys when their old ones get broken. I am always there for them. And what I offer them is pretty straightforward.
John’s real strength is sometimes more esoteric. He chases down ideas until they become real, pores over articles and discovers new drugs and treatments for what ails us. He hunts down pharmacologists, hears about new medicines, and comes up with some pretty wild ideas. Like all people who live together, I often ignored him. It’s difficult to focus at times on some new cure for malaria, which no one has at the moment anyway, when I have to buy the dog a new collar, and can’t find Zara’s other sneaker.
But John is an absolute bloodhound about things that intrigue him. Only a few months before Nick died, John went to see a psychopharmacologist at Stanford, and not only discovered an adverse reaction between two of the drugs he was taking, if a third one was added, but researched some entirely new drugs for Nicky. Unfortunately, we never got the chance to try them.
But shortly after Nick moved in with Julie, we heard of a doctor at UCLA, who specialized in manic depression and Attention Deficit Disorder. We discussed it with Dr. Seifried, who encouraged us to see him. And I believe the doctor in L.A. suffered from ADD himself, and was apparently brilliant on both subjects. In truth, he would change the quality of Nick’s life forever. Without his visit to the doctor at UCLA, I suspect Nick’s life would have come to a tragic end far more quickly than it did.
They sent a hundred-page questionnaire for us to fill out about Nick. And I did it because I was the only one who had most of the information. There were a vast number of questions about my pregnancy, the delivery, and the first years of Nicky’s life, some of which I had even forgotten. They needed other information as well, and I referred to the thick medical files we had on him. By then, Nick’s medical records looked like the New York phone book. With the questionnaire in hand, all filled out, John and Julie went to L.A. with Nick and the meeting went very well. The doctor didn’t waste any time, having reviewed our answers to his questions, and after talking to Nick, he wrote out a prescription for lithium. He said he believed Nick was manic-depressive. It was the first clear diagnosis we’d had. He said that if lithium was inappropriate for Nick, it would do nothing for him. If on the other hand it was the right solution for him, we would see a miracle within three to four weeks. His blood levels would have to be monitored at first to establish the right dose for him. It sounded vaguely complicated when they told me about it, but well worth it, despite a potential risk to his kidneys. But by then we felt we had no choice. It was his kidneys or his life.
The lithium was worth a try at least, and by that point, in order to improve the quality of his life, I was willing to risk his kidneys. His kidneys wouldn’t be much good to him if he committed suicide, or eventually wound up in an institution. It still seemed like a possibility, and one I was willing to do anything to avoid.
Nick began taking the medication in November, a year after he had started taking his first medication. And he could still take the Prozac he took with the lithium. In fact, the doctor in L.A. thought it an ideal combination, and Dr. Seifried agreed with him. He was totally in favor of trying the lithium on Nick and agreed with the L.A. doctor’s diagnosis. Nick was beginning to seem truly manic-depressive by then.
Lithium allowed Nick to feel and believe that he was normal. But the prospect of taking it, and facing the fact that he had a disease, must have been endlessly traumatic for him. The night he came back from UCLA with the prescription in hand, he went quietly to his room and then announced he was going to jump off the roof. Fortunately, we were able to calm him down quickly. But after a fairly pleasant day in L.A., that was his immediate reaction. It reminded us yet again how badly he needed help. But from that day on, there was no further talk of suicide in his daily life, or in his journals.
Nick was nervous about taking the lithium, but nonetheless submitted himself to constant blood tests. Once or twice he said it was a dumb idea, and insisted he didn’t need it. He had denial about being manic-depressive and the lithium would be the final test, we realized. If it worked for him, it would prove the acute chemical imbalance we had long since suspected. It was the final lap of an endless witch hunt. And trying to pretend it wasn’t as important to us as it was, we all went about our business. It was difficult not to watch Nick like a laboratory experiment and he must have felt under constant scrutiny, which he was. But he was back at school, visiting us at home frequently, and enjoying playing with the band he was still in, Link 80.
But there was no denying the results three weeks later. Nick was a changed person. Happy, good-humored, sane, well-balanced, calm, and getting A’s in school. The miracle had worked. The idea had been brilliant. Since I am violently allergic to penicillin and it risks my life, I have never thought of it as the miracle drug everyone else claims it is. But there was no question in my mind about lithium. For Nick, it was a miracle drug. Our long search for help had paid off for him. It worked! It helped him! And with the wonder drug it became for us, and for him, a whole new life began for Nicky. After what I saw it do for Nick, I will forever sing its praises. It made him feel a little queasy at first, but he got over it. And we had to keep trimming the sails a bit, adjusting the doses, but it gave him the opportunity for a life he would never have had otherwise. It gave him normalcy, and a chance for a productive life, which he took full advantage of from then on. And in no way did it impact his kidneys.
The key to making the drug work for him was in the delicate balancing act it became to keep it at the right levels for him. It was a juggling act we were constantly aware of. We never dropped the ball. Without the medication, or too little of it, one slip, and one only, could prove fatal if he were to become fatally depressed and attempt suicide. But for three years, it made Nick’s dreams come true, and ours for him. It gave him life as surely as blood or oxygen or his heartbeat. Without it, we could never have helped him. With it, he had a real life.
He went back to the hospital three times in the next year, for five days or a week each time, to adjust his medications. Considering how often he’d been in for the year and a half before, it really was a miracle. And the hospital he went back to was the small, friendly one in the East Bay. He was comfortable there, never objected to it, and I liked it because I knew he was safe and well cared for there.
Sometime during this period as well, Nick managed to spend a few hours one afternoon with his biological father. Bill came by his school, and I don’t know if it was an accident or prearranged. They spent an hour or two together, and I think Nick was startled by how ravaged Bill seemed by his drug life. And after that afternoon, they did not meet again. Ever. Nick had satisfied his curiosity and seemed ready to move on.
Being on lithium allowed Nick to pursue a normal life. He went to school, and concentrated on his music. During that entire year, he devoted himself to his band. I knew it was important to him, but I had no idea just how talented he was. I began to hear ripples of how good they were, and how well the band was doing.
But the best and worst of the lithium was how normal it made him feel. The danger there is what happens to most manic-depressives who take lithium. At some point, they decide they’re fine, cured obviously, and no longer need it. When that happens, disaster strikes, as surely as the sun comes up each morning. But Nick took it for nearly two years before challenging it, which gave him plenty of time to enjoy life, and his music. And I was thrilled for him. We all were.