Back on earth

I'm back. It's still autumn. It's still warm and the roads are carpeted with leaves. It's quite beautiful really. Stunning. I'm lucky because I can take the dog for a walk and see other people that I recognise as other dog walkers and the shop and stall owners who know us and we can meet and greet. It stops me from being invisible. Of course I'm still invisible when I'm dog-less. I think that Zach needs to be less invisible, although I suppose he'd rather be invisible if it means that no one knows him as the 'nutcase' of Ladakh.

We've reached terra firma again. It's reasonably firm. I'm not too sure what damage he's done to himself this time. It's taken a toll of him. He's quite exhausted and unfit. He still looks quite well though. He says that he's taken all the meds. He's not sweaty and he's eating. His conversation is constrained. I think that he's making an effort not to inject any 'Zachisms' into what he says to me. The stuff he knows that I dislike with a vengeance having to listen to. He says that he'll give the music one last try. So there's insight there. He still wants to do something abroad though. He says that London is bad for him. Absolutely. But to work in the mountains? In the altitude again?

Ideally, Zach says, he'd like to find something to do every day. Keep himself busy. See people. But what? Does anyone have any ideas? There's Oxfam in the High Street. They want volunteers for some hours a week. But is that any good for Zach? He would like to take some courses. He said that he'd go to the local library to see what was on offer. The inherent wishes are there but the motivation to get up and go is something else. I wish that I knew the answer. Again it's how much do I get involved? But if I don't, could he do it himself?

Greetings from 'the Land.'

I must apologise. I'm away. In 'the land', among the sun and the palm trees and the absolutely azure Mediterranean and having a sublime time. It's nice because I can try and switch off. Sam is with me and we have seen Beth in situ and she's fine and having the best moments of her life. She asks about Zach in a tangential way, almost as if she doesn't really want to know. And I understand that. We're returning to what I understand is a cold and noisy London on Monday night and the blogs will recommence from then on.

We hear from Zach when Sam calls. He's been to see his GP but decided against the drugs counselling and has stopped the medication that's supposed to eradicate the need for opiates. He said that the pills were giving him terrible side effects. Don't opiates give you 'terrible side effects'? Quite frankly I would have thought that some side effects, thus negating the need for heroin. would have been worth while. But then I wouldn't have started along that route in the first place...

To some extent I'm quite despondent about Zach's future. He says that he's taking all the Bipolar medication. Maybe if he continues to do so, then the need for other forms of highs will be prohibited by the fact that he's 'balanced.' However, he's not of a mind to want to be 'balanced' at the best of times. We shall have to see.

In any event, I'm going off to enjoy the sun for the next couple of days because I know that next Saturday I won't be able to walk along the shore, watching the dogs and their owners having a whale of a time at the dog beach, or the gays on the gay beach or the orthodox on the orthodox beach. I won't be able to sit outside a beachside cafe and drink upsidedown coffee or ice cafe or eat humus and techina and tiny salad in freshly baked pita or pungent black bread. I won't be able to watch the cyclists and the skaters and the runners and the walkers. I watch the surfboarders and the windsurfers and wonder how they have the termerity and bravery to stay atop the waves. I'd drown. And noisily.

It's not a question of it being a dreamlike quality and reality hitting back when we get back 'home.' I'm saving it all up and will bring out a memory each time that I hit the blackspot when it all gets too much and imagine that I'm still here. And Zach will have to deal with that.

Doomed to repeat those errors again

The sun is shining now. When we walked on the Heath this morning, I had to cover myself in my burka-like hood so that I wasn't a sodden human being. The dog dragged his bedraggled body along the paths. He doesn't like getting wet but unlike ex-dog he, at least, doesn't avoid puddles. I hate the wet. I live in the wrong country for walking dog. I went out at the wrong time. Now it looks like a summer's day again. When will I ever learn?

Indeed, do we ever learn? Why do we keep repeating patterns of behaviour, as if past experiences were part of an amnesiac's brain? This can be extrapolated globally, cif. the UN. But on a macro level we appear doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

We saw Zach on Wednesday night. A birthday dinner with Sam's mother. A nice evening. Zach was quiet. Controlled. An improvement over the weekend when he was, evidently, elated. He says he's taking all the meds but I'm not too sure about controlling his addictions. I hope that his mind will control his urges in that direction. But from past experience I can't say that I'm too hopeful. I know that he wants to but doesn't the desire far outweigh the hope? He needs to accept the right help. I can't see it happening though.

Are there times when we meet ourselves re-walking the same paths that we have walked before? Would that there be something new. Something positive. Only time will tell, they say. Will it?

And so we begin (Again)

An endless line of cars stretched into the short term parking at Heathrow. Saturday night. Around 6.30pm. Probably, apart from the 'red eye', the busiest time of the day. All the flights arriving were from the Middle East, the Far East and Africa.

You would never have believed that you were in England. The terminal was heaving. Thousands of passengers. Most of them alighting from flights as diverse as Oman, Lagos, Jakarta, Delhi, Yemen. A crush besides the barriers. Families vying for positions close to the doors from whence their mothers, fathers, siblings and friends pushed their trollies and buggies. A couple in full African regalia were pushed along in wheelchairs. They looked like the king and queen of an ancient African state, glistening with gold, diamonds and bright red lipstick. Another young woman in a burka appeared alone with one child in a buggy, another toddling at the side and a baby grasped around its middle in a pink all-in-one. She looked exhausted and sad. There didn't appear to be anyone with her apart from the children. But then where was her baggage? Presumably her husband had gone along in front but I couldn't see him.

We both peered around looking for Zach. He'd texted us on someone else's phone to say that the plane had taxied to its spot and was about to stop. Then I saw a lone white face waving towards where I was standing. For a moment I didn't recognise it. Then I realised that it was Zach! How well he looked initially. He'd put on some weight and didn't look gaunt and haggard. His face had filled out and he'd had his hair cut well and was wearing a clean and elegant purple linen shirt and new jeans and shoes and bag. He hugged me and, I thought, gosh, he looks older. Like the 30 year old that he is...

A return car journey. A meal locally and an analysis of how Zach presented himself psychologically. There wasn't really too much that we could talk about because he was still somewhat delusional. A coup in Ladakh. A Chinese take-over. The entire area overrun with Chinese soldiers. A trek to a lake through 'enemy controlled countryside' where gurkha soldiers aided him and from where he was accompanied back to Leh on the back of a motorbike. Of course it had nothing to do with his state of mind that he took himself off without provisions or water. He met only the best people. How much of this is true? It's so difficult to determine. We took him home. Much appreciation for my cleaning and happiness to be back in London but after we had left he took himself off to Camden with a friend...

The problem is that Zach now wants to revert to how things were before but without the attendant heroin. He's happy to take the medication that obviates the need for opioids and the meds that should control the mood swings. He'll even take some of the anti-psychotic medication that will help him sleep but for how long is anyone's guess. He's been prescribed a cocktail that should really make a huge impact on his life but he's still resistant to lithium and, I do believe, has discarded it already.

Yesterday evening Zach came around for a quick visit full of plans. He's got some insight into when he's warbling on and when he's talking complete nonsense. He says how much he liked the psychologist and that he wants to continue their sessions online. He's still not well though. Maybe he has what is called a 'mixed state.' He's elated but, I believe, quite depressed. How the mood goes over the next few days is something that we shall have to watch. It could go either way. If he stops sleeping, stops taking the right amount of medication or starts smoking weed, then I'm not hopeful. Maybe he should have stayed in hospital longer. Maybe we were too impatient to bring him back here.

More interesting times.

Phew! Return returns and stressful situations

Zach is coming back tomorrow night. I can't say that I'm excited about it. More like stressed, enervated, anxious. He's excited about it. So much so that Sam was worried that he was spiralling again. That's all we need. Another reprise of 2007. Weeks in hospital, then return to London and a squat among the market stalls in Camden. I can't see that we'll get any help from the NHS. Zach's been 'out of the loop' for the last two years. No CPN (community psychiatric nurse) has ever been doled out; the social worker disappeared off the scene. The hospital psychiatrist left his post and no one has bothered to contact Zach. Great.

The past few days have been spent waiting for the man from the electicity company to come back and switch on the lights. I got a parking ticket for that. Four hours backbreaking cleaning. The bathroom and kitchen look far less squalid now. I kept on looking for ratty but he didn't show his face. Maybe the smell of cleaning fluid and bleach frightened him. It was a new experience. I don't think that the kitchen floor had ever seen a mop before. I doubt that it will again but I left it behind. No doubt if I go back in six months it will still be in the same place.

Apart from dust and discarded cigarettes and ash, there wasn't too much to clean in the main room. The poor plants had mostly died. How can you kill a cactus? Poor sad things, all wilty brown leaves and crumbly earth. I tried to revive them but my Hippocratic skills, learned when I started my MSc at Imperial, were weak. Dosing them with water only created crators among the scorched soil. Maybe he can leave them outside in the rain. They need tender loving care.

The bits and pieces of groceries have been put away. The kitchen and bathroom almost shine but I wonder for how long. Other friends ask their cleaners to clean their respective kids' flats. I don't know if I could do that. It makes sense but then he'll never even lift a wet cloth to a tea stain in the knowledge that L. the clean will come along and make it pretty again.

The psychiatrist has sent him home with two weeks' meds. The psychologist has given him her advice and directions as to how best live his life. Ragesh is making his way back to Nepal, no doubt having made a friend for life. But at what cost? And the wonderfully kind men from the High Commission have extended their friendship. So rare among the various embassies and high commissions and consulates.

We'll be at the airport to see Zach among the crush of bodies on the New Delhi flight. Once again. How many times? He says that he's bought new clothes. That we should be 'proud' of the way he looks. That he wants to continue 'some' medication. I can't bare the thought of the extended conversation. The one that's been ensuing for twelve years. The thought of relapse makes me breathless. Then I think of the man with no arms and legs. It's not THAT bad!

Worry-men and inspirational talk

There's an old parable about the 'worry-man.' From place to place, village to village, shtetl to shtetl, he goes around with his long wooden stick. In each village they come out to greet him and he shows them the stick and asks them to tie their worry to it. After half an hour it's emblazoned with worries. 'Take one!' he tells the people. 'Take any one. Any one that doesn't belong to you!' The villagers look at one another. Can this be true, they ask one another. Can we take someone else's problems, anxieties, worries?

One villager steps forward and pulls off a piece of paper and the string attached from the stick. Another one follows suit. Then another and another. Each person takes a new worry. Something that they hadn't had, something that they didn't want. They look at the writing. They look at each other then, after some seconds, stealthily they tread towards the worry-man, while he regards them with a short smile around his lips, his eyes beady with intelligence.

'I'm not sure that I want this one,' a tubby woman tells him. 'I've enough worries of my own...' She reaches up to where she had initially tied her problem. 'I think I'll keep it. If you don't mind.' On and on the villagers untie their problems. Half an hour later, they walk back to their houses, crushing the paper between their fingers, throwing it into the fires that burn in the blackened grates. The worry-man continues onwards, towards another village, another shtetl. Who needs someone else's tsuris, or worries, when you know your own?

I watched a short video yesterday about a man who was born with no arms and no legs, apart from a fin attached to what must have been a stump. A torso with a head. A young, handsome man who goes around to schools and colleges, talking about his particular tsuris, making the point - not necessarily elegantly - about things being far worse than you think they are. You wonder how on earth he manages to pee or scratch his nose, shave, eat, move from school to school. He's supposed to be inspirational. Your weight gain or your insecurities or your cancer or insanity are nothing compared to me! Yes, they are inconsequential if it means that the alternative is to have no arms or legs and to be reliant on a host of people to do the basic, basic things.

So I guess that I'll stick to the insanity on my doorstep that permeates my existence. I don't want someone else's problems. The worry-man can sleep peacefully knowing that I won't tie my problems to his wooden stick. Although sometimes I do dream differently.

Of utilities and a waiting game

I've spent most of the day on the phone. In his infinite wisdom Zach doesn't pay bills. Therefore the red ones spirit their way to him predictibly. At the moment there's no electricity in his flat; his filthy flat with the dirty dishes still in the sink. Everything is sticky and I think that Ratty has made himself at home among the piles of pots and pans and garlic bulbs. There's no washing up liquid, of course and the bathroom - you don't want to know. Miraculously everyone I've spoken to, from EDF electricity to Thames Water and British Gas have been incredibly polite, helpful and humane. I've had none of the 'I can't speak with you under the Data Protection Act.'

Obviously call centre personnel are now trained to deal with problems regarding customers with problems. Severe problems. When I explained to the chap in the call centre for the gas supply that Zach was in hospital in the very same city that he was working in, he was just charming. He was probably happy to divert from his script and discuss something outside the usual parameters within which he has to work. He knew of the hospital and where it is situated and wished Zach better and only the best for him.

Now I have to go and spend the day at the flat and wait for a man to switch on the lights. I could well do without having to do that. I'll have to sit in the car, as there's nowhere to park legally and wait for someone to turn up. The things I do for Zach. Does he actually appreciate anything? Unlikely. Frustration turns to anger.

The latest is that Zach may be leaving for London in about ten days. He won't be entirely well but it comes to a point that it will be unproductive having him in hospital. Ideally he would be an outpatient for months to come but he can't live in Delhi. No doubt it will be fun and games when he comes back because, naturally, none of this episode will have been his fault. It never is. He put the phone down on me last time I spoke with him because I told him that I personally would have left him in Ladakh. This time I'm going to sit him down and tell him exactly what I think of him. How well will that go, I wonder.

Blogging blogs that are hopefully read

The inherent problem about writing a blog is that you don't know who's reading it. You look at the number on the stat counter - when it works. Mine, for the second time, decided to give it up and now I've had to start again at the beginning. Frustrating but, ultimately, egotistical. No?

You sit down, you stare at the screen, you begin to write something and then, hopefully, you find a rythm, and something that makes sense invariably turns up. It's like the (famous) Henry Mancini concept: you sit at the piano, you know you have a piece of music to write, you know that you have x time to write it in, so you do and it gets done. Don't ask me how.

So I'm writing my blog and people are reading it and sometimes you get a comment (I wish that there were more!) that floors you. Who could it possibly be from? Who knows so much? Who is it that actually offers more information than you actually have yourself? Your imagination flows. So why be anonymous? And angry?

Little has happened this week. I think that the meds are kicking in. I believe that Zach is now taking a medication that counterracts the desire for heroin. I also believe that he's far less manic but, in a conversation with Sam, Zach still expresses his desire to use cannabis. So, then, what is the point of all this? Just a re-hash (sorry, my pun) of all the previous histories. Isn't it about time that he actually took stock of his life and there was some self-examination? How about going completely clean? You know, no drugs, apart from those medically prescribed? Wouldn't that make sense?

What makes sense is that Zach continues at the clinic in Delhi and enjoy the weather once it clears up and somehow make use of the facilities of detox and rehab and introspection and if and while that happens, I'll write my blog into the ether but hope that I do, indeed as a consequence, get more comments - whatever they are and whoever they are from.

And, by the way, Happy New Year!

Bipolar Days in sodden Delhi

It's been a bipolar week, so to speak. At one end messages of stubborness and starvation, at the other, some better news. It's still raining. The consular official is still stuck on the road to Kashmir because of a landfall during the last days of his holiday. Ironic really, considering that only a few weeks ago Sam, Rickey and Zach were driving along the very same road. At that time only the bridge was out, delaying them for about five hours. This time the side of a mountain has landed on the only road west and so far it's taken five days while Her Majesty's representative has wasted his hours among the trucks and four-wheel drives and their angry and irate travellers, truckers and vacationers. No one knows when he'll get back. The thought of this having happened while Zach, Sam and Rickey were on their way is just too awful to consider.

So another member of HM's High Commission visited the hospital, umbrella at the ready, trousers lifted high above his shoes, his suit jacket splattered with the tumbling rain. He met up with Ragesh and Zach and noted Zach's 'jolly, jovial mood.' Yes, indeedy. Zach was 'jolly and jovial' while he was able to get what he wanted. When he didn't, said HM's rep. he retorted to 'violence.' The reason that poor Ragesh is needed so desperately is that Ragesh keeps Zach calm. I remember a large hole created in a wall in a well-known London hospital. The flat that we had bought so that Zach had somewhere to live other than the streets here was pretty well destroyed before we threw him out two years ago. I doubt that he's violent towards people. It's inanimate objects that he tends to lash out at. Doors, tv controls, walls, guitars.

Yet for the first time since Zach has been diagnosed Bipolar we received a written report from his consultant in Delhi. Isn't it disgraceful that even though he's been sectioned here what, nine times, that we've never had this before? Dr. J. in Delhi was thorough. He wrote about the medication prescribed and it's effects; he wrote about Zach's behaviour and also what they are doing about his drug problems and how they are tackling them. At the moment there's no time scale involved. Another local patient would 'recover' somewhat and then go home and go back to the hospital as an out-patient. Because Zach has no home or family there, he will have to stay in hospital until he, too, 'recovers', if at all he does. The irony is that he travelled to India in order to be cleaned up. Maybe, in this convoluted fashion, he may well end up being 'clean'. How bipolar is that?

It's a Hard Rain Gonna Fall

New Dehli is awash with streams and puddles and it's steaming. The temperature outside is around 35 centigrade and it continues its monsoon. No one is left out of the downward cascade. Around the corner from the hospital is a slum. Sam described the moment they came upon it, trying to find their way back to their hotel. Dozens of women, bottoms up, using the lanes around and about for their personal toilets. He said that the smell was indescribable - as was the sight of such squalor juxtaposed with the skyscrapers of Delhi. I don't think that Zach will want to escape into this - without money or passport.

Things aren't too pretty in the hospital either. Ragesh is fed up with the situation that he's found himself in. The staff at the hospital don't treat him well. Class and caste distinction in India may have eradicated itself on paper but on the ground it exists well into the twenty-first century. Ragesh is a Tibetan Buddist. This is almost on a par, it would appear, with the dalits, or leatherworkers, of the lowest caste. He's called names and treated as Zach's skivvy and Zach, in his mania, isn't too nice to him either. What a gem he is. He's still there. I think that maybe he doesn't want to lose face and leave or that he's totally loyal to Zach or he's frightened to tell us that he wants to go. We ask him each time. 'Ragesh, do you want to go home? You can, you know. Don't feel that you have to stay with Zach...' But Ragesh demurs and he's still there. 'It's been the worst time of my life,' he told Rickey. What to do?

Then there's the other thing. The thing that Zach refuses to eat hospital food. Initially I felt that it was spoilt behaviour but remembering the swill that they served up in the clinic in Greece, I can guess that it's not Le Gavroche or even Wimpey. I've a bet that Wimpey would be gobbled down with alacrity. Indian hospital swill is probably not too inspiring. Being almost 6' and skinny as a broomstick, Zach could do with calories. He's not going to get them by going on hunger strike. I guess that other patients have their families bring in food from home. It's a bit far for us. Ragesh gets pizzas for him but one can't live on pizza alone.

So Zach's angry and he's kicking out and breaking stuff and I presume it's because he's hungry and the meds don't work properly without food and he's not well and it's all very frustrating being so far away and unable to do anything proactive. I thought, for about a minute or two, that I would go and then jumped back. What's the point? Apart from taking in food, within quarter of an hour Zach would be at my throat metaphorically and we would be shouting at one another.

So the rain continues to fall. Ragesh is bemoaning his fate and Zach is starving himself but not into submission. I've asked Chabad to visit him and take him something to eat. I've not heard back. It's a 'good deed' I said in my email. Hopefully someone will plop through the puddles and the downpours and deposit a pot of chicken soup on the hospital cot. Am I dreaming?

Safety in Delhi?

I made a friend recently. Elsie, I'll call her, runs the antique stall in the village. A real eccentric, smells wonderfully of expensive perfume, hugely charismatic and jolly in the extreme, she asked after Zach. 'How's your boy?' she enquired while Monk, my waggy Max replacement, bounded up at her in joyful exhuberance. She knows Zach. When he's reasonably sane he takes Monk for walks on the Heath. He passes by Elsie's stalls and stops, no doubt to louchely light a cigarette and chat to Elsie or to talk with Ken her partner about the latest football stories.

I imagine Zach there on a cold winter's day, collar up, huddled over lighting the fag, while Elsie regales him with the latest local gossip. He's charmed her. When she saw me after Sam had returned from Delhi, she then too enquired about Zach. 'Where's your boy? I haven't seen him for weeks...' I told her what had happened to him. The journey to Leh. The meltdown. The drugs he had apparently been fed by the 'friends' he had made while they watched him as one does a clown or the funniest comedian. Her face fell and tears reached her eyes. 'I know just how you feel,' she said to me. She didn't have to say much. I could tell that she really could empathise. 'You know,' she continued, 'it's not his fault. When you start to lose it, the distance between the time that you can stop and do something is so small, so very tiny that it's almost an impossibility to do anything about it...' So she knows a lot about this, I thought.

Today, after being dragged around the corner by the ever-affectionate Monk, almost knocking over the bric-a-brac and pictures and into Elsie's arms, she asked again after Zach. I considered the question. How do you answer it? 'He's safe,' I said. She looked up at me and smiled. 'Well, that's something, isn't it? At least he's safe.'

I suppose he's safe. We're, what, five, six thousand miles away? We have to trust the hospital, the consultant, the attendants, nurses, Ragesh... We don't really know what's happening there but then we didn't know what was happening to Zach when he was in hospital in Greece or Ecuador or Thailand. Various people gave us feedback. The only feedback we get from Zach is that he 'shouldn't be there.' When asked by Sam why, his answer was that he should still be in Leh, 'fighting the fight in Iraq/Afghanistan...' Whatever that means. Still delusional, is the reply.

So safety is paying hospital bills and bills for Ragesh and extra bills for Ragesh to go and buy food for Zach because Zach refuses to eat the food at the hospital and then there's more clothes to buy for him and... Well, it's still safer him being there than here because at least we know that he's not knocking around the streets of Delhi, making his home in a market and scoring as much as he can from the local dealers. Well, at least I hope he's not...

Football's wonderous clarity

I suppose that clarity returns when part of a 'conversation' turns onto football. That hadn't happened for something like two months. It's a semblance of sanity and something that we can grasp on to. The rest of the conversation didn't much resemble the sanity we want but there's time yet to go.

The call is now for money. The problem is that by sending money to Zach, we don't know in whose pocket it will end. Ok if it's for McDonalds or pizza but not such good sense if it's the local dealer and knowing Zach's propensity to smell out the ones who take the money and then deliver the goods, we don't want that. Another dilemma. According to Zach, Ragesh wants to go. Hardly surprising there but do we believe Zach? Maybe it's a ruse to do away with Ragesh so that Zach 'manages' himself...

So it's back to the consultant tomorrow. The last words that Sam had with him, the kind doctor told him that Zach's MRI was good; that he was 'progressing' and that they do rehab there. Zach feels that there's no need that he remain there in India. He can 'take a sedative and take the plane home.' Oh, yeah... 'And,' he added, 'continue detox in London.' Raised eyebrows and downturned mouth. The thought of that...

Why is it all so difficult? The continual juggling with thoughts and opinions and ideas and never any real advice from anyone. We have to make these decisions and hope that they are the right decisions. We want Zach to stay in hospital until he comes down enough to be able to steer himself through some kind of rehab. 'You didn't have to bring me to hospital.' Someone will speak with the consultant about money. 'I need money. I don't have any money. You can't survive in Delhi without money.' Send me, send me, send me... As if somehow that will be the answer to everything.

As usual there's no insight from Zach as to why Zach's in hospital in Delhi. Always someone else's fault. His arguments are currently falling on deaf ears but for how much longer? When the entire conversation focuses on football? And then...

The cords that bind and the chords that strike

He shouts at Sam, 'What IS this place?' Then, realising that he knows all along, he simply raises his voice and belittles Sam about the first hospital. 'It was the worst! They tied me to a bed and wouldn't let me go..!' It's amazing how mania makes you forget everything. The fact that this latest hospital was a small, private facility in a large Indian city is irrelevant to the now.

The first time I came across Zach in this predicament was in Athens. This, too, was a private hospital. Here he had been shackled to a rusting metal bed by a leather strap and a lock with a key. Sounds medieval? It was. He was practically comotose, though. There was no need to disihibit his movements. One step and he would have folded, like a pair of trousers, onto the grubby floor. This was the reason, the consultant later told me, why they had shackled him to the bed. To stop him from falling out. But the amount of meds they had given him would have obviated that argument.

This time in Delhi, in the full glare of the hospital lights, surrounded by nurses and doctors and attendants, Zach had to be packed down onto the bed. He was out of control. Maybe a padded cell would have been the answer? He hasn't done padded cells yet. But the hospital, sweet as it was, didn't have that option. He had to be tied down before he did himself or anyone else real damage. He remembers the cords but not the reason for them.

There's no real news at the moment. Just the few words from the consultant to say that the real work will begin when the meds have made their way across the deluded mind. We can only wait until we hear that that has happened. Until then, our imagination will have to be utilised and the occasional phone call from Zach, angry and despondent and humiliated, will assault our senses.

I see that Julie Myerson has had her book published in the USA, not to great acclaim. But that won't stop it from being sold in the thousands. Any publicity, it would appear, is good publicity. She's been largely criticised for glibly 'outing' her son in this book. The general concensus is that he appears to have behaved like a teenager - and yet she threw him out. It's the connivance between the two of them that has struck that chord. All too convenient.

Autumn leaves again so soon

We're now at the angry stage. We're also at the stage where realism begins to show its head among the delusions. Zach's aware that he's not in some crabby hotel room or a prison cell. He's in hospital and he's not happy. He wants out but he's not sure how to make that possible. The consultant emailed me. They're going to start psychotherapy when there's something to work with. Until then, it's taking the meds and sleeping and, hopefully, eating.

Three messages were left on my mobile yesterday by Ragesh. Zach wants to talk to his mother. Another voicemail from Zach on the house phone. Difficult to understand what he said. Sounds pretty doped up. And angry. How sad.

I spend time considering what can be done so that this doesn't happen again but that likelihood is remote. What I do think is that something should be done to divert Zach's attention; change his behaviour patterns. Coming back to London and facing the autumn and then winter and the dark days and the cold will not help his equilibrium. The boredom will return. The unaltering days. Re-visits to where he was before he left. I have an idea but more of that later.

I can't believe that summer is almost over again. It goes so fast - here, especially, where we have such a short period of heat and sunlight. Walking, I see that brown leaves are making carpets on the Heath and that autumn fashions are displayed in shop windows. When Zach left in June, summer was just on its way. We'd had a few good days. When and if he comes back here, it will be leading to short nights and Christmas decorations and adverts for the 'festive season.' Will he notice that? Notice that it all went away so quickly, while he was puffing and snorting and being fed all and every narcotic?

Oh, for the days of 'Soap'

It's come back again. The delightful incubus of Zach's soul. The one that only wants, wants, wants and takes everything and does nothing to show its appreciation or happiness. Poor Ragesh. Stuck in a room with Zach and his demons. An email from Ragesh was only so enlightening.

"...he still asking me for drugs. He asking me so much thing I could not effort [sic] him. Whatever you pay me, most off money I envest [sic] for Zach. I could not seved [sic] any money."

So he's basically saying that Zach's manipulating him to buy him the usual: coke, cigarettes, pizzas and, if he could, drugs. I only hope that Ragesh has the good intelligence not to go down that path.


I wrote back to Ragesh, telling him not to give in to Zach. That this is typical behaviour and to tell Zach that he doesn't have any money on him. That he's put it all into his bank account and that there's no way on earth that he's going to bring in drugs. You have to be very strong, cold and stern while dealing with Zach when he's like this. If he doesn't get his way, he's likely to be aggressive and frightening. You have to leave him when he eyes the wall and lands a hefty thump through the plasterwork. Hopefully he's wearing sandals or, better still, nothing on his feet. The local hospital here in London still has the site of his last temper tantrum.


It's very early days then. This is the beginning of the downward slope but it's still likely that he could, if he managed to get hold of any skunk or ketamine, spiral yet again. You just have to hope that the hospital is aware of this. I wrote to the consultant, reiterating Zach's propensity for all manner of narcotics. I've not yet heard back from him. Still, Zach's not alone there. The guy in the next room is also in for a psychotic breakdown linked entirely, he shamefacefully told Sam, to his 'predisposition for cannabis.'


And today I read that Kerry Katona biffed her accountant. She's in meltdown too, yet again. Addicted to cocaine, the story goes. That will make her aggressive for sure. Now she's been arrested and what gives for her kids? Will they be given to her ex? Taken into care? What's happened to this generation? Is there really so much more mental disengagement? In decades past was there such an enormous amount of suffering? Is it simply due to the proliferation of drugs?


Will Ragesh last the distance? Who could? Will he take my advice and tell Zach that he's not going to bring in to the hospital anything other than bottled water? It's like Soap. Where's Jessica Tate when you need her?

Monsoons, slums and the waiting game

The first thing on waking up. The last thing on going to sleep. When you wake up in the middle of the night, it's there, like a shadow, spreading itself over your supine body. It doesn't go away. There's always a tinge of it, whether you are watching a film: yes, I remember him like that too. Reading a book, concentration is lacking. How can you work, you ask yourself. You have to get on and try to push the thoughts to the back, so that they don't take precedence over everything. Then it's a Pyrrhic victory because then the overriding emotion is guilt. Guilt that it ever happened. Guilt that you were a party to it and guilt that it takes so much of you and that those who deserve equal sentiments are denied.

A young Australian intern at the neurological hospital in Delhi emailed us. 'The past few days,' she wrote, 'he's been very manic, aggressive and agitated, as you no doubt know and today he's quite a bit calmer. This is definitely due to his medications. Today was the first day that he's not been delusional.' This morning Ragesh called and Zach tried to speak with Sam. Pointless, as he was so full of these delightful meds that he was unable to articulate a word, save for asking for Sam and Rickey to 'take him out for a meal.' He doesn't, therefore, seem to be in a place yet where he knows what's happening. I doubt that it's the meds doing this, it's where his head is.

There's really nothing that we can do from this end. Phone calls to the hospital are difficult to arrange because the consultant has his own methods of doing things. He has his various hospital consultation hours and then the time that he spends at Zach's hospital is spread out between the number of patients there. We'd like to know what's happening, though. Be brought up to date. Find out whether there's some light at the end of the tunnel, although I know from past experience, that this is just the beginning and it's going to take weeks.

From mixed messages by way of Ragesh last week, Sam got the impression that maybe Ragesh wouldn't last the distance, notwithstanding his sudden increase in wealth; that the time spent with Zach was so fraught, that it wouldn't even be worth his new status. However Rickey spoke with Ragesh and somehow Ragesh's fears have been allayed - for now.

So the monsoon continues its downpours onto the sodden Delhi streets and the malodorous and monstrous slums that abut the hospital and we wait, all the while our waking moments are wondering and imagining how things are there and whether it was all worth it.

A different set of altitudes

I look out and I can see blue skies, sunshine and the mediterranean glinting not so far away. I should really get a thrill from it and I do but everything is tinged with a melancholy. There's also the other emotions: anger, guilt, sadness. I've been away for three weeks and I knew that I shouldn't have looked forward to it. That whenever you look forward to something, then there's going to be something that spoils it. You can say this is it, this time. I sound spoiled and petulant. Maybe I am. I feel anger that Beth hasn't been able to see her father and that the week that she was going to spend with him now has been eradicated; you can't re-spend time. They'll have it again but it won't be the same.

And I think of Zach in the hospital room. The way that he will be spending his days there for the present. In a haze of intense medication. Probably not eating much. Drinking water. Pacing around the room. Bored. Listless. Angry. Conflicted. I wonder whether they will try additional and alternative medicine there. I know that they have yoga and ayurveda. This is India, after all. Whether he participates is something else.

So Sam is back in London. Emotionally and physically exhausted with Indian beaurocracy, intense travel, Zach's needs, traffic, fumes, heat and the having to contend with a zillion bits and pieces that continually stymied their movements. Back to London's shifting weather. But the football season calls and the further frustration that his team creates. Will they stay up this season, have an owner, win a game? All good stuff for a diversion. Eventually, it is hoped, Zach will once again join in with the trek south.

So I leave tomorrow for London once more. Leave these wonderfully sunny climes and then to be confronted with the full and unexpurgated version of what went on these last nine days among the mountains, the lakes and traffic fumes.

British Airways from Delhi to London and thoughts on the altititude of Leh

Sam's taking a plane back to London today. I hope he leaves enough time to get to the airport. Rickey took a cab to meet Ragesh yesterday but the traffic drove him to distraction. I expect that Sam has taken that on board. Leave four hours early maybe!

Ragesh is now esconced in the hospital room with Zach. I think that he needs just to spend the nights there. Make sure that Zach doesn't do anything that will make his 'recovery' more fraught than it has been already. The meds should make him reasonably compliant, doing what they do to a person. It's a pity that the side-effects are always so profound. The shakes, the facial tics, the desperate desire to keep drinking water, coke - whatever is available. I can't see him but can imagine.

It's all quite depressing, really, leaving Zach in India like this. Even when his dybbuk is in place and he's immensely difficult to be around, you want to visit, to show that you care. It's too far to go. The hospital will keep Zach for as long as we pay and until we tell them to release him. How long is a piece of string? Who do we trust? I have to wait until I speak to Zach. Wind him up in the usual way and then see how he responds. Then I'll know how he is.


Oh, and my maths being so pathetic, I left off zeros. Sam reliably informs me that Leh in Ladakh is 12,500 feet high. Oops. Can't imagine being in altititude that thin and having to live a day to day existence. I know, it's the Himalayas and vast amounts of travellers go there in order to trek and climb and the sunrises are spectacular. Rather them than me. No wonder madness is an attendant theme. Far too little oxygen hits the brain.

Crop circles of cigarette burns adorning bodies and a hope for 'Ushpizin'

What chemical imbalance would make you stub a cigarette out on your arm in anger? Someone said it was 'self hate.' It's not the first time. Look, if you decide in one corner of your brain that you want to take so many drugs that you become totally dependent on them, then surely there's something there. But I simply can't understand it. It's such a nightmare.

It's just an undate now. Sam's had enough of India. I think that the traffic is finally getting to him and Rickey. They want out. They had the most wonderful Indian meal of all time last night. A set meal. The equivalent in rupees of £4. That's something. Rickey's on his way to meet Ragesh at the airport but they didn't realise just how bad Delhi traffic could be. There's over a billion people in India. No doubt plenty of those are spending their time in cars, taxis, lorries, rickshaws and whatever form of transport carries people in India. I remember the cows dodging the traffic in the south. They've taken them off the streets of Bombay. Have they in Delhi?

So I sorted out the pyschiatrist for medication this morning. My phone was cut off over the weekend because I had gone so far over my limit. Yet another expense. Frustration for me. Nothing like the frustration that Sam and Rickey have been experiencing in the heat and clamminess of Delhi. Another meeting with Chabad who will visit and take in food and, maybe, hopefully, lead Zach onto a better path. Maybe he will become a 'return to the fold' and they'll find him a wife and a long black coat and a hat and he will grow side curls and he won't have to worry about anything else again. It's been done before. You only have to see that wonderful Israeli film, 'Ushpizin.' I can dream, can't I?

Sam's on his way to see the High Commissioner. Do we leave Zach's what-passes-for-a-passport with him? The psychiatrist sounded very on the ball, although he spoke so fast that it was difficult to catch everything he said. He sounded as though he knew what the medication was. Zach's receiving a very hefty dose of Olanzapine. He's obviously very disturbed. Ah, well.


How many more cigarettes will end up smoking skin on Zach's extremeties? Why does the brain make people do things like this to themselves? I know that the suicidal option is just below that skin, once the brain has been 'balanced' to realise the scope of the position it's owner has put it. Not a pretty sight. Got that t-shirt too.

Dehli's finest clothing stalls and swift negotiations

So that's it again. They managed to get to hospital number one. However, hospital number one was unable to contain Zach. During the first night he became very violent. Didn't like being there. Dosed up on disgusting Haloperidol, the gum that makes you drool and shake. Doesn't agree with Zach. Makes him even worse. If that's possible. He decided to destroy the room, rip his clothes, shout and scream. So they restrained him and he spent the rest of the night tied to the bed. Not very creative but effective.

Yesterday Zach was moved to another hospital, near to where Sam and Rickey have set up base. It's monsoon season and it rained but was still 40 degrees. Zach's in a suitable place. In a secure room, on the right medication but he has to be watched 24x7. At night, stipulates the hospital, a family member has to stay in the room with him. We have, unfortunately, no family members in India. Ragesh from Leh has been asked whether he would like to earn some extra dosh and fill in as a family member. He's agreed and is flying down from Leh on Monday. Sam had hoped that it would be on Sunday but the flights are all full. More nights in Delhi.

500 rupees a day for a private nurse. Not too bad in the scheme of things. Hope that Ragesh won't be driven too mad by close proximity to Zach. He only needs to be there at night and, hopefully, Zach will be sedated so that he sleeps and doesn't impose his needs on Ragesh. You know those needs. Cigarettes, coke, pizza, cell phones. Ragesh will have to be strong. Then the money he earns will be for him and not for Zach. Zach will once again be penniless. Hopefully without money he won't be able to smuggle in drugs. Is the Pope a Catholic?

Sam and Rickey invested time in Dehli's finest market. There Rickey negotiated for tracksuit bottoms and t-shirts. Things that Zach can't destroy too easily. They may not be sartorially and aesthetically beautiful but, again, practical. How many times have we had to go out and buy shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes and underwear that Zach discards? Repetitive, repetitive, repetitive. We should have shares in Glaxo.

A round robin text from Sam made its way to friends and family. We've had some wonderful replies. Thanks to you all.

Sunshine, clouds, monsoonal rains and heat. The saga continues...