It's the Final Countdown

Since I'm still dealing with my usual insomnia issues, I may as well post.I am still getting credit in one of my courses for doing this, so it seems efficacious to wisely use time when I should be sleeping but am unable to do so. My parents and I will head off to the airport to travel to our central coast location in just over twelve hours. We'll spend the night in a hotel. My mom assures me it's a 4-star hotel with premium channels and wireles access. My last night of relative freedom for at least three weeks should be comfortable.

I presented my list of demands to my parents. They were fine with all of them, except that they said the doctor, as long as they were confident of his or her competence, still had the final say regarding my medication, if medication is even needed. They agreed that the doctor would have to listen to my concerns if the effects of any medications were bothersome to me, and they agreed that they would make sure the doctor listened to my concerns even if one of them had to make an extra trip to the facility to ensure that it happened. They also said that once my mother left the facility one week from today, each of them would call and talk to me twice each day unless I personally told them that their contact was excessive and requested fewer phone calls. Also, I'm still required to have at least two visits from close relatives each week. Those relatives have been designated as my parents, my godparents (who are also my aunt and uncle), and my Aunt Heather and Uncle Steve. If pseudo- aunt and uncle Jillian and Scott are in the area, they will be allowed to visit as well, but they're not designated as among the twice-weekly visitors because they live so far away. If any of my friends travel near my area and want to visit, they can as long as both my parents and I OK them.

Security in this place is fairly tight, so it would be next to impossible for the bad people, even if they got out of juvey and found away to disable their ankle monitors, to actually get inside, and even if they did, security guards are present twenty-four hours a day.

I'm nervous mainly because I don't know what to expect. I have a list of what I'm allowed to bring. I can have my own bedding from home, and I'm required to provide my own toiletries. They check out razors to female patients for approximately four minutes when they're showering, but I'm not yet in need of razors, so it's just conditioner, shampoo, deodorant, toothbrush, toothpaste,comb, brush, lotion, and cosmetics, which I don't actually wear yet because my father thinks it would make me look like a pre-adolescent painted-up hussy. (I can wear colorless or very light lip glass, and if I look really pale before a choir performance for which I'm accompanying, the director usually puts a slight amount of blush on my cheeks so I don't look ill.) I may have up to ten books at a time, but because I have to bring some textbooks, I'm allowed fifteen. There's also a library there, but I wouldn't count on its being very well-stocked. I can bring a stuffed animal if the staff ckecks it out and determines that it neither contains contraband nor can be used to strangle oneself. Funny. Without reading that, it never would have occurred to me to use a stuffed anumal to strangle myself.

If some of the things I'm writing don't make sense, it may be because of sleep deprivation. My father says I'm showing signs of it. He would like to give me Lunesta or a similar sleep aid, but my mom says that it would take so much to be effective, and since I'm checking into the facility so soon, it would be better just to wait and let the doctors at the clinic deal with the problem. She also says they will get a better total picture of things if I have no traces of drugs in my system. I've been off Vicodin from my surgery for over a week, so I'm drug free except for beta blockers if my thyroid makes my heart beat too rapidly.

Tomorrow evening I hope to be enjoying myself at the hotel. I wish they would've sprung for a 5-star. but then, they could've found a Motel 6. so I will count my blessings.