Every once in a while it is made too clear that what I do for a living does have a profound affect on people's lives. Some people think that is a good thing and, I guess, most of the time it is but then days like today happen and it seems that no amount of doing good can work. In the first hour of my work day, I got three calls. The first was from a group home provider who was calling to tell me that the person we placed in her home had a medical emergency. She didn't know what was wrong with him since he can't speak and was unable to tell her but he started screaming during the night and wouldn't stop. She took him to the ER and after a series of tests it was determined that he had blood clots in his lung area and was also bleeding on the brain. His prognosis is not good. The doctor doesn't think he'll make it to the weekend. The second call was from the nurse at a local sheltered workshop who called to tell me that this morning one of the people we case manage misstepped as he was getting off the bus. He fell breaking his collar bone and several ribs. He also hit his head hard on the cement and was also bleeding on the brain. He was Flight For Lifed to a hospital in Milwaukee. After taking on these two calls the third and worst call came. It was the brother of one of the ladies we case manage and he was calling to let me know that last Saturday, his sister - our client - had suffered a major heart attack at home and died instantly. All of this increasingly bad and sad news before 9am this morning. I know that in my profession, it is inevitable that I will see illness and death. Working with profoundly developmentally disabled adults means realizing early on that as they age they are susceptible to all the same infirmities as a regularly developed adult but those infirmities hit them hard and once they do, they decline quickly. I've come to expect illness and death but it has never come so fast and furiously as it did today and even though I have done this job for 14 years, even I, the seasoned pro, was shocked and saddened.
It's quiet here now. There is a gentle snow falling and the city is quiet. No traffic, no noise...just the glow of the street light on the whitened street. As I sit here in my little apartment, with a warm, purring kitten on my lap, typing by the soft lights of the Christmas tree, I know, I am lucky. We are all lucky. No matter what it is that brings us down or makes us step back from life I know that there are other people out there who struggle every day with the most basic tasks and they strive to be the best they can be. They take nothing for granted. We have our lives, our jobs, our families even if we are not all in the same place, our friends, our stress, our laughter, our tears, ourselves. We are all lucky.
1 comment:
even in my own bad stuffness, i realize that i am lucky. my children are 800 miles away and the woman i thought i would spend the rest of my life with hates me. but the mother of my children is still alive and my kids too. that is enough to be thankful for. for right now. later, i'm hoping for vodka.
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