Mick McKellar Update--Day +36
Snapshot day
My memories of today are cloudy and bright. The experiment with the Ambien was successful -- with one nature break, I slept through until the 6:00 AM alarm. Getting up was an eruption of coughing and mucus and felt like it blasted through several feet of Jello.
We caught the 7:30 AM shuttle and the bactrim test went well. However, each and every time I sat down to wait or to rest, I dozed off. It would have been an aggravation for Marian, but I noticed she was dozing as well. Welcome to sleep deprivation central!
The rest of the day is snapshots...waking from a snooze in time for a quick (small) lunch, and back to my room to read. Putting my e-book in my lap and waking up an hour later. Turning on the old laptop, to get an early start on my journal, and waking up just in time for supper.
After dinner mint...
For dessert, I thought I might try again to write my journal entry. And I realized how little I experienced of an entire day gone by. I need to heal, so I don't begrudge the time, but it triggered some less that pleasant memories from my years with Social Security.
In the field...
I spent most of my SSA career as a Field Representative Generalist. That means I did everything from medicare bills to disability claims, and I spent a lot of my time doing it out of the office. There were some difficult days (hard to find addresses in the UP), dress-up days when I gave speeches or did radio shows, dangerous days (like being chased of a clients property in Baraga with a running chain saw), and depressing days, most often interviewing SSI clients in rest homes, nursing homes, and hospitals.
I found many of these clients both personable and fun to talk with, but far too many were, for lack of a better term, simply drugged into a half-life and it was hard to reach them there, even for simple questions. Family often tried to help (or screamed at me for bothering their aged and ill relative), and I usually finished my form, put a pen in the patient's hand and (guiding as little as possible) got the signature.
One early winter morning, I was visiting a home and asked for the patient. The desk nurse said corridor NNNN. As I turned the corner, I saw the client in a wheelchair...facing an outside door...unmoving and unresponsive, she just stared at the blue gray winter light streaming through the ice encrusted and frosted door.
That was the only time I lost it on the job. Her blank face, in the ghostly winter light, the penumbra of light about her chair as though she were simply waiting to be taken home...it was too much. I slid to the floor and cried. After my tears dried a bit, I sat there on the floor, asking the questions on the form, noting no response from the client. I was there about an hour, just looking and asking questions. A worker found me and asked what I was doing. "Interviewing," I said.
"Oh I wouldn't bother with NNNN, her pain meds keep her like that pretty much all the time." Warehoused, she was warehoused and waiting to die.
Alone or lonely?
I spent most my childhood alone in a crowd. It was my personality back then, and I still treasure long moments of solitude to think and ponder and read and write. But, these poor souls were lonely. Some, like Alzheimer's patients are trapped alone by their disease, some just have no family or friends left, and some are left alone through no choice of their own. I knew the difference in the interviews and my heart ached for each and everyone of them. I still see many of their faces in my dreams, and wish I had done more to visit with them.
The coffeemaker in our Hancock resident station as out front. We kept it there mainly for the seniors who often walked from as far a way as West Hancock in severe winter weather, to ask the same or a similar medicare question each week, We offered coffee and a few minutes conversation, but I swear for some it was only conversation that week. The coffee maker, the coffee, the cups, even the counter we built to create a sitting area were done at employee expense. Not a penny of government funds was used. I know, my father in law, Bill Mukavetz and I built that counter and it weighed a ton. When I left SSA to work for Michigan Tech in 1987, that old monster counter was the only part of the physical office I missed.
Here at Gift of Life Transplant House, you can be alone if you wish, or just walk out your door to a common area and connect with other patients. It is a fine service they offer and a great idea. If you Google, Gift of Life Transplant House, you can find their website. It is quite interesting.
Well it looks like you got a few snap shots and an old home movie. I am tired now and will only thank you all for your cards, letters, e-mails, and calls.
God bless you all, and good night
Mick