Jeff, the man of my dreams (although, at that point, I hadn’t told him how I felt about him), was waiting for me at my spot near the fireplace when I got off the elevator and turned the corner into the dining room in the main building of Side By Side Assisted Living. Lesley, my private duty aide, parked me right next to him. He had a big impish grin on his face, but when he saw I’d been crying, his grin melted away and he looked concerned.
Jeff with his impish grin
“What happened Becca?” He asked me.
“I’m not allowed to say,” I told him, “But I’m not allowed to have any men in my apartment anymore.”
“Who said that?” he asked me. “Your parents? They shelter you way too much, you know I-”
I hadn’t even been living on my own for a full week, and already, disaster had struck. About five days earlier I had been discharged from the nursing home that I not-so-lovingly referred to as Hell-Crest Commons where I had been held prisoner for six months, I had then moved into the Independent Living section of Side By Side Assisted Living in Pittsfield. While I had been loving, living at Side By Side, earlier that morning I’d been molested by a man that I thought I could trust. I’d been molested by a man that I thought was my friend.
Not knowing what to do, I had called the main building, and Marina, the overnight staff had picked up and was on her way over from the main building to my apartment to help me out.
Sunday morning was hell. That morning I’d been molested by John a sixty-somethng year old man who I had thought was my friend and had invited into my life along with Jeff the man who I had an intense crush on and who I considered an extremely close friend,
That morning, Lesley, my private duty aide that came in to take care of me every morning and every night, came in earlier than the 10 O’Clock she was planning on coming in at anyways. She came in around 9:30 after my mom gave her an emergency phone call letting her know what had happened.
Marina, the overnight staff at the Assisted Living Side had been over to check on me and offered to wash me up, but I was terrified to get naked in front of anyone that hadn’t already seen me naked, after the events with John earlier that … Find Out What Happens Next
Six months after my admission to Hell-crest Commons I was finally preparing to leave. I wasn’t going home. My relationship with my parents had changed completely. But I was preparing to leave. My feelings about the situation were very mixed, but I was very happy that I would no longer be living on a medically complex floor of a nursing home. No matter how nice and buddy-buddy Jillian the nurse practitioner at Hell-crest Commons had tried to become with me, I would never be comfortable with her. Not after everything she had put me through.
However on Monday, the day before my official discharge date, she found me in my room early in the morning and pulled me into her office.
“Can you transfer yourself into that crappy nursing home wheelchair and meet me in my office?” she had asked me.
In December of 2015, I was finally discharged from Hell-Crest Commons, the nursing home that I’d been living in for the last six months, and I had moved into the Independent Living Section of Side By Side Assisted Living where I would be getting something called PCA care which basically meant people that I chose myself, and that I was the boss of and would train would be coming into my apartment at Side By Side to help take care of me. because it would be 2 to 4 weeks before the PCA care kicked into effect my parents had agreed to pay out-of-pocket for a private duty aide until then.
Lesley, the CNA who was going to be my private duty aide, was right on time to meet Christy, my mom, and me, over at my apartment on the evening of the Tuesday I moved in. She drove a … Find Out What Happens Next
For the two days after I spoke with John, a very tall big man who walked with a serpent cane, all I could think about was meeting Jeff officially. John had informed me that he was really good at fixing computers and was in charge of the internet and computer system at Side By Side Assisted Living the place where I now lived despite the fact that I was only 24 years old. John had noticed the internet was down in my apartment and offered to fix it. We had a long conversation where he somehow picked up from me that I had a major crush on Jeff.
“Jeff and I go way back,” Jonh told me. “He’s amazing with computers himself. How about I bring him with me when I come over to fix your internet, and then the three of us can just hang out?” he suggested.
When you have any sort of severe life-threatening chronic illness, there is a terrible feeling of being at the mercy of the medical system. If your doctor is in a bad mood it could be the end of your life. That is not an exaggeration.
I suffer from a disease called Small Fiber Autonomic Polyneuropathy, which is a very rare condition that most doctors have never even heard of, because of that I often get denied the proper treatment even though I know what the right thing to do is. The doctors don’t like to admit they don’t know something so they just plow forward with their ideas and I’m the one that gets hurt or sicker or almost dies (not an exaggeration, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve almost died due to doctors who don’t know about my illness deciding they know more than me and going … Find Out What Happens Next
If you wanted to look up the word sick in the dictionary, you would probably find a picture of me. Ever since I was eight years old and started struggling with muscle fatigue and appetite loss I have been on a downward trend in my health. By the time I was ten I had had my first NG tube. This was followed by my first surgery when the NG tube caused a bowel obstruction. Then I had to deal with an even thicker NG tube to suction. This was followed by my first NJ tube.
I spent a good chunk of fifth grade in the hospital, and went home from the hospital with the NJ tube still in place and a diagnosis of severe gastroparesis. The rest of my childhood was spent racking up frequent flier miles at my local children’s hospital. At age thirteen my heart rhythm disturbances took … Find Out What Happens Next
The whole genre of my healthcare had changed when I first woke up, swathed in warm blankets after my emergency surgery to have 2.5 inches of dead bowel removed. It wouldn’t be until almost a week later, after all of the testing was complete, that I would find out I had a disease called gastroparesis. The NG feeding tube formula they had been pumping me up with had congealed inside me forming a hardened mass called a bezoar. This in turn had caused a bowel obstruction. After four days of being ignored while I was supposedly being “treated” for an “eating disorder” in the children’s inpatient psychiatric unit, the obstruction had finally just ruptured causing my surgical emergency and the death of that 2.5 inches of bowel.
At ten years old I weighed 38 pounds. For the last two years, everyone had passed me off as a psych case. At … Find Out What Happens Next
