I met Jeff at Side By Side Assisted Living and fell in love with him. After being best friends with him for 6 months we began dating. He decided to go so far as to convert to Judaism for me so that my family would accept him. At one point we thought he had a death sentence.
We had gone to his oncology appointment at UMass Memorial Medical Center with Dr. Swizzer. The doctor told him they had found a shadow on his liver. The shadow was possibly a recurrence of his liver cancer. They referred him to a more local GI doctor to take a better look at the scan. Dr. Xander’s job was to confirm whether or not it was cancer.
After Jeff’s oncology appointment he went to see his team coordinator for the liver transplant team. They explained that if Jeff had … Find Out What Happens Next
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
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.
I was hanging out in the dining room of Side By Side Assisted Living which had been my new home for several days now since I moved out of that awful nursing home that I referred to only half-jokingly as Hell-Crest Commons. Although I’d only been at Side By Side a few days I’d already commandeered myself my only little spot by the fake fireplace that actually emanated heat. It was the perfect spot for finishing up finals for my BA in Writing from Elms College.
Everyone else was eating dinner, but because I have gastroparesis and global dysmotility I am unable to eat by mouth and instead am fed via a tube that goes through a hole in my abdominal wall into the middle part of my intestines called my Jejunum. Because my intestines are affected as well I have to run my tube feed at a really … Find Out What Happens Next
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
