Really Makes You Think

[MadamePhilosophy]

I'm a young person. As many of you know, I've let myself go since high school (the extra 70 pounds and all). I drink maybe once every three months, I don't always eat the greatest, and I drink a lot of caffeine.

 

I had a patient named Deqwon. He's 26. Brilliant guy. I live in Toledo, Ohio - and for those of you unfamiliar, we've got quite a ghetto around these parts. Poverty and urban living go hand in hand, and it's not hard to get mixed up with the wrong people. Crime is a sub-culture, and for whatever reason morality has completely lost it's footing. Everyone's poor, there's about 40 houses foreclosed on every day, and all the blue collar jobs are being lost due to cutbacks.

 

Deqwon was my patient a couple days ago. He's a very handsome man, very bright, sensitive, funny. He was shot in the back, and he's now a quadriplegic. I sat with him and talked for a while, since most of the staff is super busy. Deqwon sees his family maybe once a month, and all of his "friends" have completely abandoned him. He cannot move his arms or legs, and has to have a caregiver provide every task that the rest of us can do for ourselves.

 

"You know, I never thought about how great it is to be able to walk. You're a beautiful girl Sam, and you're lucky that people see you as that - a beautiful girl. When you're healthy and able, you're seen as beautiful and fun. When you're disabled, you're automatically recognized as unwanted responsibility."

 

I looked at him as he spoke. I could see the regret glaze over his eyes as he told me about his choice to join the gang.

 

"In the ghetto, gangs are your family. Ain't nobody gonna watch your back for you. If you don't get with somebody, you'll get killed anyway, it's dangerous out there - and you dust if you ain't got strength in numbers. I never wanted to hurt nobody, and I never wanted to get hurt...but in the ghetto, you gotta choose the lesser of two evils. It ain't like someone's offering you a ticket out of there - because if that was the case, I would have taken it in a heart beat."

 

Tears welled up in his eyes and he turned his head. Deqwon is a proud young man, and I understand. I pretended not to notice, and I turned my vision away from him. Tears welled up in my eyes as well, because here before me was a young man who had everything stolen from him by the squeeze of a trigger.

 

"Sometimes I wish I'da just died. Do you know what it's like to not even be able to feed yourself or wipe your own ass? I can't do anything but talk. No woman's ever gonna want me, I ain't even got friends."

 

There I sat, confronted with one of those situations that makes you so angry inside you can feel the blisters in your arteries start to form from boiling blood.

 

I learned from Deqwon that day. You know, all these excuses Americans make about not taking care of themselves, is fucking bullshit. I'm sorry. I just think it's retarded, that we've got all these people with the potential to be healthy, capable, functioning people who would rather get a prescription for a problem that was caused by the lack of their own self-care. Diabetes is a great example (Type II). People with Diabetes enter a nasty world of complications, and the shittiest part of it all is that it's controllable with diet. I've seen so many patients just let themselves get obese and eat ice cream and candy when it makes their blood glucose sky rocket, the next thing you know they're in the ER.

 

It makes me so FUCKING mad!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

This is why I'm going to get in shape and take care of myself, because it's my responsibility to get everything out of life that's physically possible. Deqwon taught me that we all take advantage of things, I owe it to my body to do it right.

I'm doing it for Deqwon.

[Richard]

I think about stuff like this a lot, it puts a lot of things in perspective to know there are situations like this. How come this guy's family doesn't visit him more often? I would hope that if I had a friend who was paralyzed, that I would make time in my life to visit them regularly

[MadamePhilosophy]

His family really didn't care a whole lot about him before the accident (hence his gang activity). I met them once, but after about an hour they seemed bored and left. Deqwon is really lonely, I think they're sending him to a nursing home because he doesn't have insurance and his family refused his care.

 

It really does put things into perspective, check this place out.

 

http://bridges2hope.unite2fightparalysis.org/home/story/73

[Richard]

Hardcore. I find it peculiar that Treva says that God has blessed her. It's a pretty mixed "blessing" if you ask me, to be paralyzed.

[MadamePhilosophy]

I guess when you're in that kind of a situation, it's necessary to make the best of it...I mean, one really doesn't have a choice. These people are remarkable, I admire them.

[Richard]

Yeah I find these kinds of stories to be a real inspiration, and it makes me want to try harder and overcome any problems I have since anybody could have these kinds of accidents at any point and I wouldn't want to regret wasting my life / time and not appreciating what I have.

[DV]

My first job out of nursing school was in a neurosurgical ICU and I still remember my first young quad. Her family also abandoned her and she wound up being the state's responsibility. As I remember her family, this was a better choice. They were in no way prepared or inclined to take care of her as a walking teenager, much less a quad.

 

I hope you do stay in shape and become an example of healthy living. You are going to see a lot of very unhealthy nurses and others working in hospitals, not to mention the patients. And their families. I give staff nurses a lot of credit for the work they do and the psychological nature of their interactions with patients/families. I don't miss it.

[RoadToSoy]

This shit is awful. It's just an example of how fragile everything is.

This guy was in a gang so some people may blame him for his condition. But it can be everything: a car crash, falling off something, being a crime victim or whatever. One moment and that's it, you're handicapped for the rest of your life.

 

It's a good thing you realize it now, you know?

You're still young, healthy and have the rest of your life to live the right way.

You don't want to be one of these people who realize it when it's too late.

 

So maybe a single positive thing came out of Deqwon's condition. It's something too.

(Do you think it'd do any good if you told him that?)