Dropping My Daily Stool Sample

No Plugs

You are listening too . . .
As we move into the mid 80′s with The Cure, we move more into their goth period.  Album here is Head on the Door and In Between Days is the song, which is more goth and “emo” that previous songs . . this is getting toward the creative peak of The Cure.

Dear Malach

• Dr. John Rebello asks: Dear Malach, How’s your back?  Good question “doctor” you tell me.  It is not necessarily the back, it is more the right shoulder, to the back, lower from the armpit to the muscle group that runs along the spine.  Not sure what I did to it, I did some aerobic boxing the night before but it was fine, and woke up in intense pain the at 2AM, and thought I might have to take my self to the emergency room.  Aspercreme and double dose of Advil got me back to sleep, and it felt a bit better the next day, of course by the end I was hurting.  This morning, I felt sore, but much better and pain was more in the shoulder.  I don’t work Fridays, and was planning on resting it, but emergency at work, and I worked 5 hours, and the pain, though not as bad is there right now.  Ice has helped a lot.  Thoughts Dr. John Rebello, or even better, NurseMyra?

So how was your Friday?
Again, Malach is a disability expert for a very large non profit in SouthEastern MA.  I run the disability program which consists mainly of case management and service coordination, advocacy, PCA Surrogacy, working in the Schools, and such.

For the past two weeks, myself and our Basic Needs department was working with a guy, I will call him Joe.  Joe is a 40 year old multi ethnic Latino male with Spina Bifida.  He has been mostly in good physically shape for most his life, working, having 5 marriages, 3 kids, and living all over the world.  After his last marriage failed, he came to the New Bedford area, and began working to support himself and provide child support for his three kids.

That was until this year.  This year, his Spina Bifda began to wreck his body.  He started to lose mobility on and off, and gross and fine motor skills, similar to what MS does.  His began to fai=ll on and off, and lost bladder sensation, leading to catheterization every 2 hour.  He spent a lot of time in the hospital, from falling, and losing bone density in his legs, snapping one of his shins in half at one point.  Needless to say he lost his job.  He ran out of unemployment and decide it was time to apply for disability.  He more than qualfiedfor SSDI.  He applied and to almost everyones surprise he got denied.  This is guy who definitely can no longer work.

No, this to me was not a complete surprise.  With the economy and everyone out of jobs, EVERYONE is allying for SSI and SSDI, and at this point Social Security is turning 95% of them down.  I have had to file appeals for tons of people like this and every single one of them has eventually got on one or the other, it is just a long process.

Back to Joe.  I was called into Basic Needs, when Joe was there to help him file the appeal.  Joe had been almost 8 months off unemployment and after getting denied he was no on EAFDC (welfare for the disabled) and making $303 per month.  He was at basic needs looking for help to get out of a room he was renting from a couple across the street and get some type of subsidized housing.

We had a room at a wonderful Single Room Occupancywe run, and he would only pay $90 including utilities for it for one of the subsidized units.  We sent him on his way while the process went about.  About a week and half later, Basic Needs and the Manager of the SRO were trying for several days to contact him, as the room would be ready for him next week.  No one could find him.  Every call was answered by a someone who said he was not home, or an answering machine.  So, Thursday, Malach decided to go to his home, and find him, Malach is like that.  So, he lived right down the street.  My workplace is a poor neighborhood, the apartment he was renting the room in was in a nasty building, but hey I am used to it, and I can run, bob, and weave still pretty well if I need to.

I did find him, and met the couple he was living with.  They seemed pretty nice. Latino couple, the male has not a citizen but had a visa.  They were in the process of trying to get their son back from DCF.  That should of been my first warning.

So I take Joe back to my office so he can sit with Basic Needs and finish up his paperwork and then take him to the SRO to see it.  While he is sitting there in basic needs, he breaks down and tells us that woman, is abusive, physical and mentally abuses the husband/boyfriend, and started in on him last weekend.  She is unmedicated Bi-Polar, got super drunk, and attacked him with the iron stove covers on the oven, and threatened him with a knife.  He showed us the bruises, and told us, he had to call the cops, she was nuts and was afraid she was going to kill him and the husband/boyfriend.  She has busted down his door, and she was in lock up, coming out on Monday.  He was barricade the door using crutches under the doorknob.  Because of his physical issue, he could not defend himself, and the husband, wouldn’t do anything displaying the exact behavior the Domestic Violence women I deal with do.

So, we had an emergency, so who did I call, the New Bedford Women’s Center, yes, the work with DV men too not a lot of them, but the do deal with them.  First problem it was so late, no one had a bed for him (much harder to find for men that women) but, the abuser was working 9PM to 9AM, so the case worker  (Trudy) at the Women’s Center told me to bring him in early in the morning.  Joe showed me a letter he had gotten from the New Bedford Police DV Unit, informing his he was a victim of Domestic Violence and to go to The Women’s Center, so we were headed in the right place.

So, I picked him up at 8AM, and for the second time in two weeks, making MOOOG jealous, I spent half the day at The Women’s Center.  Turdy managed it find him a room, at a battered women’s shelter in a close city.  This shelter had a full handicapped unit on the other side of the shelter for privacy, and they in the past have put disabled men in it, and they felt they could take him on.  Cool.  We had to head back to Joe’s room, collect his clothes and I had to get him out the city where the shelter was, and the shelter would send for a cab (you have, for the protection of the client keeps these places secret, even though I already knew where it was).

So, we head back there about Noon, already working 2 more hours than I wanted to, the plan was to get his clothes, medical supplies, and his 6 month old 30″ flatscreen cause he was worried the abuser would toss it out a window.

And guess who was there?  The abuser of course.  He husband/boyfriend had gone down the street.  The minute Joe and I walked in and started packing his stuff, she new the jig was up and lost it.  She started screaming in both Spanish and English.  Foaming at the mouth.  Screaming about money Joe supposedly owed her, and such.  She started slamming things down, and throwing this, and then, typical bi-polar started crying.  I told Joe to ignore her and helped him pack, she got steamed, got right in my face and went the whole “respect me in my house” crap.  Of course, me being the sarcastic one, went right back about respect for others, like Joe and her Husband/Boyfriend, and with what happend this weekend she might want to back away.  She lost it again, now realizing Joe had come clean with the incident, and that is why we were pulling him out.

She started going off how she wanted me out of the house, that I did not belong in her house, and she needed to talk to Joe so I should bring his luggage downstairs.  When I told her I wasn’t leaving, she again lost it, and started screaming again to get out of her house.  I of course told her, if she wanted me out, she could call the Police.  That end her thoughts of that, and she started on the money thing again.  I told her to take Joe to Housing Court, and Joe and I carried his stuff out of the apartment with her yelling screaming and tossing things behind us.

We get downstairs and he husband/boyfried in down there, crying, afraid to go upstairs.  Joe spoke Spanish, so we told his to call the women’s center and I wrote the number down for him.  I told his to at least call me on Monday, and I would get him hooked up with our IVRP Program.  He just kept saying that he wasn’t going back upstairs for several hours, but he would be OK.  I hope we convinced him otherwise.

So, I got Joe out to the meeting place, and off to the shelter, got back to my office and clocked out around 1:30. 

So, how was your day?

So advice to any man who reads this who if going through something like this.  There is help.  Battered men is much more common than you think, it is just not reported for many reasons.  Seek the help.

Malach’s Sheik Yerbouti Friday Video of the Day

I am Malach and that was another song off Head on the Door