Another bitterly cold weekend with snow flurries flying. I've been in Nashville only about four years now, but I don't recall it being this damned cold here - for so long - since I've been here.
(No, this is NOT Nashville; the pic here is of
my home in Nevada!)
I had the dogs out last night and we walked the neighborhood, our evening ritual, and I couldn't help but think about all the folks on the street who were going to face another long, uncomfortable evening shivering through the darkness.
Last week, although relatively short due to our office being closed for two days due to the weather, was perhaps one of the most difficult weeks I've experienced in terms of emotional hardship as a result of the stress consumers in my organization bring to the table with each visit, call and/or email.
By Friday, I'd about reached my personal limit, and believe if we'd had another day of work I probably would have had to take a personal day to recharge my psychological/emotional reservoir.
I think it had a lot to do with the type of emergencies and difficulties brought to my table by many of the folks I saw last week; there was the family of four who was surviving on the disability income of their 20 year old daughter, who was dying of cancer. Dad had suffered a full arrest heart attack a year ago and mom was working to support the family and care for sick daughter and dad as well as 11 year old daughter when the stress finally got to her and she suffered a heart attack herself less than a month ago.
A woman in another county balling her eyes out because she was about to be evicted and her unemployment wasn't enough to help her move. Her 17 year old daughter is also working and trying to finish school and the HPRP grant available to assist folks like these isn't being fully utilized by many of the other counties in our state because of the level of work it takes to put someone through the process - staff simply cannot add more to an already astonishing caseload of people and many of the agencies can't afford to help even if they had available staff, since the grant is a reimbursable and the initial cash outlay must come from the agency doing the helping. How many non-profit social service providers do you know with extra cash lying around, eh?
Dozens of people coming to me for payment of electric, water, and rent; one elderly family has been without power and heat for the past month, suffering through Nashville's "big snow" period in the cold and the dark. It got so bad in their home they had to report to the ER suffering from hypothermia. The man's health is so poor I'm frankly surprised he survived it, and if I'm unable to assist him, I can't imagine him toughing it out much longer.
One of the things that has always stuck with me from my old paramedic training days is that "if the caregiver isn't well, there's no one left to provide care for those who need it." It drives home the important point that self-care is not only essential, it's critical for one's well being in this line of work.
My dear friend Ken Kraybill, along with the great peeps over at the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, have put together some wonderful tips and info available to caregivers on this very subject and I've been spending some time this weekend indulging in my own health and happiness.
If you're feeling the pressure of a job that is definitely bringing with it new and very difficult challenges as we trudge our way through a long-term economic disaster, you might benefit from some of the info they've made available to us all.
Visit their site and do some perusing; you'll be glad you did because there's no shame in understanding where your limits are and it's always better to care for oneself long before one reaches overload status.
Feeling recharged today and ready to wade into the battlefront; and make no mistake, every day we're out here waging a war - a war on poverty, pain, suffering, addiction, mental illness, hopelessness, despair and self-destruction.
