2007-12-04 - 6:58 a.m.
As I mentioned, the state of Illinois now provides me with a homecare worker to come a few times a week. Until she moved a few weeks ago and had to be replaced, this was a 21-year old CNA named Jennifer. She did some personal care stuff like picking me up into the bathtub to shower and helping me get dressed so Nya doesn�t always have to do these things. She also helped clean our apartment because I really can�t contribute my equal share of homemaking duties.
She was the first personal assistant I worked with and to be honest I was a little nervous about the new development. Just the idea of someone else dealing with me at my most vulnerable. I mean she�d see me naked when she put me in the shower and after I got out. Jennifer eased my fears and reminded me that, yeah, people need help sometimes. It's really no big deal.
Jennifer once noted that the reason she was drawn to homecare is that �everyone is going to need some help eventually � today it�s you, tomorrow it might be my grandmother�. This starkly contrasts with the attitude of another homecare worker, presumably much older (I was told she was a retired nurse). While talking with her on speakerphone (there was some uncertainty if Jennifer would keep working and I was interviewing potential replacements), Nya said something in the background.
The retired nurse asked if that were my mother. No, I replied. It�s my wife. (Nya remarked it�s the same difference�) Bur apparently, the idea that a person with a disability might be married and not live with their parents was fairly baffling to the older woman. The remainder of the conversation was somewhat awkward. Needless to say, I did not use her (in fact, Jennifer ended up remaining a personal assistant and still worked with me until she moved to Pennsylvania to help care for a relative with breast cancer).
Jennifer was something of a troubled youth trying to make good, a former gangbanger (yes, in Chicago even working-class whites can be in gangs) with a stormy personal life now taking out massive student loans to finance her college education. Nya and I can certainly relate to troubled youth, having been a couple ourselves. She also has two small children and manages to provide for them despite everything else going on. I think that makes her a better person than me.
So props to Jennifer and good luck to her in Pennsylvania. She made me a lot more comfortable with accepting help and I�m very proud she was a part of my life.
� 2007 Geoff Gladstone
If you�ve ever enjoyed my writing, please donate to the Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis and/or the Montel Williams MS Foundation.
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