Day 3 of Homeopathy - Why it sucks when you're the "expert"

So, two different subjects, one post, because it all ties together. Subject one, suicide, subject two, Ignatia Amara. Let's begin with subject two.

So the homeopathic remedy my naturopath has me on is called Ignatia, and it's for grief and balancing emotions and stuff. It can make things worse before it makes things better. It's definitely made things worse, or at least psychosomatically so, I'm not sure. Nausea. Ick. Bleck. Nausea. And lack of appetite, but the nausea feels better when I eat. random. Lack of interest. Yup, I've got that. It goes along with the "lump" in my throat. Exhaustion, oh yeah. I've slept eight and a half hours two nights in a row and still been tired, despite my b12 shot on Monday. Hopefully things get better soon!

Subject 1, suicide. Without going into too much detail, there's this girl I know, younger than me, but still over 18, and she's quite depressed. I've been a non-professional support for her for four or five years now, and I know her quite well (far better then she knows me). Here's the thing though, right now she's quite suicidal from what I can ascertain and really not doing well. We both think she needs to go to hospital, but she is scared of going and keeps putting up barriers. I offered to take her tonight, but no go, barriers put up. So we're at a stand still.

Now here's the thing, if she was a client, instead of a friend, I could leave this at work. I could leave this in the client's hands, provide them with resources, write a safety plan, and I could go home. But as a friend, she has my cell phone number, and that's how we've been talking, text messages. It's harder for me to set aside, because I care about her a lot (not that I don't care about my clients and worry about them as well, but it's a different kind of relationship). But I'm stuck. She's not actively suicidal, or if she is, she's not telling me, so I really can't call the police. I've had to call the police for people before, and it's not fun, even when they're standing in front of you telling you that they're going to walk out the door and hang themselves, and they've got the rope already. The police would not be interested in this. I also don't have enough "evidence" to go to the magistrate and try and get a "form" so that she's forced to be assessed in hospital. I have given her all the crisis resources, I have been through safety planning with her, I've done all the "right" things, and now it's time to let go.

Here's how this all ties together though. Among other people who are friends with this person, I am "the expert". I'm not an expert in this at all, but I'm the one they all turn to when things aren't going well for this friend. There is no one else for me to call, they could call me, but that's where it stops. This friend has a counsellor, but I'm not in contact with them, because I'm not a professional in this case as I've told her many times. I'm not at my best right now, I'm really not. But there's no one to pass this responsibility off on. I just don't seem to have it in me to tell my suicidal friend with very little support, yeah, I'm feeling "off" today, can you feel like dieing another day? I have of course set some limits and boundaries, and I definitely took some me time for self care today where I completely ignored the phone, but it's still hard. I guess it's never going to be "easy" though, when a friend is feeling suicidal, no matter how good a place I'm in. I guess I'll see what tomorrow brings!

Day 11 - Cultivating Peace

By the end of yoga today I was crying. Not because of physical pain, although both my ankle and my elbow were hurting, and not because I was particularly exhausted, but just because I was crying. I'm not sure what triggered exactly, perhaps simply that my body doesn't always move the way I'd like it to, but I really think it was more than that. There's a lot of stress in my life right now, and stress tends to come out in our bodies. I don't know if yoga released some of that, or brought it to the surface or what, but there was something going on there. Tomorrow I'm doing some nice, basic, hatha yoga. Stretching in the hot room, but not Sun Salutations, no Flows and no rushing.

I sent this as an email update to friends, so perhaps I'll add it here as well.

I know I haven't been the most talkative this week, but I wanted to update you all on what's going on (for some of you you're jumping in in the middle here because I've been bad with updates, but here's what's going on).

My grandma (my father's mother) has pneumonia. As I last heard she is still conscious and eating (as long as it's pureed, she is no longer able to chew or to swallow hard foods) and is taking antibiotics. She is on oxygen and she is not expected to be able to beat the pneumonia and has been moved to palliative care.

My father is going out to see my grandma (across the country) and say goodbye. I am driving him to the airport tomorrow morning. Although he initially wanted me to come, we decided it would be better if I stayed here to look after my mother and came out for her funeral, either this trip, or a trip in the future. He is planning on returning on Wednesday.

We found out on Tuesday that my mother's chemotherapy did not work and her tumor has grown. The tumor coats many of the major organs in her abdomen including her intestines, lungs, and liver. They have decided to try my mother on a different kind of chemotherapy, however there are potentially lethal side effects associated with it and she has to be very careful. At this point the chemotherapy is simple to extend her life, there is no hope of a cure.

In addition to the cancer my mother has developed a blood clot in her leg which runs from her groin down into her calf. She was on injectable blood thinners at the hospital all last week but seems to have been stabilized on warfarin for now. I am taking her to the hospital tomorrow where they will check her levels and do care of the pic line she has in her arm for chemo.

In summary, at this point, I'm staying in the city and my father's going away. But, I'm also back to that uncertain place of not knowing when I might be flying across the country.

Please keep my family in your thoughts and prayers. In particular my father who is leaving his very sick wife to say goodbye to his dying mother. Please also pray for my mother as she will spending a lot of time on her own in the upcoming days. And of course please pray for my sister has she is placed into the role of primary house keeper. And me, as I try and make sure that everything comes together, is taken care of, and everyones needs are met.

gong show

Sometimes, the only way I can get through my shifts is to have a mantra that goes like this "i love my job, i love my job, i love my job". And the truth is, I really do, it just has it's moments... take one of the days this weekend for example.

I have this girl coming out of the drunk tank who wants to talk to the mobile crisis team. When I phone, they don't want to talk to her, they don't have "time" (uhh, okay?), they were super rude to me. I wanted her to phone in the first place, but she chickened out, so I said I would make an introduction and hand her the phone. They kept me on the line not wanting to talk to her, talk about not empowering! Anyway, they finally talk to her, and they wind up arguing, and then she hands me back the phone. Apparently she has "attitude". Bah. I gave her so different resources, and bus fare.

While this is going on, ccf discovers a girl has hung herself in her drunk tank cell. Freakyness. I have never seen a hanging, and frankly, I never want to again. We're still not sure exactly how she got the string, but in anycase, we cut her down and saved her and she was consious before the paramedics got there. Just another day in the life of the drunk tank, because back I am with girl calling crisis services, and opening the doors for firefighters, paramedics, medical supervisors, police etc... answering questions for the police, doing intakes and discharges, and oh, somehow, ccf and the guy with the knife decided I should do all the documentation cause I have the "nicest penmanship" (I do, but still...).

Fast forward a couple hours, two of my coworkers are sick and throwing up, but can't go home because we're so short staffed and they feel "guilty". Ccf is in one of his silent moods and not communicating well with others; me included. We discharge someone from the drunk tank who is on our permanent barred list (or to be pc, his "service has been suspended"). He almost takes a swing at my supervisor, and we have to seal IPDA to protect me while I discharge him. It takes me 20 minutes. Why? Because he decides I'm a sweatheart and starts to tell me about his deep emotional pain.

Another couple hours. I walk past doing a life check and find a guy talking on a cell phone inside an IPDA cell. Uhhhh they're supposed to be searched! And what's he saying? "Yes, I do need an ambulance, yes, and ambulance". I yell for my supervisor, who throws open his door and starts yelling, "don't send one, he's in the drunk tank and fine!" She yells at him to give up the phone, and eventually he does. He throws it accross the floor and yells, get this, "you might not want to touch that, it's been up my ass". sigh. ass phone. So then, i have to call and cancel his ambulance and get the police to come re-search him. Oh, and convince the ambulance people that, you know, he's FINE!

and that's one day...

wait till I tell you all about last night when everyone but me called in sick!

grumpy tuesday

I had a grumpy Tuesday morning which started with a bad Monday night. It made me more aware then ever about how my mood affects clients. Interesting...

Anyway, Monday started off well, woke up at six, went to a friend's house for a youth retreat planning meeting, went out for ice cream! Went to work... Basically as soon as I got to work I felt sick. But, I went out on van patrol anyway. Half way through I stopped for some advil. By the end though I was just like "crap", how am I going to survive the night. I was soooo nauseous. One of our staff went home sick Sunday night, so I'm thinking "crap" maybe I have what she has/had.

I go down to IPDA (and I eat something, in case it's a "i had ice cream for breakfast" thing). Things are going fine down there, I do a discharge, and then I get five intakes in a row. Five. and not just in a row. I did five intakes in 25 minutes. Which is a lot. I was also interupted by some cops in police windbreakers looking for some guy who we haven't had contact with in four years. They told the other cops they "took priority". Maybe they did, but it meant I had to close everything I was doing and access a different part of the badly set up computer database. I didn't do any paper work till I was done with the intakes. Which has it's ups and it's downs. I almost passed out - I was dizzy, and begged one of the other staff to clean my cell from my discharge (yay for teamwork).

So I finish my turn in IPDA. Great. I tell my supervisor how sick I'm feeling and he orders me to take a break. I get distracted. I get reordered to take a break. So I sit down and eat and drink. One of the shelter cleaners (client) comes and asks for garbage bags, there's two other staff by the garbage bags. Neither of them do anything, but niether do I. SO one of our other staff comes in, client asks for garbage bags again. Staff get them, he thanks him, looks directly at me and says "cause all some staff do around here is sit on their arses". So I tell him he can't talk to me like that and he ignores me.

Fine, whatever. I'm annoyed, because this guy is well educated and not intoxicated, and he meant what he said. Some of our clients would say it in fun, or while drunk, I can deal with that, but not this. Especially when he has no idea that I'm dizzy or that i've been forced to sit down by my supervisor. So I mention it to my supervisor. He gets all defensive of me, and takes the client into the office for a little "chat". The client tells my supervisor that I'm the most patronizing staff member ever. Interesting. I'm not patronizing, I'm NICE. There is a BIG difference, and most people really appreciate it. I will have to watch myself though.

But, I was definitely in a bad mood, sick, tired, insulted, and now concerned about being called patronizing and a little annoyed that my supervisor did that. Oh, and I got reminded that people are only allowed one cup of coffee, so I had to work hard to enforce that. Everybody was swearing at me. It was a bad day. Oh, and it was raining. But I can't help wondering if the fact that I was in a bad mood to start with contributed to everyone's being mad at me. I mean, normally the clients in the coffee line do not swear at me. It just doesn't happen. I know my mood rubs off on clients, and so does my attitude. That happens with all the staff, and I see it on a regular basis. Even while intoxicated, people generally tend to respond better to people who treat them with respect (although it's a lot harder then).

When I was doing practicum only 2 days a week, it was a lot easier to curb my emotions while I was there and be happy all the time. Now that I'm working five days a week it's very different. I find that I'm having to work harder at it, and that I experience a greater range of moods over that time in general anyway. It's something I'm going to watch, reflect on, and see what happens.

I <3 HP

My black cloud is still following me around today, but there were some definite breaks for sunshine. Mostly though, I just want to be miserable about not getting that job and curl up and do nothing. So, I will. For a couple days. Then I'm getting over it and moving on. One will come up eventually.

In any case though. I did have a fun story for today.

Everyday after we serve our 1:30 soup we put on a movie. I'm sure we're breaking a million laws by doing this, but it's what we do. I can pretty much guarantee the movie theaters aren't losing revenue by us doing this. We only have a limited number of movies, and it seems that the clients have seen them over and over and over again. Further, most of the movies we have are violent, bloody, gory and loud. This is what people seem to be into, but I can't help wondering if it contributes to some of the violences and loudness inside the drop in.

So, today I brought Harry Potter I and made them watch it. Most people filtered out after soup like always, but this one guy was just enthralled by the movie. It was very cute. He's an older man, not very well spoken, heavy drinker/solvent user, but he has the cutest smile. He grins at me every time he sees me and it makes me grin too. Anyway, I tried to talk to him, but he was busy watching the movie. "Funny movie" he says pointing at the screen. While I've never thought of the movie that way, I'm glad he did. And, it was nice not to be listening to explosions and gunshots while trying to get work done.

Next time I work in the afternoon I'll bringing HPII and so on. After that, I'm thinking RENT. And well, that's basically all the movies I own, so I'll have to hope some other staff will bring in some quieter ones. Or maybe not. Maybe if that's what they like, that's what will watch. I just can't help thinking it's a bad idea to watch so much violence on such a regular basis.

panic attacks

One of the things I'm really nervous about is that someone is going to have a seizure in detox when I'm there by myself. This is actually quite likely to happen, and I'm sure I'll learn to deal with it soon enough. I thought it happened today, but thankfully, I wasn't dealing with a seizure, just a panic attack.

I got called into the dorm by a client yelling for "staff". Being me, I of course left my radio in the office. I found the client lying on the ground with a couple people around him. I asked what happened, no one knew, the person just collapsed. Asked a couple questions though and ascertained it was a panic attack. I helped the person calm down and take deep breaths before getting them to come to the office with me to talk things out further.

Panic attacks are freaky, I know, I've had a couple although not for quite a long time. I'm not sure how long in fact, 2 years maybe? Maybe more like a year and a half. Either way though, I've never had them as bad as this poor person. They were quite shaken. Most people who come through detox sleep A LOT and they hadn't slept in two days. Plus, they had restarted all their meds after a binge. I can only begin to imagine what that must do to your body. Binging, quiting meds, and then detoxing and starting them again. Wow.

It's interesting how many things run through your head when a crisis is happening. All sorts of thoughts, ideas, issues, things you should be doing. And yet, at least for me, I manage to keep everything in check and still concentrate on the situation... I don't know. I like crisis, but there's too much documentation involved :P