Multiconstruct

I didn’t give my coat to the homeless guy today, its kind of new and I like it and as I discovered this afternoon, a free or cheap one can’t be had this time of year, for a big guy. He was disappointed we drove out to Wal-Mart and didn’t buy anything. But we don’t really have a budget for “consumables” and we run a lean mean operation. Couldn’t get his diabetes meds either, only heard he needed them this morning, his Medicaid is lapsed and he doesn’t have a script. Best I could do on a Friday is make sure he knows the signs of high and low blood sugar and point out the closest emergency room to the homeless shelter. “And watch your diet too”. Dude didn’t even know who I was at the salvation army, started talking to a clerk thinking he was me, while I was looking at books. It’s a hard old world. He’d just done a 6 month stretch for probation violation for being ornery at the group home and was discharged to the local psych unit for a 2 day stay who apparently discharged him without meds. He’s not accepted at the homeless shelter because they don’t take people straight out of Mid-Mo so he’s there on whats called a “cold cot”. Anyone can stay a night if its shitty outside, but April 1 is on Tuesday and the April Fools joke around here is their ain’t no more “cold cots” till November. Got turned down from the ½ empty long-term dual diagnosis homeless dude program because he’s been clean too long. Damn. Should have smuggled him some crack 2 months ago when he was at the county jail. Now I know for next time. I’d added him onto my schedule for dumping him on my co-worker, but she’s great. Got his psych-meds, cheap. Working on getting his psych records to get him into the homeless shelter program by Monday. She rocks, so I had to put in a little extra effort and work late without getting caught up, and still didn’t score him a jacket. Every appointment went long with a steady flow of calls. It makes my head spin. But it was exciting too. Wrestling with issues of sobriety, being real with really interesting and dynamic personalities but struggling. Good to see big turn arounds, someone excited about recovery and get to pay him back with a passionate presentation at the Medicaid review hearing. Had to slam our programs psych to do it. Point out she’d seen him 9 times and he had 9 diagnoses. Said although I had a lowly masters and was no psychiatrist I’d spent 10 or 20 times longer and new the story and had seen the scene. It was sweet, I hope we win. Had to give up a months worth of food stamps to go for the appeal. I feel totally fried though, all week was like today. Bam its starting out at 8:00 am unless the calls don’t come first and its just jamming every day. 5-6-7 appointments every day, driving to most of them and training 2 new workers and overseeing a third taking crisis calls from most of the case load. Squeezed out a 20 minute lunch today only the 2^nd one this week, but I also have 4 days of casenotes to write. Its scaring me to think I got approved for a mortgage this week and am buying a house. For the first time in my life I’ll need to have a job. I won’t be able to just walkaway when it gets too much. Its going to be interesting. I expect I’ll get a lot better at striking a balance. That or my head’ll explode.