The other day I (Jen) got a call form a local clinic to go and advise on a patient. When I got there the person I was meant to be seeing had been discharged but said they did have a lad, John, who they would like me to see instead. Now one of the things that caught my interest was that John was the only child in an adult facility, so there must be a really good reason for him being there.
John is a 12 year old lad. He was orphaned of both his parents at about three years old. Up until January John had been going to school. At some point after this he fell ill and so was unable to go to school anymore. Then two months ago something happened to make John unable to move his legs at all. Everyday for the last two months, the aunt, who cares for John continues to go to work. John is left locked in the house, alone, all day. He has no food and no way of getting to the toilet. All he has is a long stick that enables him to switch the television on and off. This has been his life. Occasionally a concerned neighbour will bring him food. You can only imagine the state that the nurses who visited him found him in. He was unwashed and had been left lying in his own bodily fluids. He was covered in nasty bedsores. When they admitted him and began to clean him up they also found signs of witch doctors’ intervention on his body. Such a vulnerable and traumatised young lad.
So where do I fit in? where do you start?
Jen, you start with simply being you, loving, caring, gentle wonderful you! Then you build on that as you listen, speak and work out just what it is you can do, if anything – and then you do it, and by the way, perhaps ‘you were made for such a time as this?’
By: Sheila Taylor on August 26, 2011
at 7:44 am