My brother's brushes with death come in regular intervals.
A sinus infection can mean a trip to the ICU - they interfere with his seizure medication, and thrust him through seizure after seizure.
The latest came courtesy of the staff at his new school.
You see, not all states are created equally when it comes to care for the mentally retarded. Ohio counties have robust programs, with workshops for older disabled people and levy-supported facilities. MRDD levies rarely fail, even in highly conservative counties. People accept caring for society's weakest members as a responsibility, not a burden.
In the span of two weeks, they sent Joe out to recess without a coat in low-40-degree weather and threw away his lunch when he didn't eat a bite (more likely, one of the aides figured "the retard can't tell anyone I ate it for him").
But Tuesday's escapades probably ended his run with the workshop.
The aide who picked him arrived at the school and helped Joe out of the car, then left him alone while she walked back around the car to get a jacket from the backseat.
By the time she looked up, my quiet and fast-moving brother stood at the apron of the road, with a semi rumbling down it.
Joe stopped and smiled, with no comprehension the danger just feet away.
[He has always been a fast mover. When he was 11, the school took their eye off him while they lowered a wheelchair-bound child into the pool. They neglected to give Joe his arm floats. When they went looking for him moments later, he was in the deep end of the pool, unconscious and sinking fast. A life-flight to the Cleveland Clinic and a week in intensive care later, a frail Joe came home.]
In Georgia, the lesson about watching the sly handicapped kid came within feet of becoming a tragedy. The panicked aide pulled him back from the road and then into the workshop.
Meanwhile, she went to the bathroom and vomited.
For once, my mom held that raging temper in check, said nothing, and took Joe home after school.
You can't judge the South with one brushstroke, nor can you condemn a handicapped workshop for just a few weeks of adjustment.
Yet everyone of these kids/adults is unique, with their own quirks and habits. Staff who don't bother to learn them risk peril for the handicapped person.
So I fully expect he won't return this time.
1 comment:
My Joe used to do basically the same things. Running away from our house in nothing but a diaper when he was 3 to 7 or 8 years old. We had numerous calls from the police who'd found him. One night we awoke at 4 a.m. to find an officer shining his flashlight around our upstairs hall, and Joe in his diaper behind him. My brother had decided he'd take a walk to the E. Main St. hardware store in the middle of the night. Then there was the time he walked the three miles to Ameriflora at Franklin Park. "We got a kid here by that description," the cops said into a radio to my mom, "But he don't speak English."
Boy am I glad he outgrew those terrifying behaviors. Hang in there Bill.
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