Work is FUN!!!

As promised, I'm posting some work stories.

I'll give you a little background first. Most of the clients we see are on Medicare, and have to have a primary psych diagnosis for us to go out. This means most of our clients are older adults, but we occasionally get younger people who's psych diagnosis is so debilitating that they can qualify for Medicare earlier because of a disability. We saw a client as young as 24 on Medicare because her anxiety was so bad she was terrified to leave her home. The one time someone finally got her to leave her house, she was raped.

When we get the calls, the clients are screened into one of our many programs depending on their needs and insurance. Most of the stories I'm going to tell are from the GRAT program (Geriatric Regional Assessment Team). The social workers who work on this team have to make a visit within 3 business days, as these are people in crisis for various reasons.

These are some of the saddest stories you will ever hear, and sometimes you have to laugh or you might cry. Like Krystal the other day was going through a stack of old GRAT referrals and started laughing when she read, "Client recently drove her car over an embankment." That's actually a mild story and fairly common, but still a messed up thing to do. Earlier that week, Krystal was working on a referral and completely serious, and it being completely relevant to what she was doing, asked, "Is 'straightjacket' one word or two?"

A GRAT social worker told us the story of a man who's walls were smeared with feces (common occurrence). He had poor hygiene and hated to wear clothes except for a pair of wooden shoes. This client would stand up as high as he could in his wooden shoes, surrounded by his "fingerpainting," and make a sound with his voice that sounded like a flute, and he would "flute" Silent Night.

We had a client who turned on the kitchen sink, plugged it up, and walked away. The apartment flooded, and the water trickled down 5 stories. When asked why he did it, he said, "I don't know." This is the same guy who burned the crap out of his food and just stood there staring blankly as his apartment filled with smoke.

There is also a mental illness that displays itself as "hoarding." I'm sure we've all heard stories about people who can't throw things away and live in a total mess. We hear stories of clients who can't sleep in their bed at night because of the all the stuff, or have to climb up and over things to get in and out the front door. One client had raccoons living in the walls and ceilings, and the feces and urine soaked through the sheet rock and cause the house to mold. Another client hoarded bits of chewed up meat in balls of tin foil.

Something a little lighter to end on. Liz had a client who died, and asked us for a better word to say in her clinical documentation that he client was dead other than saying he "expired." "My milk expires," she said. "My patients don't, and I hate saying 'passed away'." Some of the answers she got:

For the yoga fan: "Client is currently practicing Corpse Pose."

But the winner: "Client has stopped breathing and is unresponsive to questions."

Later,
Carolyn