Adelaide
in North Dakota
got my phone number from her daughter-in-law in Tennessee. She hears
I help get people out of nursing homes. Her husband Del was discharged
from the hospital into one of those non-homes after he had a fall. And
since nursing homes know which side their bread is buttered on, they
won't let him go home. So Adelaide goes to his bedside first thing every
morning and stays with him all day to try to cheer him up, but after
three weeks of watching Adelaide putting on her cheery-weary face for
him, Del's made it clear. He wants to go home.
Now
he's refused to eat another meal in that place. Not
another bite. Adelaide says she will do ANYTHING ON EARTH
to get him home again. "He's always been the stubborn
one," she says. They've been married more than forty
years. She knows he wouldn't say such a thing if he
didn't mean it.
With
the help of you can't imagine how many people around the
country, we do manage to get him out -- while he's still
alive. Since it takes so much effort from so many people
to undo the harm done by one log-brained hospital
discharge planner, I'd dearly love to call that little
paper tyrant and threaten her with bodily harm. (She'd
probably say she was only trying to help.
Grrrr.)
So
instead of calling her with a death threat, or kicking my
dog, I indulge myself in phototerrorism. I scan in an old
love comic and imagine a social worker who discovers,
suddenly, that everything she knows is wrong. That's how
Pamela Proactive came to life. There are hundreds of
thousands of Pamelas out there. I can only dream that
someday they will all wake up.
-- lucy
gwin
