Two Pieces of Weird News

Okay, so I'm going to have to break the Summer Program standard blogging format in favour of giving two pieces of unique news. Last week should have been "Prep Week Round Four", and it would have been, except that I received some information that I wanted to report but couldn't find the words. Since then, I've been gone for the first week of overnight camp, and there's a lot to talk about surrounding that, but honestly, I don't think I'll get around to it until after I'm back from the next overnight. So my next Summer Program-specific news will be next week, and it will cover Prep Week Round 4, Overnight Week 1 Round 4, and Overnight Week 2 Round 4.

I'm going to start my first piece of news chronologically. Inside the last two weeks, I have been confirmed as the new WALES In-House Facilitator! If you don't remember, WALES (Working Adults Learning Empowerment Skills) was the organization that I did my student placement with. I will be working Tuesday-Thursday. With my Direct Support contract work, I am now for all intents and purposes working full time. I've seen the two previous In-House facilitators upgraded to full-time WALES staff members, so I'll be concentrating on that going forward.

The second piece of news is that someone that I have been working with for the past five years passed away unexpectedly. I'd like to share some pieces of his story, and while I don't expect that I will violate confidentiality, I will use a pseudonym to further protect his identity.

After plugging some background information into a name generator, I got "John (Jack)". I'll call him Jack because that name is traditionally seen as heroic.

Jack was minimally verbal and didn't express himself much with words.  During my first student placement, he would pace back and forth moaning and frustrated many. One day I was assigned to teach him computer skills. He indicated that he wanted to go to lunch early, and while I desperately tried to tell him that while I wanted to let him do that, I was bound to the same rules as him, and we had to finish our computer practice. As I was telling him this, he said his first words to me, "You're one of the good guys".

After this, I was able to interpret everything he said. I was excited and my current mentor suggested that I make my student placement goal to be building a relationship with Jack, as I had seen a side of him that no one else had. I was in charge of helping him do his weekly plans after this.

At one point, a PATH and MAP session was built for him. If you don't remember, I have been trained in facilitating these sessions. They basically explore your history and future goals, and a graphic is created for the person being represented. These sessions can become very intimate. When asked who he wanted to attend, Jack said "My sister, and my friend Gryphon".

I taught Jack the secret handshake I had with the Malian children of Karadie. He was the only person I trusted with that.

He also came to most of the Summer Programs that I had a role in facilitating. The more relaxed pacing of the Summer Program did well for his reception, as opposed to the more work-focused expectations of his day program. He was relaxed at Summer Program, didn't express much agitation, and was appreciated by staff and peers.

But this year, he came to Summer Program, and things were a bit different. At the end of the day, we fill out journals. In the past, I was able to draw visual aids that he would point to, which would indicate how his day went. This year he was unable to process any visual cues.

I wound up providing personal care for him which he had never required assistance for before. This would take hours per day, but it didn't really bother me.

It became an issue though, when we were going to African Lion Safari and we needed to get him onto the bus. I was encouraging him to join the rest of the group, and he was receptive, until he decided that he required personal care. I told him that we had already been through this each day this week, that I knew he felt like he needed this care but in reality he wouldn't be able to go, and that he needed to choose whether or not he was going on the trip or going home.

He raised his fist and screamed "MOVE!" This gentle man who almost never spoke. And I told him "You can see me as a bad guy, I don't really care. More frightening people have raised their fist at me."

Those were my last words to him, and as it turns out, he was experiencing a pain that would later kill him.

As he was leaving with his sister, I turned to my On-Site Director and said "I hate that. For all we know, that's the last time we'll ever see him, and those are the words I left him with". I have never speculated on the death of someone I support before, and there were no real reasons for me to think that he would die.

It also sucks because he had, over and over, explained to me that I needed to go back to WALES. He was explaining that to me this year. And the day after I was confirmed that I would be returning to WALES, I learned that he had passed.