Stuck At Home

Friday, July 10, 2009 - 1:40 PM Well, this has been some week. It has been a mixture of good and bad things. If nothing else, it does break up the monotony.   Monday morning, I went to the mental health clinic and saw Dale, my therapist. The primary discussion centered on the problems I have been having with my CNA's. Dale said that if none of this turmoil ceases, then he thinks it would be a good idea for us to have a joint counseling session with Dr. Martin, my psychologist, and Mickey, who is the director of nursing for my home healthcare agency.   Dale said he felt that the way in which one of the CNA's has been talking to me borders on abuse, and he thinks it is acting as a trigger, which reminds me of the way I was treated by my mother when I was growing up. He feels that I am somewhat afraid to talk with my CNA for fear of some kind of retaliation by her.   When I saw Dr. Martin on Wednesday afternoon, I repeated most of this to her. She seemed to be in complete agreement with what Dale had told me. I also talked with her about my brother having said that he was ashamed to be seen with me in public. I told her that I would like to have one more counseling session with him to find out exactly what I had done to make him feel that way. Dr. Martin quickly said that I was not responsible for how he had felt. She did agree with me that we needed to have another session in order to try and work on this once again.   Yesterday I went to have lunch with my niece Kathy. We ate at one of the pizza places in a nearby mall, but since pizza does not really agree with my stomach, I was less than happy with the place in which we chose to eat.   Other than the food, I believe that Kathy really wanted a chance to talk with me alone. She wanted to know how I was finally able to stop using drugs, and I said that I thought it had to do primarily with the fact that I did a lot of praying to God. She does not seem to think that I am doing all that is possible to make my life better. We discussed a couple of things I had been interested in doing prior to the beginning of summer, but which I had not been able to take part in because of one thing or another. Kathy has always been interested in my improving my quality of life, and she continues trying to help me come up with new ideas to do just that. We decided to get together for another luncheon in a week or two, after she gets back from a short vacation.   Today I am stuck -- quite literally -- at home. My apartment door opens automatically when I press a button, but today it would not budge, so I am stuck inside with no way to open the door on my own. I tried calling my case manager this morning, but as my luck would have it, she is out of town on vacation. I did manage to speak with her supervisor, who remembered me, and he has arranged for someone to fix my door this afternoon. If the technician does not come by four o'clock, I am going to call the supervisor again before most businesses close for the weekend. I do not want to be stuck here until Monday.