A couple of years ago, "Cecile" came up to me in Emerald City
and shared with me how he had pulled someone out of the path of an out of
control motorcycle. The person was fine
but he now had a broken arm.
People on the streets do everything possible to avoid going to the E.R.[1] Cecile had put a splint of his own making on his
arm. His arm was completely useless for
a couple weeks as he tried to bring healing to it without professional
care. In time, his arm
"healed" but had a noticeable bend in it. He was told by a doctor who visited Emerald
City that the day would come when surgery would be needed to correct the
improperly healed break that could have been dealt with early on if proper care
had just been provided when it was needed.
Melanie and Natalie are sitting in jail cells at RCF[2]
as I write this blog. Both ladies have been
there for three to four months. They have
both detoxed from their "medicine" and have been in a holding
pattern, living in a cell that can better be described as an oversized toilet
stall with cots. They have received no counseling
nor therapy for their Substance Use Disorder issues.
Their "broken arm" has been the addiction/homeless phase of their
Substance Use Disorder. Their time in a homemade splint has been these past months as they have sat waiting for the legal system
to find them a medical bed in a facility to provide the care - the cast - that
they should have had months ago.
As they sit and wait, they think.
They climb inside their own heads, talk to others who are in this
similar holding pattern and develop their own - largely unguided - understanding of what
happened to get them where they are today and how they might correct their path.
In the absence of the placement of a proper cast at the time of injury,
their soul may heal but with a bend that will require "surgery" since
healing was not provided at the time of the injury.
Would it not be better for these ladies, - who represent thousands of
other men and women in this same situation - if we as a society had the mechanisms
firmly in place to provide the cast when it's needed and not wait to provide
the surgery long after the injury?
[1] Mostly
because they have come to know that most E.R.s treat them as something less
than human.
[2]
Riverside Correctional Facility
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