Vacation Days Are Here - More Opportunities to Serve in Kensington!

Today, December 11th, 2024, is my last employment work day this year. I'm taking vacation days between now and January 1st, 2025. :-) 

While I have yet to learn all the specifics, I intend to serve in various capacities on the streets of Kensington between now and when I return to work. I'm looking forward to every opportunity to interact with the amazing people living on the streets and those who have called Kensington their family home for generations. It truly is a fantastic combination of people. 

There will be additional expenses to do so. I do everything I can to keep you informed on my adventures and ministry attempts, and I could use your support. I know many of you are praying for me daily. If you feel so led, could I ask for your financial assistance during this vacation? 

To do so, I invite you to this blog page to learn how to send funding. 

https://behealedfromemotionaltrauma.blogspot.com/p/ministry-funding-options.html

Thank you for considering partnering with me during my vacation. Stay tuned for blogs and other reports on how things are going. The needs are great, but our God is greater.

Wandering the Streets

 Wandering the Streets

It was around 2:30 p.m. when I started visiting the people on the streets today, Sunday, December 8th, 2024. I've come to understand that the best way to meet people is to walk around, not just set up shop in the trunk of my car to share the water, song sheets, cards, and the occasional case of bananas. 

I leisurely meander, and I visit…

I started at the corner of Ruth Street and Somerset Street, in front of The Last Stop. I walked to Kensington Avenue and down to Tusculum (at the intersection in the opening scene of Rocky, specifically at the 51-second mark). I crossed the street and made my way back up towards Somerset.

Along the way, I welcomed and heard the stories of the people who call this community home. 

A block from Somerset, I saw a face in the distance that I had not seen in quite some time. She was walking toward me, although she did not know it in that moment. She was just doing her thing as she does day in and day out. We got within range, and I called out… 

Hey Kimmy! 

She looked up and gave me a big smile. We met in the middle of the intersection. She initiated a hug and just hung on for a while. 

We had not seen each other in possibly a year. We asked each other how we were doing, and she mentioned how she hadn't seen me in a while. I explained that I'd been moving from one Delaware County location to another. She seemed to appreciate how busy that would have made me. 

Kimmy is an equestrian who almost presented her skills at the Devon Horse Show, but addiction issues prevented her from doing so. 

In the past couple of years, Kimmy has been shot twice in two separate shootings in front of Rocky’s rental apartment that led to the death of an individual in each of those shootings. And I must admit I ask her each time I see her if she has managed to avoid bullets. She smiled today and said yes. 

As we were talking, Dave walked up to us on the corner, and so the three of us were just talking about the stuff of life, some related to the streets, and some just really the things of life. People living on those streets do appreciate the opportunity to not dwell day in and day out and minute in and minute on addiction-related topics. They want to be treated like humans. And that's what I try to do. 

Before we said our goodbyes,

I made sure that they had a new supply of cards to share with people who might be treating them disrespectfully. I also gave them each a song sheet, a fresh supply of water, and one more hug to Kimmy, who again initiated it and just hung on. 

This is a community of individuals living a literal hell. Some people would say they are doing so by their choice, but as the Reagan administration finally came to understand, “Just say no” does not work. Nor does that phrase 

They're just not ready. 

These incredible, inspirational human beings have been made in God's image and are worthy of the highest dignity, honor, respect, and love. The city of Philadelphia must find a way to deal with this situation to represent this concept and provide the care these fantastic human beings would genuinely like to have. 

I pray that Kimmy can get back to her equestrian activities someday. I pray for Dave. I pray for the other estimated 2,000 people living this nightmare.

My Heart Hurts

On this night, Thanksgiving Night 2024, I share a sad story and a sub-story within the story.

In a slow moment in my day, I turned to Facebook and saw a live video feed by Mal. He was doing his thing on the streets, specifically Kensington Avenue, when he unexpectedly came across the moment when one of our loved ones was being pronounced deceased by an ambulance crew, and a sheet was being placed over the young man's body while they awaited the van, which would take his body away.

That is heartbreaking enough, and yet there was one sub-story that would have gone unknown inside of this video, and it is that part of this video, in addition to the death witnessed in the video, that breaks my heart on this night of Thanksgiving. 

At approximately the 5-minute 30-second mark in the video, Mal walks across the street to discuss the situation with the men and women sitting on the sidewalk. Amy, one of my Delco 5, referred to as Allison in this blog series, is the woman in the dark winter coat who offers the most information. 

I'm telling you this now because I want you to try to understand something. The men and women who you see on the streets have backstories. Amy's backstory that I'm aware of involves a near-fatal overdose and two doses of Narcan, which I gave her and from which she revived only to be told by a registered nurse in the emergency room, which an ambulance took her to, that she must get out of the emergency room. 

Amy's time on the streets may have been permanently interrupted if that registered nurse had fulfilled her moral and professional obligation and treated Amy as a patient and not as an addict to be dismissed. 

We speak of the dreadful nature of drugs on the street, and they are dreadful. We must look at our own healthcare provision of these amazing human beings and how we can do things better and more entirely in ways relevant to the patient, not simply the bottom line of the organization commissioned to provide the care.

Tony Campolo - Radical Discipleship

I recently rediscovered a cassette recording of a message from Dr. Tony Campolo that is very much responsible for making me who I am today.  

I share this with you.

Tony Campolo Side One

Tony Campolo Side Two

 

The Civil War and Slavery in the States of Our Nation... and the civil war and slavery in the disease of our addictions

The battle that goes on in the mind of the patient with Substance Use Disorder has a lot of comparison with our Nation's Civil War.

In this first video, I offer an example of how they compare and what we should do in response to the comparison.

Here are a couple of documentaries to help us better understand the comparison of 

The Civil War over slavery of humans

and 

the civil war of slavery battling in the minds of humans

As you watch these documentaries,

PLEASE

transpose these battle of bullets, bayonets and blood

and the knowledge of how to win such battles

in such a way that the battles within the mind 

diseased by addiction 

can achieve an equivalent victory.

I welcome the input of militarily trained persons

and those with knowledge of this part of our history

who have a heart for addicted persons

to chime in on this discussion.

Is the Homeless Population of People in Kensington Responsible for All the Money Coming in for Drugs?

In this video, 

I refer to a spreadsheet that you can review and enter your own numbers as you wish.

(Only change to BOLD PINK numbers.)

I welcome your thoughts on this.

Please share with others.

Thank you.

Chris

Click here to review the spreadsheet.

 

Health Care Professionals... Listen Up!  

When that addicted person is in front of you as your patient, you are their ONLY hope for healing...  

Here's one example of what happens when you fail in your caregiving...

I've known Amy since the first day of my visits to Kensington. Here's a picture of her before drug use. 

I wrote this blog about Amy under the name Allison on Wednesday, May 6, 2020.

Allison at Episcopal: "Get Out of My Emergency Room!"

It would have been better for Amy if that nurse had encouraged her to stay in the E.R. instead of telling her to leave.

Here is Amy now during a recent interview with AML Films: 

Please take the time to listen and learn from her.

Please pray that Amy finds the healing she longs for so much.

On the surface of the issue, my dearest friend died of an overdose on February 21st, 2024.

On the surface of the issue, my dearest friend died of an overdose on February 21st, 2024. I start that sentence with “On the surface of the issue… ".

I do so because, yes, on the surface of the issue, it appears that her body succumbed to an excessive amount of illicit street drugs. But we must look deeper. And there are so many directions into which we must look. My next several writings will be separate writings looking at various aspects of what served as a jigsaw puzzle of pieces creating the puzzle that ended the Earthly life of my best friend. 

Several times throughout her seeking detox care, she would go to a medical clearance facility or a detox center itself and start to go through the process of entry into care. For reasons that perhaps don't make sense to us in our non-addicted brain circuitry but made perfect sense to her in her drug-addicted brain circuitry which had been rewired and hijacked by her officially recognized disease process of substance use disorder, she walked away from the process. She gave up on that day.

I'll spare you all the details of her reasoning to get to the point of this particular message. 

There was a consistent pattern of intake personnel whether on the streets of Kensington or an admissions department in a facility who looked at my dear friend after her multiple attempts at seeking care and walking away when they said to her 

“This is your last time. If you walk away now we will not attempt to help you again.”

(For any individual struggling to feel accepted by family, friends, or society as a whole,

the only thing this statement does in the mind of that individual

is to tell them very directly that they do not have a place in this world,

and bit by bit they are being shoved out of every opportunity that they have for healing.)

From their perspective, I completely understand why one would be tempted to say this. My dear friend had presented herself to you this time and then that time and another time after that and maybe a fourth time etc. You're getting tired of it. You're getting tired of seeing her show up and then show up and then show up and then show up only to walk away. 

She kept showing up and that's what you were supposed to celebrate. 

Just like the diabetic patient who keeps showing up in your emergency room or ambulance because their diabetes is out of control and they can't seem to stop eating the sweets, my dearest and best friend came to you seeking care because she wanted care and could not get beyond herself because of the rewired circuitry of her brain caused by the disease known as substance use disorder. 

You are a professional! 

It is your responsibility to look beyond the annoyance of her showing up and then showing up and then showing up and then showing up! It is your responsibility as the medical professional who you are to look at her and say 

“I thank God that you are here again and again and again and again doing everything you possibly can to get beyond the circuitry of your brain and find healing!”

 But no!

You told her to leave and to not come back or to go to some other facility or you ignored her while she sat in your waiting area until she left unnoticed because you were tired of dealing with her. It Is not your job nor is it your privilege to ignore her in any way shape or form. It is your job to sit there for your hourly wage and serve her, the patient in front of you at that moment. She's in front of you! Just do her paperwork again and again and again and again and again and maybe one of those days it would have stuck and she would have found healing. But you in your lack of professionalism did not do the paperwork and she in the terror of her rewired addicted brain did not stay.

She is dead. 

She will never live to have her family of four children. 

She will never live to complete her Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree and enter society professionally as a BSN RN specializing in her goal of neonatal Intensive Care Unit nursing. 

She will never have the joy of touring the world and seeing the sights.

She will never again make candles or jewelry as her favorite hobbies.

She will never again hug her Dad, Grandmother, me, her cats, or mine.

She will never again enjoy DiGiorno rising crust pizza with pepperoni or Deluxe or sausage/pepperoni Bagel Bites or the sweetness of one of her favorite candies: Skittles. 

She will never again drink half a gallon of apple juice in one day or her preferred Wawa whole milk.

She will never again have the opportunity to surprise her loved ones with a special homemade breakfast, lunch, or dinner on any holiday.

She will never ever again create a homemade card that celebrates the love she feels for her loved ones. 

The next time any patient with substance use disorder is in front of you and may have been in front of you before and before and before and before and before, look at that individual and say 

“Welcome back. Let's make this happen this time.”

And if you want to take the conversation a little bit further, delicately ask them what the issues are that have been causing them to walk away. If it's something that you can correct, please do so. This is someone's daughter, son, father, mother, aunt or uncle, wife or husband or lover. 

If it is not something that you can directly correct such as staggering PTSD that needs painkillers and the only painkillers that they can get are illicit street drugs then make note of that inpatient intake observation and make sure that your patient sitting in front of you is given a warm handoff to the professional who can provide that higher level of care.

That would have helped in my dear friend's case. 

but no. 

but no. 

She’s Dead.

To Contribute to her final expenses, please click here.

Mayor Cherelle Parker and the City Administration,

 Mayor Cherelle Parker and the City Administration,

As you are going about what you perceive to be the proper thing to do in "cleaning out Kensington" please remember to clean out any nursing or medical staff in local hospitals and other similar facilities who are not treating with dignity, honor, respect, and prompt professional care the patients in their care who you are trying to remove from the streets.

As one among many examples, I offer this blog to you...

Allison at Episcopal: "Get Out of My Emergency Room!" A Story of Medicaid Vs. Private Insurance

Any nurse who looks at a recently Narcaned patient who has arrived by ambulance to the emergency room in which they are employed and instructs that recently saved patient to

"Get out of my emergency room!"

is as much a part of the issue as is every other aspect more easily identified by you and your administration. Please look at how the medical community can do a better job at welcoming these patients with substance use disorder, a medical condition officially recognized in the DSM 5.

They are not criminals first. They are patients first. They are trying to deal with a god-awful situation in which they are not seen as patients first. In your role as mayor, you can make a tremendous difference for the good if you see these people as patients and not criminals.

Not long ago, one of my long-term loved ones formerly from the streets of Kensington was seeking detox care from a facility in which they had been previously multiple times.

Not long ago, one of my long-term loved ones formerly from the streets of Kensington was seeking detox care from a facility in which they had been previously multiple times. In those past visits to that facility, this individual had signed out AMA a couple of times and been Narcaned a couple of times due to a suspected overdose on campus. 

But I do want to add and regard to these supposed overdoses, when you look at the details and the circumstances, I highly suspect that these were not actual overdoses. But that topic goes beyond the point of this blog.

This individual was seeking care not long ago from this exact facility. This particular facility does offer a combination of services that are very much needed by this person and not found at other facilities. Again, the details of that go beyond the point of this blog.

Now let's get to the point of this blog.

This facility was trying to not allow this individual to be admitted there because of their AMAs and their supposed overdoses on site.

In the end, this facility did accept their admission and as of this writing things are going well. But here's the point, if this individual was dealing with years and years of diabetes for example, and they were having problems at the facility because of their diabetes, and if those problems were persisting outside of the facility, the facility would not look at them and try to reject their entrance into the facility.

The stigma of addiction otherwise known as ‘substance use disorder’ is discriminated against and treated very differently than a more traditional and yet equally devastating diagnosis of uncontrolled diabetes. 

Of course there are differences. But the issue is that people with substance use disorder are seen as different or inferior or some other sad interpretation of diagnosis. It is high time that we look at substance use disorder on equal terms as diabetes or any other disease of the mind and body.

When we begin to do so, substance use disorder patients will start receiving on equal terms the treatment and the dignity and the honor and the respect and the love that they deserve as human beings.