DW

DW, a resident of a local neighborhood, suffered a stroke in July of 1992. She was taken to a nearby hospital paralyzed on the left side. She recovered quite well in the hospital and after about six weeks she returned home. One day while visiting her in her home, DW told me that she thought she was dying. Knowing that I could be humorous with her at that point, I said to her, “You don’t look like you are dying to me!” She managed to crack a smile and laugh with me. She trusted me. I explained to her that she lacked the support services she needed for recovery after a stroke. Now at home, she needed all the care and support services she was receiving in the hospital. With proper support I thought she would begin to feel as though she was living. I contacted the hospital where she had been and they helped to line up support services (speech, occupational, and physical therapy) for DW. DW lived for another year and a half. She was able to return to work and was even able to drive again. Unfortunately, her death was the result of a car accident. Given her age (75 years old at the time of the stroke) she did not know how to “work the healthcare system” on her own behalf, nor did her husband or adult daughter.

The Role of The Center

The Center’s Director....

1. Paid a visit to DW, not at her request, but knowing that she was home alone with nothing to do and still very fragile. I knocked on the door to see how she was doing. She invited me in for tea. We visited and talked. It took well over an hour to figure out how things really were and what she was feeling about her life. People don’t just talk about their worst fears right away.
2. Contacted the hospital that treated her and arranged for support services with the social worker and the discharge planner. This contact set the hospital’s “wheels in motion” so that DW would get the services she desperately needed.
3. Helped DW reformulate her “organizing story”- the story of her life at the present moment. When I first visited her, her story was that she was “finished.” Seeing more potential in her than she thought she had, I decided to see if she would “come with me and hold my hand,” figuratively speaking, and let me take her where I wanted her to go, where I thought she could go. She came with me and became fully functioning.

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