Wednesday, July 9, 2014

A Cripple with a Care Plan

There are two kinds of cripples: 1) Those have a care plan and 2) those that don’t.

The ones that don’t have a care plan are the truly liberated cripples. Whenever I see one of those wheelchair athlete cripples with upper body muscles like a juiced-up lumberjack, I say to myself, “I bet she doesn’t have a stinkin’ care plan!” It’s the same with the rich cripples, who ride around in their chauffeured, air conditioned, amphibious, fabulous flying cripple vans. Nobody makes them have a care plan either.

Cripples who live in nursing homes, however, are the most unliberated cripples of all. And they have care plans up the ass. I have a friend in a nursing home and he asked me to come to the meeting where the nurses, therapists and social workers put together his care plan. Now the thing about care plans put together by nurses, therapist and social workers is that they always contain lots of goals, but it’s never about anything fun or interesting. It's never about anything that's good for the soul. Getting blotto drug and waking up in a tattoo parlor in Reno is never a goal on these care plans. Trying to get laid is never a goal on these care plans. But why not? If every adult human was required to submit a self-care plan to the state, trying to get laid would be a high-priority goal on pretty much every one. The care plan for my friend in the nursing home contained goals like getting up out of his wheelchair and walking 20 feet down the hall twice a week and socializing more with his neighbors and some such stuff I don’t even remember. All I know is that the goals of his nursing home care plan were way different than the goals of his personal self-care plan would be.

I’m one of those cripples with a care plan, which places me more among the unliberated cripples than not. I’ve been required to have a care plan pretty much my whole life. First it was because I was an inmate in a state-operated boarding school for cripples. Now it’s because the state pays the wages of my pit crew, which is what I call the guys who get me dressed, put me on the crapper, etc. Thus, I am required to have a care plan. Except in this case it’s called a service plan. My service plan allots me X number of hours per month for getting dressed and X number of hours per month for taking a leak and so on. It does not allot me any hours for getting blotto drug and waking up in a tattoo parlor in Reno or for trying to get laid.

The lumberjack cripples don’t need a pit crew and the rich cripples can afford to pay their own. I guess I’ll always be a cripple with a care plan unless I suddenly get either rich or cured. I know for sure one of those things is never ever going to happen. So I’ll just keep hoping I get cured.



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7 comments:

  1. The essence of the care plan here is the client needs personal care (cleaning help) before food prep. Personally I'd rather be well fed and slightly dirty before very clean and starving.

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  3. I worked at a group home for a few months. The people liked me, but the management was not my biggest fan.

    We were each assigned several people for a caseload. We were supposed to get close to them and determine their likes, dislikes, wants, needs, and goals to use in their care plans.

    Well damn it, when LB said she wanted to get laid, I worked it into her plan: "LB has stated a desire to be engaged in age-appropriate social situations. She has expressed interest in dating. She would like to be taken to the bar for her weekly outing at least once per month."

    They didn't review it before they had me submit it. Of course they didn't go through with it. But she was able to make a case that her care plan was being ignored and transfer to another provider. And I never had to write another care plan. Win for both of us!

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  4. I don't have a care plan, I guess because I'm not a cripple. However, I am pushing...well, I'm sure I'm a hell of a lot older than anybody else reading this site and I can relate. I get suggestions about "appropriate" activities, usually involving water aerobics or church. I hate water aerobics and am happily agnostic (a wishy-washy way of saying "atheist"), so these are tiresome. I'm expected to greet them, though, with heartfelt thanks so the self-appointed adviser will think he or she has done something for the old bat. Anyway, love your blog, Mikey, baby!

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  5. Nice piece! Of course we all need to submit a care plan to the Homeland Security Office so they can send it to the CIA, the NSA and SSA. Then a :cc for our mothers, if alive. You powerfully describe the infantilization of PWDs.

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  6. As a cripple, I've made sure to NEVER have a care plan. Care plans kill, body, mind and soul. Have I ever sat up all night, pissed because my attendant didn't show, chain smoking, wetting my pants, then deciding to go to the local diner for breakfast at the crack of dawn smelling of pee? Hell yeah. And even though I quit smoking and can't eat without help anymore, I'd do it again.

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  7. Hmmm well ask for getting laid to be added to the care plan. It is an IADL!!!!!!

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