Spread the love around

After a 4 mile run in the outside world (not the gym) I came to a realization while in the shower. The reason why I’m in medical school (even though most days I question my decision) is centered strongly on the premise of love. Yeah, it sounds cheesy. But, the reason why I’m sweating out these boring basic sciences is because I have a deep love for people, and an appreciation for how circumstances shape the life course.

On Wednesday, I had my last day of Service Learning Program where we worked at a shelter on Chicago’s west side called Cathedral Shelter. We put on a showcase with all the different groups and their experiences. Some worked in a domestic violence, others did HIV/AIDS, and another group centered around immigrant health. My group was homelessness—hence the shelter. The object of the program is to assign a continuity patient in each of these categories to students participating in SLP. I had two—a woman and her daughter. I won’t go into their story but I will post here the things I read at the showcase. They are a bit reflective of several homeless experiences I was privy to hearing about. These pieces demonstrate and remind me why I’m walking this path. And I think I should post them so that when I get all hatey-hatey I can track my own cyberprints and basically slap myself back to the end goal—to infiltrate medicine with deep insight and care for folks. It’s a lot more rare than you’d think.

The first piece was part of an intro:

We’ve all engaged in some debate about health care access given the current political climate. Not having insurance is a barrier to health and being unemployed is also a barrier to health care access. Imagine being homeless on top of that? Health care might not even be a priority when your basic needs aren’t being met. Surely, eating and safety come before seeking access to health care. Unstable housing situations or a relatively nomadic lifestyle make it difficult for people to commit to healthcare and have consistent access. It might be easy to wait in line at Cook County in order to take care of immediate concerns like a wound, but taking medication for hypertension is opening up a whole ‘nother can of worms. Medication adherence entails being able to afford medication, pick it up, and keep it safe. That isn’t necessarily a top priority for homeless patients. And for some, it isn’t even a possibility. Creating a sustainable health care system that works for people WITH homes has been an uphill battle in this country. Creating a system that works for homeless people is even more trying.

We have found that the individuals we interacted with at Cathedral Shelter usually came from families with substance abuse issues or suffered some degree of trauma—whether it was war, the death of a loved one, or incarceration. This knowledge led to our appreciation of the systemic and cyclical nature of homelessness. An unstable childhood often begets an unstable adulthood. The concept of a “level playing field” was shattered by our interactions with the residents at Cathedral Shelter. And our concept of homelessness was simplified. A homeless person is someone without a home—not a lazy person, or an uneducated person, or someone that lacks insight. There is no “stereotypical” homeless person. We don’t get to choose the families we are born into, or the values they demonstrate for us. Instead, we use those things to navigate the world, however steadily or unsteadily. If anything, our experiences at Cathedral Shelter have unified the common human experience and reminded us that at the core we have far more similarities than differences, despite our fortunes or lack thereof.

And this last bit is a poem. Poetry is a major element of my life. It helps me distill the world around me so I can make sense of the things I might not be able to control.

Taking Flight

Suffering has

No gender

Has no definite

Shape

Lies on thresholds

Sleeps on streets

Couches

Park benches

And temporary beds

Lacks comfort

Trust

Space

Only circles

Of past

Encroaching on present

Childhoods

Where liquor flowed freely

Relationships that started sweetly

With heroin kisses

Ending with heroin and love withdrawal

Suffering has a degree

Has a home

Had a home

In and out of homes

Had a stable relationship

With a substance

With abuse

With loneliness

With loss

Guilt

Famine

Feast

Love lost

Love left

Love never given

Behind jail bars

Lies jailbirds

Singing out

For glory

For a better way

Wanting to be treated

With humanity

Respect

Because no matter

The circumstance

Those that have

The fight or the fuel

To dream their way

Out of limited

Existence

Know that respect

Is a right

Not a privilege

Suffering

Cycles on

Has a beginning

And for some,

Has an end

Sing with us

A song for the

Jailbird

For the sage

For the frightened child

Turned adult

Shaped by life’s circumstances

But not defined by them

It is not our boundaries

That shape us

But when we take flight

And how we escape

COPYRIGHT 2010 JADE PAGKAS-BATHER