A few days after my last post about how Anthony’s health seemed to be doing better I called him only to find him admitted at George Washington University Hospital. His blood pressure was dangerously high and he was not feeling well. A customer of his saw him sitting near the spot where he sells the paper and, after seeing that he didn’t look normal, asked if he was feeling alright. He wasn’t…and they called an ambulance.
I learned about this the following day. My office is only a few blocks from the hospital so I walked over on my lunch break to check on him. I was his only visitor he told me. While I was there with him he opened his phone, he has one of those old flip phones, and dialed a number and handed me the phone. “I’m calling Elizabeth,” he said as he placed the phone in my hand. Anthony has a habit of doing this…dialing people and just handing me the phone.
A young and bright outreach worker, Elizabeth has been working with Anthony for some time. It’s Elizabeth that I have come to lean on when I get fed up with trying to figure out how to navigate the social services system. She’s also been invaluable to me in helping me understand how to talk with Anthony in such a way that I am not projecting my hopes and wishes for Anthony on him but that he is consciously choosing his path – something that she calls motivational interviewing.
The doctors got his vitals down to a healthy level and he was released the following day. I went with him on Friday to see his doctor and check on his progress. All his blood work looked good and he seemed to be feeling better.
And while Anthony’s health issues were putting a damper on some things we got great news from Elizabeth. She’s been quietly working away at finding him housing and found an organization that looks very promising. We should know more in the next couple of days, but keep your fingers crossed!
The writing is going fine…just a matter of finding more time to write. I am reaching out to my agent tomorrow for us to talk next steps.
I still need to schedule a time to sleep out on he streets with Anthony. The last couple times I have tried to schedule this my job has interfered I can’t imagine how he does this everyday! We got to get him indoors!
