Love on Wheelz

The agency never did find someone to work that one weekend shift, so Corie worked it. She wasn’t happy about it, but she had volunteered. Everything went fine that night, we thought. But apparently not because the last time we heard from her was Monday morning when she called to say she was gonna be late because her car broke down. She never showed up again and, to this day, we have no idea what happened to her.

Since Amber was flying home that day. we had to ask my mom to come up the night before my last final This didn’t help my case at all. “See? You need me. This is why you need to move back!” I just bit my tongue. We decided to drive home after my final. As we drove away I couldn’t shake this fear that I wouldn’t come back.

I knew it was going to be a tough month. Everyone was going to pressure me to stay home and I needed stay focused.

There was a lot of tension in the house and we would fight a lot. UCLA was always in the back of our minds and it hung over every conversation we had. I decided to talk to my mom to try to clear the air

“Okay mom, I need to know how much you can help me. Not how much you’re want to help me, because I know you want to help me with everything, but how much you can help me.”

She took a big sigh and composed herself, “Nothing, I can’t help you anymore. I can’t keep driving up there every time a nurse calls in or Amber needs a break. I just can’t do it anymore.”

“Okay.” Obviously that was going to make it harder, but that’s the answer I expected.

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t. Your brother needs me too. He’s in so much pain and he’s in such a bad place. The doctors don’t know what’s wrong and he’s just given up. The other day I laid with him crying because he told he can’t go on anymore, he wants to die. And you know what? I want to die with him. Every night I lay down and ask God to just kill me. I pray for a heart attack just so I can have peace.”

I didn’t say anything because… what the hell do you say that? I looked at her with pity and disgust. How dare she be so weak? I’d through hell for three months and was willing to go back and SHE was the one that wanted to die? And my brother… what the fuck is wrong with him. We have the same god forsaken disease and he wants to kill himself because of a little pain? I was risking my life trying to go after what I want and he’s sitting at home wallowing in self pity? It made me want to puke.They were both so weak, I had to help them.

I knew what I had to do and I hated them for it. I hated myself for not resisting. For feeling like I needed to come in and be fucking Superman. Maybe deep down I did want to stay. Maybe I was the one being weak. I’ve tried to answer that question for the past few months. Maybe I just used that as an excuse. I honestly don’t know anymore. All I know is that I failed myself.

I told her a few days later. She was so happy, she hugged and kissed me and said thank you. She told the family over Christmas dinner and they clapped and cheered. They all told me that I made right decision. Everyone was happy. Everyone except me.

Post Script:

I had to tell Amber. She understood , but was freaked out. I made sure she had time to find a place to live and enough money until she found a job. There wasn’t a grand good bye, I didn’t want one. I wanted to forget everything about UCLA, it hurt too much. But I couldn’t. I thought about it every day… I still do. It pops up in news articles, TV shows… I can’t escape it.

Sometimes I go to sleep at night thinking about it and I start to cry. I have dreams where I’m back there and I feel so happy. Everything is going right, I have friends and girls like me. Then I wake up in my room, sad and disappointed.

I don’t really have a good relationship with my mom. She tries to talk to me, but I don’t want to. I can hardly look her in the eye when she tells me she loves me. She wants to say it back, but I can’t. I don’t think I do. She says she feels like she doesn’t have a son anymore and I think she’s right. Her son died in December when she asked him to sacrifice his ambitions for the family. All that’s left is a broken and disillusioned soul.

I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive them until I find a way to forgive with myself. The only way that’ll happen is if I go back and finish what I started. I guess I’m back to square one.

 Dear son, you have no idea how proud we are of you. We know that you’ve worked hard to get where you are. But sometimes we have to accept our limitations, I know that’s never easy for you. There’s no shame in moving back home. If you move back, we can help you. What if you lose your court case and they cut your hours? We can’t keep driving up there, especially with the condition your brother is in. He’s is in so much pain since his surgery. He’s depressed, he doesn’t do anything. The stress of you being there, the court case and him being this way is too much. Please think about coming home. It would be easier for all of us.

Love,
Mom

I showed Amber the email, “What are you gonna do?” She said.

“I don’t know. I have to think about it.”

“Should I look for another job?”

“I think so, just in case.”

I didn’t know anymore. Was I being selfish? At what point do I sacrifice everything I’ve wanted for someone else? It didn’t seem fair. I knew that if I did go home I would resent them forever. I’d hate them forever. I’d hate them for guilt tripping me and not being in my corner. But I knew that if something happened to my brother I’d never forgive myself for not trying to help. I was torn. I knew what the right decision was, but I didn’t know if I could deal with the consequences I thought about it day and night. I withdrew from everything and lived inside my head.

“Raul, have you decided yet? Because I need to know if I’m gonna have a place to live when I come back from Chicago.”

“Yeah, I have”

Dear Mom and Dad, I’ve given this a lot of thought. I want you to know it wasn’t an easy decision and you won’t understand it. But I have to stay at UCLA. It’s just something I have to do. I’ll try my best to make everything easier on everyone. I’ll hire a second person with my financial aid so you won’t have to come up anymore. I’ll do everything I can to stay here.

The day after we had confronted Kumba about sleeping, I got a call from the director of the agency, Michelle. I think I had just gotten out from some kind of midterm and was exhausted.

“Hey, Michelle.” I said wearily, a call from the office was never good. It was almost always because a nurse wasn’t coming or that a nurse was quitting. At that point, we had gone through about 13 nurses., so they knew me well.

“Hey Raul, how are you? I heard that you fired Kumba last night.”

“No, that’s not what happened. What happened was that we confronted her about sleeping and she didn’t like it. She asked me if I wanted her to leave and I said no, but she just kept asking over and over.

It was pretty clear she didn’t want to be there, so I finally said, okay fine. She put us in a really awkward position and it just wasn’t fair.”

“Well, I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“I’m just wondering, what kind of repercussions are there for the nurses that fall asleep?” There was silence on the other end, I could hear her thinking.

“Well… I can’t tell you because that’s covered under employee confidentiality.” I wanted to call her on her bullshit, but she kept talking, “I’m actually calling to tell you that we’re running out of resources to staff your case… we’re going have to get you another agency.”

“Are you serious?” I was weary and already had enough shit on my plate, not to mention finals were coming up. I probably should have been more professional and not blurted that out.

“Yes. We just can’t keep staffing weekend nights when you keep sending them away. “ I wanted to reach through the phone and punch her in her big fat face. To reach through and choke her incompetent ass.

“Well, we keep sending them away because they fall asleep on the job.” There was more I wanted to say, but I still needed them.

“That’s why I want to switch you to another company that has the resources to provide you with the care you need.”

She wasn’t leaving me much choice, “Okay… how would this work?”

“Well, I’ve already been talking to another agency and they’re willing to take your case, so there would be no be no break in your case. “

“What about the nurses I have right now?”

“Well, they’d have to get hired by the agency.”

“How long would that take?”

“About two weeks, but they’ll provide nurses in the mean time.”

“Okay, so you’re saying that with two weeks left in the semester, you want us to train all new nurses… during finals, but just for two weeks?” Clearly she had no idea what it takes to train someone new. That, at minimum, it takes a week for a nurse to get used to me and another week for me to trust them enough to go out with them. That means Amber going to school with us… and that wasn’t happening with both of us slammed with school.

“No, we can’t do that.” There was silence on the other end, “Amber and I both have finals we can’t train temporary nurses “

“Well, we just don’t know if we can staff you on the weekend nights.”

“Okay look, we don’t need to cover this weekend because I’m going home for thanksgiving and then there’s one weekend after that and I go home for christmas. So if we can just find one nurse for that weekend, we’re set Then we can just switch companies over break.” She thought about this for a minute, “Okay, we can do that.” It was a small victory. They had fucked up so many times that we probably should have switched anyway. They still didn’t have my plan of care right, if I wasn’t able to communicate and the nurses followed the plan of care I’d be in huge trouble.

After the call Corie said that she would work that weekend if they couldn’t find anyone. so we were set. Now I just needed to worry about thanksgiving.

I wasn’t excited about going home. While my mom had been very supportive in terms of driving up whenever I needed her, she didn’t want me there and neither did anyone else. I knew that all I’d hear about was how I should come home after the semester finished. How I could go to UCSD and they’d help me live in the dorms there. Never mind that the deadline to transfer had passed. They wanted me close to them. Not as much for my safety, but for their own peace of mind.

And that was what exactly what thanksgiving was like. Constant comments about how wasn’t it much better at home? I didn’t say anything, but I did miss it. It was comfortable  and safe. I didn’t have to worry about incompetent nurses falling asleep. But I also knew that I had to move on to the next part of my life, home didn’t work for me anymore. But as soon as I was back in my dorm room that staying wouldn’t be easy. That my family wouldn’t make it easy, they’d try their damndest to get me home. I had to stay strong, but I wasn’t sure if I could.

My mom has always been overprotective of me, understandably so. She ripped on anyone that she felt was mistreating her baby and she developed a reputation. A lot of people were afraid of her temper, including Amber. This fear makes people listen to her. No matter how much I’ve tried to tell her to back off, she can’t help herself. She wants to know her baby is okay.

The very first day in the dorm, she pulled Amber aside and, unbeknownst to me, told her that if anything to me she would come after her.if anything happened to me.

This made Amber scared, and she kept her informed of everything that was going on. I didn’t want to tell her how much the nurses sucked or how much it drained me. I didn’t answer her when she asked me how things were going because I knew she would worry. But she would just ask Amber and hear about from her.

She would hear about how Amber was more and more stressed. How I almost never went to class and barely went out. I was depressed and I missed home. I missed feeling safe with my nurses. I missed my family.

I remember getting a letter in the mail from my cousin. It was hand written and it said how much he missed me and how proud he was of me. I broke down and wept because I knew I couldn’t go back. I’d never forgive myself.

I felt like I’d worked so hard to get there that I just had to see it through. I couldn’t go back to the past. I knew I was romanticizing it, that I wasn’t happy at home. But it wasn’t easy

One morning, when Corie was late for the millionth time, Amber turned to me and said, “I can’t keep doing this. It needs to get better because this is just too much.”

“I know” I said. I knew she was close to her breaking point and I didn’t blame her.

Around the same time, my family started pressuring me to move back home. My mom would tell me how much it stressed her out, how my brother wasn’t doing well and was on heavy duty painkillers. My dad told me how much it hurt my mom, how the stress was making her sick. My sister told me how selfish I was being. That I needed to think about them and not me. That everyone had to make sacrifices.

I got so sick of it that I started to ignore them. I isolated myself in my room, I felt alone. I was alone and I was the only one looking out for what I wanted. I’d never felt that before. I knew intellectually that that’s how life is, but I’d never actually experienced it. And that feeling of complete isolation never went away.

I think that was when I grew up. When I finally realized that I was the only one looking out for myself. That everyone else were just pieces on a board, and that I was the only one that could decide the outcome of the game