Being So Well

Lately the phone has been quiet. For me it is weird!!! I guess after the CF where people got well treated, they probably decided to not to bother us for a short while:-)

However I did get a few cases with quite complex needs, like people with dual disabilities and mental illness, carer and care recipient living in different areas and one of the parties actually out of our region, someone living in the remote, where is hard to find a worker with a 4WD to go down, recipient travelling from one place to another several times within one month requesting the service to be put in place at different venues, etc. There was nothing I couldn’t handle, just that they were not that straight forward and needs me to coordinate the service with extra effort and mainly, having to across the region border, and thinking by-pass the ordinary ways.

But I was well rewarded, not that I got better paid for being helpful and nice It was the network that I am gradually building up between myself, this work and the clients. I got my very first “Thank you” letter from a Carer, and she appreciated what I have done for her and her family. Also, I have noticed that with almost every care I put in place, there was a voluntary contribution sent by the carers afterwards, which means a lot to me.

The amount of contribution varies. Sometimes 10 dollars, sometimes much more. Yesterday I’ve got $206 bucks from a carer (as far as I know, that was a record high), who stated in the letter that she and her husband are really looking forward to the break that‘s going to happen in this June and thank us for arranging the service for her daughter while they will be away…. Oh yes. I arranged a 7 days Gold Coast trip for their daughter. A good one, isn’t it? Today, I once again stepped a bit out of the square by organising the financial assistance for a lady to pay for the Excess Fee for fixing her car which got damaged in the recent two accidents (very extreme situation).

I felt that this part of my work is called “being creative” in responding to people’s individual needs (not “wants”). I feel that this is not a job that can be achieved by following certain rules, procedures or in any particular way. People are different. Their stories are different, and even the stories from the same person at the different period of times can be told different. I guess that’s probably the fun part of working in a human service sector.

I get to listen to different stories every day and they are much much more colourful (in a good way or mostly in a bad way) than what we read or see from a novel or a movie, because they are real and they are the life, no matter which the way they had been rendered by individual. I was shocked at the beginning, and then I became more comfortable with what I heard and accept that this is the world where we live and these are the people sharing the same earth with you out there. You might have seen them in the street, in the mall or right next door. Knowing their stories doesn’t make you feel good about the world, on the contrary, way far from that, but it does make you feel lucky of being alive and have a belief that the life that you are having, is worth your best effort and management with your heart.

Anyway my husband questioned me (or maybe I should say he helped me to think through) about whether my recent expression of the interest in this job was a genuine one, because to his best knowledge, I am not a people person. I was considered as a person who likes to being alone, doing things quietly in my own way, better not interfering with other people’s business that much (and vice versa). His question was “Since when….you found you like this sort of thing…..?”

I tried to explain to him. But to be frank, I can see he was not happy with my answer, me neither I guess what happened was I didn’t want to make it in the way that “I had changed” as I don’t believe it’s a truth. But I can’t convince someone who knows me well with a simple statement that “human beings are multi-sided creatures”, as it sounds more like a lousy excuse, but not a serious fact.

Then, “since when”?????? I wish I had the answer, at least to myself.