When I last wrote on Dec 31, 2012 I'd just gotten out of a month-long hospital stay due to necrotizing fasciitis, aka flesh-eating bacteria, which also required a temporary colostomy. I was headed back to a medical shelter since I had to accept the fact that I wasn't able to adequately care for my wound on my own. The wound healed in record time, to the amazement of my nurses, and my colostomy has been reversed. OMG you have no idea how nice it is to poop like regular folks again. Well, some of you do as several of you have also had a colostomy.
There's much to write about my experience at the med shelter, called Christ House, the staff, the other patients, and a book I read while there on poverty medicine titled "Not All of Us Are Saints" by Dr David Hilfiker. I'll get to it all in due time.
I'm currently keeping a written journal that I'll eventually post excerpts from on my new status as an official homeless person living on the streets of DC. I still see Alice once in a while. When I last spoke with her I told her I don't blame her for her role in the series of events that led to this, I told her that I should thank her. It's facing my worst fear and once I come out on the other side I'll be that much stronger and a much better advocate to fight on issues of homelessness, poverty/income inequality & outrageous housing costs, mental health care, and the many alarming deficiences in social service systems.
I only have sporadic access to the internet so I've limited my recent participation to reading a few diaries and making a few comments. I'd rather not post a diary unless I can stick around for the comments. If I coordinate it right, I can get an hour in at Thrive DC and then a couple hrs, probably not consecutive, or maybe more depending on how high demand is, at the nearby Mt Pleasant branch of the DC Public Libraries. Not something I could swing on a regular basis tho.
This is just a brief diary to let anyone who might give a damn know that I'm back and look forward to eventually getting back to being a regularly active member of the community. I've sooooo missed this place. I've missed the interaction, many wonderful individuals, and I miss the information. I know I've been a much less well-informed person for lack of access to this site.
I'm posting this now at a little before 11 am ET. I need to go visit my friend who's dying of cancer at a nearby hospice house. After that I'll get to the local library to check back in on comments. Should be around 1:30ish ET.