Up In Smoke

It's got to be one of my least favourite thing about my job - my hair and clothes smelling like smoke after doing home visits*.  Many clients are courteous, and don't smoke while I visit.  Some just find it too difficult to  it though the appointment without smoking.  In summer we often accommodate this by meeting outside.  But it's currently winter here in Canada, and temperatures are too cold for that.

Some job postings in this field state that the candidate should be aware they will be in smoking-environments.  Mine didn't but I've long recognized it as an unavoidable workplace hazard.  Sure, if I really wanted I could try to insist that clients meet me elsewhere, but the home visit plays an important role in my work, puts focus on me rather than the client, and possibly makes them feel guilty.  That's not what I'm trying to do folks.  Besides, it's their room/apartment/house.

Not so fun fact: rates of smoking for people with schizophrenia are estimated at about 88% - three times that of the general population.  And smoking cessation is just not high on the list of goals or priorities for most of my clients, who are busy trying to manage their symptoms, maintain their housing and survive on a few hundred bucks a month.

So until this changes, you'll see my huddled in my big coat and hat, driving with my windows down in winter trying to air myself out.

*not every home visit.  About half my current clients are smokers

Port: Where you dock your vessel *wink*wink*

From a mental health assessment form: 

Sec 14. Addictions
Rating example: Highly problematic, person is unable to stop using internet port sites and has lost job and wife.

No Problem...

A client I recently started working with had been on our service wait-list for nine months. With such a long wait for support, it’s not uncommon that peoples illness or situation becomes worse between intake and initial service. That wait can be a very difficult time for many.

Before this person came in, I read the intake report. He seemed to have a lot of bad stuff going on, so when he came to meet me, I was surprised to see a very calm, well put together guy. Still, appearances can be deceiving, and I wouldn’t know more until I talked to him.

Through our initial conversation it came out that he is back living with his family (had previously been transient) is working a full time job that he enjoys, spends time with friends and has not had any psychotic symptoms in months. He also stopped taking all of his medications, and stopped seeing his psychiatrist.

After he left, the intake worker who had seen him last summer asked who he was, as she didn’t even recognize him. She asked me what had happened, and I told her what he had said to me:

“I stopped taking drugs. Even though I didn’t want to, I figured things would probably get better, and they did.”

Go figure.

If only it were always so simple…

Telling

Written assessment answer from a client...

Alcohol: does drinking cause you any problems?
        Not mine, but other peoples around me.

Nice try though.

Newsflash dude: while vaporizing your pot may be less unhealthy than smoking it, it does not make you “less” of an addict. And just because your psychiatrist is aware of your cannabis use and has not expressly told you to stop does NOT make it medicinal!

I take it back.

I’ve changed my mind.

Quote of the day for August 31 goes to the pharmacist I called yesterday:
Me: Um, hi, I’m calling to see if some medications could be made ready for me to pick up.Pharmacist: What’s your name?Me: They’re not for me, they’re for my client Mr. Lotsofmeds.Pharmacist (presumably looking up Mr. Lotsofmeds refills): He’s got some good ones here, are you sure you don’t want them?
Maybe I was in poor humour, but it seems to me that pharmacist making jokes about giving away serious meds to random people should kinda be like making a joke about a bomb when you’re in an airport.  Don’t even go there!
And all this as it’s all over the news that Ontario has the highest rates of Oxycontin addiction in Canada, one of the highest rates of abuse in the world! 
A place to live, a place to grow, Ontari-ari-ari-o!(sorry, anyone who wasn’t in an Ontario public school in the latter half of the 20th century might not get that song reference.  Consider yourselves lucky!)