Every month, our program staff share stories about their work and the people they serve. We want to share some of those stories with you! This story is from Sarah Boone, our Home At Last caseworker. We’ve done a little bit of editing for clarity.
Working in the Home at Last program and doing homeless outreach gives me a unique opportunity to talk to so many people and to try to be a positive, uplifting person to everyone I meet. I only recently started here and Back Bay Mission, and I’ve been so blessed by the people I get to meet and talk to.
Almost immediately after starting at the Mission, I met a woman who struggles with mental illness. We’ll call her ‘Rachel’.
The first time I met Rachel, she had checked herself out of the hospital, against doctors’ orders, after having major surgery. She walked out of the hospital with 26 staples in her abdomen. Because of her illness, she wasn’t sure what procedure she had had, but she kept repeating that they had stolen her organs when she fell asleep.
Rachel comes to the Micah Day Center regularly, and the staff worked together to talk to her and to try to make sure her health was sustainable. We even called paramedics out, who she denied, and no one could reach here. I kept going out every day to try to earn her trust little by little.
In Mid-September, almost 13 days after her surgery, I sat with Rachel in the Micah Center and asked if her wound was infected or not (which is a major concern with her being homeless). Her wound was turning red and inflamed. I talked to her about the dangers of infection. She insisted that she couldn’t go back to the hospital to have the staples removed because she was terrified that they would put her back to sleep and she would wake up with no organs.
I promised that if I took her there would be no needles and no surgery, and that I would be her advocate and make sure nothing bad happened to her. I was so pleased that she said ‘yes’ that I promised that if she sat through the procedure and let them remove her staples I would even buy her a hot lunch!
I kept my promise and we went to the hospital. At one point, a doctor wanted to draw some blood and she ran out of the hospital. I calmly walked out and talked her back into the ER. After a lot of work, she has 26 fewer staples and I cannot be prouder of how brave she was. I dropped her back off at the Mission with the biggest slushy we could find and a whole box of doughnuts (her lunch request, of course).
Since then, Rachel has asked me to help her with food stamps. I cherish the trust we have. My heart is full everyday, knowing that a small act of kindness or a little word of encouragement can had a positive impact on someone’s lives. I’m thankful for the staff here at Back Bay Mission who teamed together for the sake of one person… because every person deserves kindness, dignity, and respect.
