by
Jamelia Hand, MHS, CADC, MISA 1
Editor's Note: The first blog post of 2018 is the story of a daughters love for her father before and during her Fathers active addiction and the daughter finding her life purpose in the midst of her fathers addiction.
So, I show up to work one day and EVERYTHING was falling apart...
It was 32 below zero (wind chill factor) in Chicago, IL and I was the ONLY person who came to my office to work on this day. When I checked the voicemail there were 3 messages (my entire staff) stating that trouble with car, trouble at home, sickness, prevented them from coming to work. I also received a voicemail from my boss which stated "We're going to go in a different direction with the new project". So, the project that i'd been researching and developing for 2 weeks had to be redone. And did I mention that the project proposal was due by the close of business on the next day? I started the coffee maker and headed over to the hospital to make my daily rounds. I'm an addictions counselor by trade but was working as a supervisor at a detoxification program for patients who wanted to begin their addiction recovery journey. I walked from my office to the hospital a few feet away and greeted everyone in the emergency department (all 4 of them).. I then went upstairs to the unit where I find out that there was only 1 physician, 1 nurse who was divided between 2 floors, and 34 patients. I gauged the "climate" on the unit and gave the doctor a little bit of a pep talk before what could be assumed to be a stress-filled day...(click here to continue reading this post).