| T: William it's really nice to see you back again | |
| C: hi yeah I'm glad you're here and as I know as I had mentioned on the phone when I set up the time that you have we have found that you're eligible to or the services here and so that means that we can get started and really map out a plan okay and our guidelines are that we need to we need to have we have days to develop that plan and there's a lot of different ways that we can go about it and think about it and will kind of start that process today how does that say? | |
| C: okay yeah sounds good | |
| T: um in before we get started on the specifics of this I'm wondering if there's anything that you're concerned about today or things that you've been thinking about in relationship to that? | |
| C: Oh since our last meeting you know it was really interesting because part of the time I was really enthused and part of the time I was really scared and I started just kind of throwing around ideas and but at the same time one thing we didn't really talk about too much last time was some of the this I've got some pain of my ankle my car doesn't always work my son has a mental illness and I hate to say this but I I for the pain i use medical marijuana and so i just wanted to be upfront and honest with that | |
| T: yeah so there's a few other things | |
| C: but you know just that things are still spinning in my head | |
| T: yeah so that you've been thinking about it a lot and about some of the issues that may come up and actually I what I what I put together here is in looking at your paperwork I kind of pulled out some of the things that are possible for us to talk about and I you had indicated on there that you had medical marijuana so I've got that I walk the whole issue with the pain okay on there it does sound like the that thinking about dealing with your son might be an important one for us to consider in this too | |
| C: mm-hmm it is he has his ups and down for sure mm-hmm create a lot of stress so yeah right and makes it up makes it hard to think about being able to take care of that and and go out and do other things too | |
| T: yeah you know you mentioned in your in the paperwork that what you you wanted some help sort of thinking through a work goal or the possibility of work at all | |
| C: yeah like that's it's just like making that decision and really working on it the when I went through also I pulled out a few things and here's what i came up with from that | |
| T: and you mentioned last time about the criminal history that you had a little bit of concern about the misdemeanors were there that were there you also have talked about in your that you were on the SSDI and that you had you know for your for the injury based on your injury and the disability and sort of thinking about maybe some benefits thinking about that in relationship to work and has another thing we could discuss so another thing that was on there was the education and you mentioned about the not having a GED or finishing up high school and that's certainly something we can talk about and how that might affect work you mentioned the that there had been some issues with alcohol addiction and certainly that is a topic that we could talk about and how that might you know might play in with the work and then the pain management and the sort of follow-up to the injury and what what that is what that is or what concerns you have about that and as you just mentioned you the issue with your son and how what your role in taking care of him or how much that puts on the family stress mhm and all of those are areas that we could start with and I'm also wondering if there's something that you feel is more important to start with in terms of initiating this journey towards figuring out what your goal is | |
| C: well one thing that's really big on my mind and maybe it's wrapped up in here is that all the work I've done was physical labor work and I can't do that anymore so there's been a whole shift and so I'm feeling really sort of lost about what what's of it what are the odds available i don't even know with physical work there's a ton of things that a person can do | |
| T: yeah | |
| C: and i just can't do that | |
| T: so that's certainly possibly the exploration of what kinds of work that aren't that aren't physical in nature recognizing that you wouldn't be able to do the kind of work that you did previously bright and really thinking about that and certainly there's some resources that we have for helping in that exploration and looking at there are a lot there are other options out there are ya okay for someone my age you think? | |
| C: yes okay yeah I do | |
| T: it's just learning more about that | |
| C: yeah okay looking through them so okay you know and what I want to say is we can end up touching on we may possibly end up touching on all of these things during the course of our our planning process and it's really about figuring out what is the most important thing to you to start with and what you have the most concerns about or what you think would help you most in that decision-making process what do you think well all of this | |
| C: yeah you're right it all plays a part but I gotta say this pain that I have in my ankle is constant it's always there and it's just sometimes it's worse than other times but it affects my sleep it affects my outlook and then I use some marijuana to help kind of ease that the severity of that pain but the pain is still there so it you know I can get up and think my day is planned this way or this way and I may not be able to get past that that lounger the recliner man to be because of that pain and I'm so I've that really scares me is that going to keep me from working and i don't know if i told you but I've got like nails and and plates are not nails with screws and plates in my ankle and have to use a cane and people are going to notice right off the bat when they see me that there's something wrong with this guy | |
| T: and so it's already it's pretty obvious and it also sounds like that pain is really taken up a pretty big role in your in your life and it feels like a pretty big barrier right there | |
| C: sometimes it's all I can think about | |
| T: yeah | |
| C: is that playing yeah | |
| T: well how about we spend some time really talking about what what that pain management might look like what what you've been doing and and sort of how you see that playing out in your work that be that's not okay? | |
| C: definitely | |
| T: tell me you mentioned the marijuana and you mentioned that you um that you know that you have a cane and have some adaptations and tell me what else you're sort of doing to manage the pain right now | |
| C: well like the other day I tripped and I did something to my ankle I don't know exactly what but I have a like a boot you know and somebody hurts your ankle they can put a big boot on it so I've got a boot that helps keep it stable I've also got a brace that helps keep it stable it's hard sometimes one of the wound might open up and become infected so then there's doctors appointments and that kind of pain and it's not very pretty what else have I been doing just not I try not to overdo it but sometimes that's kind of hard because I tend to push myself sometimes i take i don't take any of the heavy duty meds i've had addiction in the past i know and they don't make me feel good anyway so that's a good thing I'm not hooked on some of those really heavy-duty prescription medication so I will take over-the-counter ibuprofen and tylenol things like that I think that's about all I can't think of anything else yeah you know I just do | |
| T: I want to affirm how much you know about yourself that you made decisions about how manage this based on not wanting to get yourself in trouble with addiction again? | |
| C: I I really that's a you know I really takes a lot of courage to do that and to sort of live with the pain and figure out alternatives well I always tell people I one drink away from jail so you know that's a pretty good deterrent | |
| T: yeah yeah so that stays at the kind of the forefront to the top of your head to like oh boy and if the stress gets too much that could be a problem | |
| C: yeah yeah | |
| T: it's true yeah you know one thing it sounds like the pain management is probably the place where might be useful to start because that might be the most the right up front the thing place to start so we can do that and we can talk about there are alternatives out there and and different programs and different situations that have been useful for others in your situation in terms of managing pain so maybe we will send me to a shrink maybe they'll shrink that ankle | |
| C: yeah i just know he'll say it's all in my head sometimes | |
| T: and so it sounds like you've had some experience that | |
| C: oh I'm being told that it's it's just in your head and it's really that really makes me mad | |
| T: yeah because you really know you know what it is and you've been living with it and working with it and trying to find a way to manage it for a long time | |
| C: exactly yeah | |
| T: right don't want somebody telling you | |
| C: yeah | |
| T: that you're making it up | |
| C: yeah | |
| T: well I can assure well that that we that we can find alternatives to that | |
| C: okay I'll be curious about that | |
| T: yeah okay well how about we go ahead and set that up and we'll start there and we'll keep these others and what I want to let you know is that if other things come up that we need to cover we can put them on this list to to make sure we'll check in about these okay it's time we meet and figure out what if you know where what we want to work on that day okay start with the pain | |
| C: okay sounds great thank you | |
| T: mm-hmm |