[visionrehabtherapist] Sticky situation want advise
- From: "Shelley L. Rhodes" <guidinggolden@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <visionrehabtherapist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 20:24:08 -0400
hi everyone,
Not quite sure what to do if anything in this situation. But it has gotten
worse not better over time and well I don't feel particularly safe in the
situation more do I feel comfortable addressing the situation without some
good information to back me up.
Here is the situation.
I have a customer. they are living alone, have MS and have four dogs and
two cats in a single wide trailer. The person is very young, o.k. younger
than me. they are the only ones living in the trailer her significant other
and them are separated and the daughter lives with the other side of the
family. the person has support from mom and dad.
Now... the situation is this. The dogs appear not to be housebroken.
Everytime I have come into the trailor to do instruction there has been
feces and urine all over the floor. It is rather gross and well does not
smell good at all. I have asked the customer regarding this one of the
goals on the plan is learning household cleaning tasks. They report that
the dogs will come and bug them if they need to go out. I told the customer
that apparently one or more of the dogs was not letting them know when they
needed to go out as there was feces all over the floor. the customer said
it is probably my male Chihuahua. But did not elaborate any further and I
dropped the subject for that visit. I don't like confrontation I will admit
it.
But it has to be addressed at some point. Or am I barking no pun intended
up a tree I should leave well alone. How do you teach safe cooking and
cleaning in a house like this one. To make matters worse the one dog a
female dachshund is pregnant and will have puppies in August. So many more
dogs in the trailer.
I am not sure how to handle this if I can. The customer is dirty, with open
sores on their hands and feet according to my driver. I have been teaching
Braille to this customer at the public library, which makes it easier to
work, but there have to be lessons done in the home, and well.... I know as
a RT we must go whenever and to wherever our customers are, but it makes me
sick to spend any extended amount of time in that home.
What can I do. I already wear cruddy clothes there and change as soon as I
can, luckily customer doesn't live far from me, and we carry disinfectant
and Odor eliminators in the car. My driver and I have received some very
strange rather disgusted looks if we go into stores after being at this
customer's house. Unless we give ourselves a good sprits with the odor
eliminators before hand. I don't carry in any materials I don't intend on
getting dirty and I don't leave many teaching materials behind.
how can I address this? I know that dogs are important part of peoples'
lives, we have three big dogs in our home, and it takes three or four of us
to care for the three. We brush, walk, feed and relieve daily as well as
play with them and I know I couldn't handle no more than that, and I don't
have MS.
Have any of you experienced this problem before and what did you do if
anything?
How s ould I proceed. We don't have a protocol at work for when a place is
too dangerous to enter, and I have asked and they just shrug it off and say,
well you got to do what you got to do, but it isn't helping. I have been
working with this customer for about seven months now, and things have not
improved.
Shelley L. Rhodes, M.A., VRT
And Guinevere: Golden Lady Guide Dog
guidinggolden@xxxxxxxxx
Guide Dogs for the Blind
Alumni Association
www.guidedogs.com
The people who burned witches at the stake never for one moment thought of
their act as violence;
rather they thought of it as an act of divinely mandated righteousness.
The same can be said of most of the violence we humans have ever
committed. -Gil Bailie, author and lecturer (b. 1944)
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