A True Random Act of Kindness

Well, after many months of struggles and contentious phone calls and meetings with various agency representatives in CT regarding getting appropriate services for our son, I want to pause and recognize some people who touched our lives in an incredibly kind, generous, and positive way. The people mentioned here did not do this because it’s their job, instead they did it because they felt it was the right thing to do, or they wanted to help out in some way. I had a very humbling experience this past weekend, and that is what inspired me to write this post.

1. Melissa Ott, C-APN, Greenville Health Care Center, Greenville, NC: Until Friday afternoon, on November 30, 2007, our son and I were complete strangers to Melissa Ott. We went to the Greenville Health Care Center to have someone do a physical, interview, and fill out paperwork, for the CT Title 19 Medical Packet. When we arrived at the center, we filled out the usual paperwork, and I explained that I would be paying for the physical, because our son has no health insurance — that was discontinued after he had been out of CT for more than 30 days per DSS policy. I had all of the CT paperwork that had been faxed to me by a Supervisor at DSS, and I also had our son’s original neuro-psychological assessment performed by specialists in CT in August of 2007.

I didn’t know if these people would do this physical, or if they thought I was someone who was trying to “scam” the system. These people did not know us from anywhere. The Staff were extremely warm and friendly, and they were very professional. When our son went to get his height, weight, and blood pressure taken, the Staff member asked us why we were there, and I tried explaining the situation, while I showed her the paperwork I had with me that the Dr. would need to sign. As I was explaining this, I was really nervous, and expected the nurse to look at me like I had 2 heads! Instead, she listened politely, asked a couple of questions, and told me she needed to show this to her Office Manager to make sure they could fulfill our request.

Then she came back after a few minutes, and our son and I were saying to each other that they probably would not do the physical or fill out the paperwork, because we were out of state, and completely unknown to them. I couldn’t have been more wrong! We were taken to an examining room, where we waited for the person who would hopefully examine and interview our son. Sure enough, she did come into the room, and she asked us to explain why we were there. So, I began to go through the story, trying to be as concise as I could, our son filled in the blanks, and then she looked through the form and at the neuro-psychological report, then began to give our son his physical. I got up to leave, but she said she wasn’t going to anything that would require me to leave for privacy reasons.

A couple of times during the examination, Melissa would stop and ask several questions of our son, and he answered them pretty clearly, and was honest about everything he said, and that was great, because he often has difficulty explaining things clearly. After the exam was done, Melissa read through the neuro-psychological report some more, and asked more questions of our son. She was very thorough, and very kind and patient. She asked us about our family dynamics, the mental health care our son had been getting in CT, and counseled us that James needs to have a blood test, and needs to see a psychiatrist so that his medications can be adjusted, as she (and our son) both agreed that he was hypo-manic, and that he was struggling with it to a moderate degree. This also confirmed my own suspicions that our son needed a medication adjustment. Melissa continued with the interview and exam, filled out the paperwork, and we were done! I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief, and felt tremendous gratitude for this woman who took such care and time to perform the exam and interview thoroughly, and took the time to fill out all the paperwork and also did that with great care.

Our son and I went out to the receptionist’s desk to pay and check out, and in conversation with Amber Padron and Susan Voorhes, came an offer to fax the paperwork to the DSS Office in New Haven. This saved me hours of work, because normally I would scan each page, saving it as an image, then open a Word document and paste each image into a separate page of that document, before faxing it with eFax. These two wonderful women offered to fax it all for me, so that I would not have to do it! I could not believe how kind the people in this office were — and very caring. They faxed the document, and then we made our financial arrangements. I was stunned by the many kindnesses that we were afforded us in this most unsuspecting place — probably the last place one would expect such generosity. (I say that, only because many of us are experiencing the results of big insurance companies “running” doctor’s offices in America, instead of the doctor’s running their own offices.) I was truly humbled and did my best to contain my tears. We had been through so much negativity with so many people, and here was a group of medical professionals, in a very non-traditional walk-in clinic, who had shown me once again, that not everyone is jaded or “in it” only for the money. This was an random act of kindness I won’t soon forget.

For those of you who live in the Greenville, NC area, and you want true quality healthcare by medical professionals who are caring, sensitive, gentle, and kind, the place you definitely want to go to is the Greenville Health Care Center on 3121 Moseley Drive, right behind Parker’s Barbecue on Greenville Boulevard. Their phone number is: 252-758-4455. I haven’t received health care of that quality and care in many, many years.  I will never be able to thank these folks enough for what they did to help us out!

Comments are always welcome!