In this latest installment of my ongoing series about my struggles to find a safe and comfortable place to live, I tell a harrowing tale of Thanksgiving week, 2025. I made arrangements so my sister Carol could go to Texas to visit family. I had a solid plan for who would take care of me while she was gone. Then everything for part. This is part one of a two-part story.

Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to Episode 120 of Contemplating Life.

In this latest installment of my ongoing series about my struggles to find a safe and comfortable place to live, I tell a harrowing tale of Thanksgiving week, 2025.

This one turned out really long, so I’m going to split it into two installments.

My sister Carol wanted to spend Thanksgiving week with her daughter, Brittany, and family in Texas. You may recall last Thanksgiving, they all came to Indianapolis, and we had a wonderful time. I really wanted to do everything I could to accommodate this trip. She would leave on Saturday, November 22. Thanksgiving was on the 27th. She would return on Sunday, the 30th.

I had three trusted home health aides who took care of me. They get me up in the morning and return in the evening to put me back to bed. Carol takes care of me the rest of the time.

One of them is a wonderful young lady, 23 years old, named Kiara. We have grown quite close, and in some ways, I think of her like a granddaughter. Shatoya Conway is 40, a mother of four, who also takes care of her own mother. She works weekends for me. A third woman in her 30s is my backup aide. For the purposes of this discussion, we will call her Ms. T. I’m very close with all three. Each has worked with me off and on for over three years.

By the way, I have Kiara’s permission to tell her part of the story in detail. I’ve not told T. I’m writing about this. Out of respect, that’s why I’ve made her somewhat anonymous.

T. had been filling in quite a bit because Kiara was taking classes to renew her Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) license. T. was eight months pregnant, and it was a difficult pregnancy. Sometimes she had to take a break while getting me up, but she could do the job, and I greatly enjoyed her company. Both she and Kiara were available to stay with me the entire week.

I decided to hire T. to move in for the week. She would essentially replace Carol. Kiara and Shatoya would continue with their morning shifts, and T. would cover everything else, including me, to bed. That way, the other gals got to keep most of their hours.

Kiara would serve as backup in case T. had pregnancy issues or the baby came early.

Carol wanted me to have yet another backup plan. She made arrangements for me to go to the Greenwood Healthcare Center if necessary. It was a good thing she did. Greenwood was the facility that my friends Rich and Kathy had taken me on a tour shortly before my dad died. It looked like a great place. However, they only had dual-occupancy rooms. I could deal with sharing a room for short-term respite care.

If something happened to T. and Kiara wasn’t available, she could drive me to Greenwood.

The plan seemed to be working for the first few days. T. was having a rough time with her pregnancy, and I tried to give her as much rest as possible. It was a little bit reminiscent of having my old friend Barb as a roommate. Barb had health issues where she would have good days and bad days. T. and I still managed to have fun even though she wasn’t her usual lively self. And we had big plans to have more fun throughout the week.

On Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, everything fell apart. T. was having an especially rough day, which put her in a bad mood.

She had prepared my medicine and morning G-tube feeding. I decided I wanted to add a half-dose of MiraLAX to the medications. Kiara offered to feed me and give me my medication, but she didn’t want to deal with getting my extra meds. She asked T. to get the MiraLAX.

Somehow, this started an argument. T. said, “Who would be giving him medication if you were doing it alone?”

Kiara said, “In that situation, I would do it. But right now you are taking Carol’s role. I’m doing you a favor by feeding him. I would prefer it if you prepared the meds.”

The argument escalated to ridiculous levels. I found myself physically getting in between them and actually trying to push Kiara away with my wheelchair. Eventually, T. suggested they go outside and settle it with physical violence. I said, “You can’t let your temper get out of control. I can’t have you threatening people in my home.”

T. said, “You gotta choose! I go, or she goes.”

Although Kiara could have de-escalated the argument and just walked away, it was clear to me that T. was the one being entirely unreasonable and had threatened violence. I told T. she had to leave. She quickly packed her things and stormed out, saying, “We are through. You’re going to regret losing me.” I did regret every bit of it, but I felt she left me no choice.

I then confirmed with Kiara that she was indeed able to finish out the week. She was. I sent Carol a message telling her what had happened.

We were both pretty shaken up, but were trying to spend the rest of the day chilling out and enjoying each other’s company. Around 6 PM, as usual, I was ready to get in bed.

Let me give you some context about what was going on with Kiara. She was in an extremely good place in her life. She had just received word that she had passed her CNA course. This meant she could pick up extra hours in a nursing facility on weekends or evenings and earn good money. Also, just days prior, she moved into a rented house. She had spent her entire life living in apartments. She was so proud to have a house. It didn’t matter to her that she was renting it. She had the same pride and sense of accomplishment one feels when purchasing one’s first home.

She has two young boys, ages 3 and 5, who were staying with family all week. One of her baby daddies wanted to stay in her new house while she was staying with me. He had a key because he occasionally needed to get something from the house for the boys. She didn’t want him there when she wasn’t around. He became enraged and sent threatening texts. Just as Kiara finished getting me into bed, he started texting photos of the house.

He trashed the place. He emptied the contents of the refrigerator all over the kitchen. He tore up some of her furniture. He smashed the screen of her TV. He ripped down the window blinds.

She tried to get one of her friends to go to the house and check it out. At least make sure that the doors were closed. Naturally, they were reluctant to do so for fear of encountering him, and God knows what might have happened.

We both felt powerless to do anything about the situation. There were lots of tears and hugs from both of us.

I recalled that my respite nurse, Toni, had said she didn’t have big plans for Thanksgiving. She was just going to cook for her and her boyfriend. I got in touch with her and asked if she could come by Thanksgiving morning and stay with me for just a couple of hours while Kiara went home to secure her house. She graciously agreed.

Around 10 PM, we did my last G-tube feeding, and I got on the ventilator.

I only got about four hours of sleep. I doubt Kiara got that much

The next morning, she got me up and dressed. Nurse Toni arrived to take over.

I soon began getting some rather cryptic messages from Kiara. I could tell she was having a big emotional breakdown. There was a tone of desperation in her messages.

I don’t recall how much of this I was able to get from her messages and what I pieced together later, but here’s what happened.

The maintenance man for her new house lives in the neighborhood and drove by the house. He saw the front door wide open and a bunch of trash in the front yard. He went inside and saw further destruction. He called the landlord, and the landlord arrived just about the time Kiara did. He had been reluctant to rent her the house in the first place because he feared what would happen if you rented to a young person. He immediately evicted her.

She went to the offending baby daddy’s father, who was taking care of her son. There she confronted the perpetrator and had a nasty argument.

I didn’t hear from her for several days. I had no idea what happened to her.

So, here I sat, not knowing if she was coming back. She wasn’t answering my messages. Toni was giving up her Thanksgiving because I had no one else to stay with me.

I called Carol, and she gave me the number of the admissions person at Greenwood, Amy Webb. Ms. Webb had given us her personal cell number in case of an emergency, and this was one. I ended up speaking with her and confirmed they did have a bed, but I didn’t have transportation. Nurse Toni didn’t feel comfortable driving me in my van. Greenwood has a wheelchair van, but it would be difficult to find a driver on Thanksgiving Day.

In an emergency, my go-to guy is Rich. However, I knew he was unavailable because his wife, Kathy, had just had open-heart bypass surgery. I called him for moral support and said up front that I knew he was unavailable. He said, “I wish I could help. I just can’t.”

I finally called my cousin Kathy. She has a huge family with lots of grandkids. My only hope was that their Thanksgiving was over by now, in the late afternoon. Fortunately, they had planned their celebration for Friday. She and her husband, Steve, would drive in from Brownsburg and load me up in my van to take me to Greenwood.

Toni helped me pack everything I would need to stay in Greenwood through Sunday. Kathy and Steve arrived at my house at about 5 PM. Finally, my saving angel, Nurse Toni, could go home and try to salvage what was left of her Thanksgiving. I am so blessed to have her in my life.

It’s a good 45-minute drive to the facility on the far south side of Indianapolis. I had my GPS running, and I gave directions as Kathy drove. By the way, they had never driven this van or operated the wheelchair lift, but I was able to talk them through everything.

We arrived, and the staff was expecting us. They directed me to a private room, which was a surprise. That was just because it was available, and this was a short-term emergency. Kathy and Steve helped me unpack.

We had to take my wheelchair battery charger because the battery was running low. I had intentions to plug it in the night before, but I was a little preoccupied with other things. We also plugged in my special Ultimate Remote Control, which also charges my iPhone. I later discovered we had not used my 5-volt charger I had brought with me. Instead, Kathy plugged in the 12-volt power supply/charger for my suction machine. It fried the charging circuit in my remote.

They took my van back to my house. They didn’t want to leave the keys in it, so they took the keys with them. It turns out we didn’t have a house key. We had locked ourselves out of the house. It would have been better if we had left the keys in the garage. It complicated things when Carol came to pick me up on Sunday. She had to go to Kathy’s house first to get the keys.

This entire experience was extremely emotional for me. Seven months later, it’s a bit difficult to remember the details. Fortunately, I have a detailed account of what happened. After I got home, I sent a very long email to the admissions director, Ms. Webb, detailing what had gone right and wrong throughout the experience. Some of what follows has been cut and pasted or rewritten from that email.

I hung out around the nurses’ station and talked to the nurses and other residents there. Finally, I decided I needed to get to bed. They brought in a CNA named Mikey from another department. He said he wasn’t sure why they called him Mikey instead of just Mike. I thought it was because he looked like a 25-year-old version of the kid Mikey in those old “Life” cereal commercials. You may recall, “Give it to Mikey. He’ll eat anything.”

Anyway, he said he was going to lift me into bed. I asked if they had a Hoyer lift. They did, but there was an issue with the lift seat. Most people keep the seat underneath them in the wheelchair all the time. The seat I use at home is a bit unconventional, but I can slip it out from underneath me, and I don’t need to sit on it all day. I was aware of the standard seats that they use these days. It can be slipped underneath you, although most people just sit on it. I could not convince them that they could get the seat beneath me.

I agreed to let them manually lift me if they had two people, one under my arms and one under my knees. They managed to get me into bed safely. By the way, a few days later, when I got ready to leave, they used their lift seat. They had no trouble sleeping it out from under me when I was in my chair. That confirmed my hypothesis that they could have slipped it under me Thursday night.

I was introduced to my team, consisting of an RN, a respiratory therapist, and a CNA aide, all of whom were great people. I asked them to take turns checking in on me every 35-40 minutes or so because I couldn’t use the call button. I told them I wouldn’t raise a stink if 41 minutes passed and no one showed up. I realize they have to take care of a lot of other people besides me. I told them they would find me to be a patient patient. Throughout the evening, that strategy worked very well, and I was well pleased.

At some point, I contacted my weekend aide, Shatoya, to ask if she could come to Greenwood for the next couple of mornings to get me out of bed. I don’t recall if I asked her at home before I left or once I got to Greenwood. She agreed.

I had my laptop computer with me so I could communicate via Facebook. I can’t easily use my phone while in bed.

I talked the nurse through how to give me my late G-tube feeding.

About 10 PM, I had the RT put me on my ventilator, which I only use at night. I requested that she get me off about 6 AM. I didn’t realize that this was a shift change, but it was irrelevant.

I didn’t expect to get much sleep because of everything I had been through. I was still terrified at what might have happened to Kiara.

So, in part two of this tale, I will recount the rest of my stay in the Greenwood Healthcare Center until Carol picked me up on Sunday afternoon.

So, as always… if you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You’ll get early access to the podcast and other exclusive content. I’m not in this for money, but every bit helps.

As always, my deepest thanks to my financial supporters and everyone who supports me in any way. That means more to me than words can express.

Even if you can’t provide financial support, please share the links to this podcast on social media so I can grow my audience. All of my back episodes are available, so check those out. If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback, please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you found this podcast. I will see you next time as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe, everyone.