Focus Magazine: Fall 2011

Winter 2009

Inside a Neonatal ICU:

Bruises, Scars and Nightmares:

Premature infants fight for a future

A victim of domestic abuse speaks out

Dust to Dust: Hospice patients prepare to say goodbye

F CUS

EDITOR’S NOTE

Walking down a crowded street, you’ll run into people at all stages of life with their own worries. One man may be thinking of how he is going to help his wife beat cancer. A woman may tug at the sleeve of her sweater, pulling it to cover the bruises on her arm from the night before. Still others are concerned with the issues affecting each of them at their specific stage of life. We may all be walking down the same street, but on the road of life, we’re in very different places.

This issue focuses on concerns people may face during different parts of their lives. It’ll let you look into the lives of those who could be your peers, your parents, your grandparents or your children. It may even be you who’s reflected in the pages of this magazine.

The range of people you’ll read about goes from premature babies in a neonatal intensive care unit all the way through a woman whose long life is about to come to a close in hospice care. In the back of the magazine, you’ll find a list of the nonprofit organizations throughout the Waco community that helped those in each story come through life’s ups and downs. These groups offer numerous ways to volunteer your time or find support if you are in a similar position.

Hope you enjoy every step of the journey on this Road of Life.

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Jenna DeWitt & Bethany Poller

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&

Special Thanks To: Julie Freeman, Mike Blackman, Dr. Brad Owens, Rod Aydelotte, Carol Perry, Dr. Clark Baker and the Baylor journalism department

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Editors:

Jenna DeWitt Bethany Poller

Lead Designer: Cassie Mills

Designers: Amy Archibald Addie Aro

Melanie Crowson Lindsey Disher Taylor Eastman Brooke Ezell

Tori Mays Jessica Reynolds Jenna Williamson Colton Wright

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Writers: Lela Atwood Melyssa Brown Megan Dahle Jhoanna Peterson Chelsea Quackenbush Ashleigh Schmitz Chad Shanks Cody Winchester Joanna Wuertz Photographers: Kendel Argo Daniel Cernero William DeWitt Stephen Green Brian Martinez Jhoanna Peterson Denton Ramsey Rachel Scott Shanna Taylor

GUIDE YOUR FOCUS

1. Fighting to Survive (p.4) 2. More than Just Kid Stuff (p.7) 3. Teaching Confidence (p.8) 4. A Second Chance at Home (p.11) 5. Poor on Purpose (p.15) 6. Safe (p.18) 7. Cancer Never Looked So Good (p.24) 8. Q&A with Local Volunteers (p.26) 9. A Good Death (p.27) Focus Magazine is owned and published by Baylor University. It is produced through the student publications division of the journalism department. The entire content of Focus Magazine is protected under the Federal Copyright Act. Reproduction of any portion of any issue by any means, mechanical or otherwise, is not permitted without the consent of Baylor University. Š 2009, Baylor University

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/ story by Jhoanna Peterson / photos by Brian Martinez and Jhoanna Peterson

Fighting to

Survive:

Inside the Neonatal Unit

photo by jhoanna peterson A premature baby is cared for by the staff at Waco’s Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center’s level-three neonatal intensive care unit.

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tephanie Ramirez holds her 3-day-old daughter, Michelle, in her arms while the tiny newborn sleeps in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center. Michelle was delivered five weeks early.

Ramirez knows she is fortunate to have her daughter in stable condition.

Although she only weighs 5 pounds, 3 ounces, Michelle had no complications.

“The feeling you get when your child is in pain is like no other. I hurt when she hurts, so I’m glad she is OK now,” Ramirez said. “I can’t help but to be sad for those babies that have to remain in the NICU.” Watching babies come in and out of NICU reminded her of earlier days when she didn’t know whether Michelle would pull through.

“Michelle gets to go home tomorrow,” a nurse sitting with Ramirez said as Ramirez smiled. Ramirez is still holding Michelle and rocking her to sleep. Michelle then grabs Ramirez’s finger with her tiny hand, the perfect picture of their

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to stay in NICU for treatment or obserbond as mother and daughter. vation. The length of time they stay Dr. Darrell S. Wheeler said, “Anydepends on how early they’re born. thing less than 37 weeks gestation is a premature baby. Forty weeks is what we Smaller babies born at 24 weeks stay in the hospital for months, whereas a baby call a normal term baby.” born after 30 weeks stays just a few Moderately premature babies are weeks. born between 35 and 37 weeks gestation; extremely premature babies are born between 24 and 28 weeks.

For preterm babies born around the Waco community, Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center offers the only level-three neonatal intensive care unit in McLennan County. It is also home to the only board-certified neonatologist in Waco, Dr. Darrell S. Wheeler.

Since Hillcrest’s NICU opened its doors in 1990, more than 4,500 babies have been treated there; before that, premature infants had to find specialized care out of town, according to Hillcrest’s Web site.

“Our average census is about 15 [premature] babies a day, but we’ve had 24 here recently,” Wheeler said. photo by jhoanna peterson Premature babies are required Dr. Darrell S. Wheeler monitors an infant in the NICU at Hillcrest Baptist Medial Center.

photos by Brian Martinez

Heidi Hall and her mom, Dr. Mia Moody, look through pictures of Heidi as a premature baby.

Moody is an assistant professor of journalism at Baylor University.

Michelle Ramirez, five weeks premature, sleeps in the NICU at Hillcrest Baptist Medial Center.

Dr. Darrell S. Wheeler examines a premature baby at the NICU.

“The earliest baby that Hillcrest can take care of is 23 weeks gestation,” nurse practitioner Andrea Dossey said.

“They’re normally about 1 pound, and they’re in NICU for about four and a half months.”

Allyson Ray, a junior at Baylor, was just a few weeks older than that when she was born. At 26 weeks, Ray was in Scott & White Hospital in Temple four and a half months after birth. Ray had to be on a ventilator to assist her breathing. She was born early because doctors decided to induce labor on her mother.

“My mom was getting very sick, and so they had to take me out then or risk losing the both of us,” Ray said.

The doctors told her mother that Ray would be behind mentally and slow to develop, “but thankfully, they were wrong,” Ray said.

Preterm labor tends to cause several long-term and short-term complications for the newborn. Wheeler said babies who survive a preterm birth face the risk of serious lifelong health problems including cerebral palsy, blindness, learning disabilities, hearing loss and other chronic conditions.

Samir Alabsi, author of A Primer on Preemies, discussed some common problems caused by a preterm birth: low birth weight, underdeveloped organs, intraventricular hemorrhaging, apnea, infection, respiratory distress syndrome and even death.

Intraventricular hemorrhaging, or bleeding in the brain, is one of the most common problems caused by preterm birth. Arlene Eisenberg, author of What to Expect the First Year, wrote that intraventricular hemorrhaging strikes 15 to 20 percent of premature babies weighing less than 3 pounds, 5 ounces “most often within the first 72 hours of life.”

There are four levels of intraventricular hemorrhaging, from really mild to very severe.

“The kids with grades three or four grow up to have significant cerebral palsy,” Wheeler said.

Infection in premature babies is a big threat because they’re less able than full-term infants to fight germs that can cause serious illness, Dossey said.

Wheeler said he advocates breastfeeding to help fight infection.

Premature babies who are 23 or 24

weeks old often have breathing complications that full-term babies don’t typically face.

“Their lungs aren’t developed, so we have to get them through that phase first. They have to survive that,” Wheeler said.

Underdeveloped lungs can lead to respiratory distress syndrome, or RDS. Dr. Mia Moody, assistant professor of journalism at Baylor University, is familiar with RDS. Her daughter, Heidi, developed the syndrome after a premature birth.

Heidi was born two and a half months early and weighed 3 pounds, 5 ounces.

After she was born, she remained at Hillcrest’s NICU for about five weeks because of complications. When she was 5 months old, she was hospitalized with the respiratory syndrome, Moody said.

Like any loving mother, Moody was worried about her daughter’s health. Heidi, now 17, remembers her mother telling her the story.

“She said I was in there for a long time, and they had me hooked up to needles,” she said.

Doctors had predicted Heidi would have vision problems in the long term, but according to Moody, her vision is very good. Heidi is happy and healthy with little resemblance to the tiny baby born premature.

After Heidi’s preterm birth, Moody’s doctor was able to take better precautions during her other two pregnancies.

Although her sons, Timothy and William, were also born premature, she was able to carry them longer.

There are many reasons women go into preterm labor, though they can vary greatly among women and are not easily predicted.

“Sometimes moms have medical conditions where it’s too dangerous to continue the pregnancy,” neonatologist Wheeler said. “At some point the obstetrician weighs the risk of delivering a little bit early versus the risk of continuing the pregnancy to term.”

“Sometimes, they’ll deliver a little early so mom isn’t in the risk of dying.”

Harvey Alvarez, a former Baylor student, was born five weeks early.

Because he was tangled in the umbilical cord, doctors induced labor early.

Although Alvarez had no complications,

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he was kept in the hospital three weeks and couldn’t,” Sandoval said. being born premature and have their for observation.

He expressed his overwhelming feelentire future ahead of them. Many preHis mother, Janie Garcia, remembers ings of anger, frustration and panic. He mature babies, however, lose that battle. being afraid for her child and said it is said a big part of his heart was in the Healthcare professionals said that by something she will never forget. hospital with his daughter. raising awareness and informing people “I just felt so helpless. I couldn’t do “I was worried, and I kept trying to tell about ways to reduce the risk of having a anything but cry. I became so anxious myself it would be OK. It’s hard to do that premature baby, the number of preterm about the situation that I couldn’t even when your child is in such a fragile condi- births may decrease. think straight,” she said. “Unless sometion,” he said.

For pregnant women, reducing the one experiences it, they can’t understand Sandoval said Emily, at 14 months, is risk can be accomplished by following the pain and anguish a mother goes growing up to be a healthy child. the doctor’s orders and knowing their through when her son is fighting for his “I feel so blessed that she is a healthy own bodies. Doctors advise that expectphoto by jhoanna peterson life, and she has no idea what the outcome will be.”

From the reasons that are known to cause preterm labor, the most - JANIE GARCIA common ones are infection and gestational diabetes.

Wheeler emphasized the importance of having good obstetrical visits. He said that if a woman develops signs of preterm labor, she should go to the hospital instead of waiting. If she shows up early, there are medicines that doctors can give her to slow down labor. Dr. Darrell S. Wheeler holds the hand of a premature baby in the NICU at Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center.

But once she’s dilated, it can’t be reversed. and happy baby, and I couldn’t ask for ing mothers go to all their scheduled Robert Sandoval’s daughter, Emily, anything else,” he said. doctor’s appointments and tell their was born a month and a half premature.

For families who have had a premature doctors if they are having any symptoms Sandoval believes his wife delivered early baby, lost a premature baby or now have that may concern them. These signs are because she didn’t go to the hospital their premature baby in the hospital, sup- sometimes early warnings. Doctors may right after contractions began. port groups can help them cope. Current- be able to deal with problems if they’re “She figured that it was nothing since it ly, there are no support groups in Waco caught early, increasing the chances of wasn’t her due date,” he said. dedicated to premature babies, but there having a healthy full term baby.

Emily was in the hospital for several are online support groups and nonprofit “After all, children are our future,” weeks, her parents growing more and organizations such as Parents of PremaSandoval said. more eager to take her home. ture Babies Inc. that provide information “My heart was in pieces, and I was in and encouragement to families. pain because I wanted to bring her home Some babies survive the obstacle of

“I CAN’T EVEN BEGIN TO EXPLAIN HOW

HAPPY I AM THAT MY SON WAS GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO LIVE.”

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More than just

kid stuff

Waco nonprofits provide aid, resources for autistic children issues,” Skipper said. “It is important that the public realizes that although there are general characteristics of autism, it affects each child differently.”

Baylor library information specialist Laura Sumrall is a mother of three, including a 10-year-old son with autism.

“We need so much help to find a cure and to support the generation

The Baylor Autism Resource Center, located on Baylor’s campus, is a place where children with autism and their parents can go to learn about oday 67 children in the the disorder. The center also provides United States will be social skill groups, resources, training diagnosed with autism: workshops for educators, parents and more than AIDS, juvenile diabetes paraprofessionals, and aid to those and cancer combined. With so many affected by the disorder throughout children and families affected by the Central Texas. disorder, the Waco community has “The center is a safe, controlled come together to help. environment that helps autistic Autism is a disease children practice skills,” Ivey said. that affects the brain. It is “Our hope is that they go out in the characterized by impaired community and use the skills they are social interaction and learning here.” communication skills Waco is also home to a large and repetitive behaviors, support group called the Heart of according to Autism Speaks, Texas Autism Network. Ivey described an autism advocacy it as a strong support group for organization. children Today autism affects one and in 91 children, which is an “We need so much help families increase from two years that are ago when the rate of autism living with was one in 150 children, to find a cure” autism. according to Autism Speaks - Laura Sumrall The future studies. of autism is Sarah Skipper, a senior unknown, but places like the Baylor psychology major at Baylor, Autism Resource Center and Heart of has a 14-year-old autistic Texas Autism Network are helping the brother named Gage.

Ashley Noble and Kendra Kerley read with Daniel Sumrall Waco community to work through the “Growing up with Gage in his small group at the Baylor Autism Resource Center. transitions of the children as well as taught me the value of the parents. patience, understanding and that is being diagnosed now and Sumrall said she and her son have courage,” she said. have been diagnosed in the past 10 found great support within the Waco Skipper said she plans to go to community. graduate school in clinical psychology years,” she said. “These folks can contribute in a positive manner and “We have been so overwhelmed to focus on autism research so in and thankful for the resources we’ve the future she can help other autistic do not need to be shunned.”

Currently there is no definitive been blessed with through the love children and their families. answer to the cause of autism or and care he has received the past six “I believe that the general public a cure, said Dr. Julie Ivey, director years, from the incredible bus ladies may not completely understand and founder of The Baylor Autism to the outstanding teachers he’s had.” and is quick to think that all autistic Resource Center. children are dealing with the same

/story by Megan Dahle /photo by Lara Lazenby

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Teaching Confidence

Tiyun Kendricks and Ramses Lee laugh and talk during lunch.

/ story by Chelsea Quackenbush / photos by Rachel Scott

Rapoport Academy plays to students’ strengths

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fter Hurricane Katrina swamped his hometown, 15-year-old New Orleans native Killian “Bingo” Zacharias would soon find himself in a new state and a strange community – Waco. He would also find himself repeating his freshman year because his academic records had been destroyed by Katrina, along with everything else in his old neighborhood.

Officials at Midway High School determined that Bingo would be a freshman, since they had no record that he completed ninth grade. He was frustrated and unchallenged at Midway, he said. He hated having to retake Algebra 1 and English 1. Both his grades and his interest in academics were slipping.

Life was tough for the shy newcomer, soon gutted of self-esteem. At the end of the first year, Bingo’s future looked as dismal as the storm-tattered landscape he’d fled back home. He didn’t try, and he didn’t care. He had no goals.

Then he found Waco’s charter school, Rapoport Academy.

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n 1995, Nancy Grayson was an angry woman -- angry at the social injustice many children suffered in East Waco. Among the largely poor and minority students, only 30 percent were passing by third grade and only 10 percent were passing by fifth grade on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. Better known as TAKS, this standardized test is used in primary and secondary schools to assess students’ knowledge of reading, writing, math, science and social studies.

“Enough,” Grayson said. “We can do better.”

At the time, Grayson held a doctorate in psychology and had been teaching since 1971, but she had no experience running a school. She was convinced, though, that she could do better than what she saw, that she could make a difference. The school she envisioned would make the students the priority, built on a foundation of six core values: respect, responsibility, curiosity, creativity, integrity and hard work. Everything thereafter would be trial and error.

After Grayson spent months dedicated to grant writing, the State Board of Education issued the school a charter in 1998.

The school started with 16 children in the basement of Wesley United Methodist Church. The next year it grew to 74 students, requiring a move to a one-story building that housed the pre-kindergarten through second-grade students. Rapoport Academy today boasts 380 students and 60 full-time teachers in three schools in Waco.

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he definition of charter schools has often perplexed those not involved. It is not a private school; it is not an alternative or remedial school for “troubled” children. Grayson created Rapoport as an educational choice for children who, for whatever reason, don’t do well in public school but don’t have the resources to attend private school. Rapoport strives to embrace the most innovative and effective educational model.

The school does not charge tuition, another common misconception. While Waco ISD schools are funded by property taxes from each district, a charter school is funded by the state. Rapoport Academy’s budget is $3 million a year, provided largely by

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tell you what year they’ll be in college,” Grayson said.

Their curriculum is much like that of the public school system, but with a twist. The teachers are able to be more creative and don’t have to “stick to the books.” They believe they have set the bar higher than most schools, even for those performing above the curve.

“We are constantly saying to them, ‘You’re doing well, but how can you do better?’ Because in this world, you can’t be good. You have to be great,” Grayson said. “In a job interview, you can’t be at the same level as all the other applicants; you won’t get the job. You have to be better than everyone else.

And we give them the tools to do that.”

Paul Schattschneider works diligently during class at Rapoport Academy.

two national private foundations. State funding for Rapoport amounts to 65 percent of what Texas provides public schools, Rapoport officials said.

Even the name has misled people.

Many believe that the school is funded by the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Foundation of Waco, but it’s not.

“We named the school ‘Rapoport’ to honor Mr. Rapoport,” Grayson said of the longtime Waco businessman and philanthropist. “He once said ‘Education is the great equalizer.’ We want to cement that philosophy.”

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ingo Zacharias felt like a failure.

But despite his uninspired academic performance at Midway High, he knew he could do better. Eventually he heard about Rapoport Academy and took the entrance test, even though it would mean that because of its accelerated curriculum, he would have to repeat his freshman year once again.

“There is nothing wrong with Midway,” Bingo said. “It’s a great school. My brother goes there; it works for him.

Rapoport wouldn’t work for him, but it works for me.”

At 19, Bingo will soon have six years of high school behind him. When he graduates in May 2010, he will also have finished two years of college hours at Texas State Technical College. Awaiting

him already are academic scholarships from across the nation. Rapoport has allowed him to accomplish above and beyond anything he imagined.

“I was always a shy kid who tended to sit on the sidelines and watch others,” he said. “Here at Rapoport, I am forced into the spotlight because it is so small, and there is so much individual attention.

But it has given me self-confidence and made me realize my potential.”

Although not involved in one of five varsity sports offered at Rapoport, Bingo is a member of the choir and an officer on the Community Council, an honor court designed to hold students accountable to the school’s core values.

Seniors, selected by their teachers and their peers, must show high integrity to be considered for the position. He also works at a local Pizza Hut restaurant about 25 hours a week, while balancing a full course load at TSTC. Bingo is at the top of the first senior class to graduate from Rapoport’s Myer High School.

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aking classes at TSTC is a unique opportunity for Rapoport students. Starting as early as ninth grade, students can eventually earn up to 72 hours of college credit.

In addition, the Rapoport curriculum is based heavily on preparing students for college and the professional world.

“If you ask our preschoolers, they can

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iddle-school history and geography teacher Jennifer Hadley admires the school’s ability to teach professional and social skills, along with its rigorous academic curriculum.

“I can’t say enough positive things about the school,” she said. “There is respect between students and teachers.”

Hadley explained that students are taught to stand up when speaking in class, to make them more comfortable speaking in front of a group. They are taught to make eye contact and to shake a person’s hand upon first meeting. They look at each other when they talk. They are taught to challenge one another, challenge what they think is wrong. They are not afraid to speak up. They are taught that life isn’t fair, and it is not enough to settle for status quo; they need to be smarter, better and work harder to be successful.

“It’s great that I can expect a lot from students, which is what you think of when you envision being a teacher,” Hadley said.

She applauds the nurturing support of the teaching staff, the small classes where she can interact personally with students and the overall high expectations of the school.

This is Hadley’s first year as a teacher at Rapoport. Previously she taught at another Waco ISD school but decided to apply for a position after enrolling her daughter this past summer. The rewards go beyond education. For Hadley and her daughter, Lenore Wright, it’s personal.

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“I have seen such a change in Len,” Hadley said. “It used to be a struggle to get her to get up for school, to get her to do her homework. After her first week here, it was like, ‘Where is my child and where did she go?’ She has done a complete 180. She is motivated to come to school; she’s excited and happy.

She has double the amount of work, but she has a desire to do it and to be here.

I am thrilled.”

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oming from China Springs and six months of home-schooling, the transition to Rapoport was easy for Lenore, a 15-year-old sophomore. Like Bingo, she didn’t feel challenged at her previous school. She didn’t feel like she fit in.

“Obviously you can tell I’m different,” she said, referring to her black fishnet stockings, plaid skirt and layers of silver chains that adorn her neck.

“At Rapoport, no one cares because everyone here is different. You don’t feel alone because you aren’t judged.

Everyone just gets along.

“At my old school, I was always upset.

I had no friends and no one cared. I felt very alone,” she said as she gently tucked her shoulder-length light brown hair behind her ears. But within the first week of school, Lenore beamed, she’d already made five new friends.

The social aspect is not the only reason Lenore is thankful for Rapoport.

Even though she won’t start classes at TSTC until next year, she still feels like her opportunities are greater.

She thrives from the one-on-one time with teachers, as well as the everyday challenge to work harder. Lenore admits it’s more work than she’s used to, but she likes being pushed. She knows that when she isn’t doing well on something, there is always extra help. She feels encouraged by her teachers, even when she makes mistakes.

“We learn from our mistakes in a positive way, so we don’t repeat them the next time around,” she explained.

“I can look at something and feel good because I got this right, but it makes it easier to accept when I don’t do well on something else.”

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apoport’s innovative educational model has been recognized state- and

nationwide. It received an $800,000 grant to disseminate its best practices among other charter schools. In fall 2008, Rapoport was awarded the prestigious T-STEM and ECHS designations by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation. These designations highlight the school’s focus on science, technology, engineering, and math, as well as its early-college high school option.

The six core values of Rapoport are prominently displayed throughout the schools. Master teacher and co-dean of students Heather Franks said she believes the core values are the soul of the school.

“We all have a shared vision,” she said. “Everyone wants to work together for the sense of community.”

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s Bingo Zacharias looks to the future, he says he’ll never leave Rapoport behind as a distant memory. Aspiring to study either mathematics or biomedical engineering, he now has a greater goal than “not being in poverty.” He wants to be a leader in his field. He wants to have enough for himself and more, in order to give back to others like him in his adopted hometown.

“I see the vision the school has of not only helping other students and the school but the surrounding community,” he said. “I see where it’s going and I want to be a part of it. The school has done so much for their students, families and community that my first priority is to come back and help the school.”

Top universities across the country have approached him for admission in fall 2010, including Tulane University in New Orleans, Cornell University in New York and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Four years ago, Bingo thought all was lost. He was uprooted from his home and thrust into a strange environment, set back by a lack of academic records and dispirited by having to repeat his freshman year. But his search for an education that would not only challenge but prepare him to make a difference in life took a dramatic upswing when he discovered Rapoport. Now, with three freshman years behind him, he has found his future.

From top: Pete Bukowski, Ayanna Harper, Kiara Luke and Lyndon Keys work together to complete their assignment at Rapoport Academy Middle School.

Joshua Browning and Kiara Luke use the Internet to research topics for an upcoming paper.

Zoey Monroe focuses on the task she has been given at Rapoport Academy Middle School.

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Second chance

at

home

Life at the

Methodist Children’s

Home

Kaleigh leads her horse during an equestrian class with others from the Methodist Children’s Home. / Written by Joanna Wuertz / Photos by Daniel Cernero

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he weather was unusually mild for Texas, the air barely warm in spite of the bright sun. The grass was still a bit damp from the previous night’s storm. Green fields stretched for miles in all directions. It was a perfect day for riding horses.

You can tell a lot about people by the way they interact with an animal. Horses can provide peace and tranquility to troubled souls, as evidenced by the teens from Methodist Children’s Home who practiced riding that day.

A cloud of dust blew up as the SUV rolled to a stop on the gravel drive. Suddenly teenagers were piling out, eager to begin Equine Class. Already saddled, the horses stood ready to go. A few of the kids ran forward to pet the animals right away; others hung back, preferring to watch.

One teen adjusted the cinch on his horse’s saddle with practiced ease. Another boy ambled over to a different horse and stroked its head fondly, whispering into one flicking ear.

One by one the students led their horses out to the corral to begin the day’s lesson.

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he Methodist Children’s Home serves at-risk youth who don’t necessarily fit the stereotypical definition of an orphan. Some come from abusive homes or homes where the situation is not suitable for raising a child. Others have made choices that are harmful to themselves and to others and need a place to restart.

“It is important to understand that the young people we serve do not come from one zip code, economic group, skin color or area,” Vice President Trey Oakley said. “We have children who are entrenched in cycles of poverty and others whose parents are CEOs or executives. We serve children who have never stepped foot in a church and others whose parents are ministers.”

For a teenager who has had more troubles in life than many kids, the home provides chances to succeed and grow in an environment that is safe from some of the problems they have faced before.

They have adults present who fill the roles of parent or mentor. They go to school daily either at the charter school on campus or at one of the Waco schools. Some get part-time jobs. They have chores and hobbies, extracurricular activities and homework. There are rules and curfews.

The houses on the Methodist Children’s Home campus all vary, depending on the residents and the house parents or staff. Oriented to accommodate 10 to 12 residents, the units bear some resemblance to the typical suburban home. Too

large to be called cozy yet not sterile enough to feel like a dorm, their rooms are as unique as the teens living in them.

Posters, photos, doodles and notes adorn the walls. Personal items such as curling irons, books or art supplies are tucked here and there. In one room, someone has built a shrine to SpongeBob Squarepants. In another, the kids are obvious Dallas Cowboys fans.

Ally, a senior in high school living at the home, is active in JROTC and hopes to attend Baylor University someday soon.

She has a love for people that she wants to channel into missions work.

“It is hard to compare my life to that of an adolescent who grew up in an ‘average home.’ It is hard for me to compare because I lack the knowledge and experience and therefore base my assumptions on my observations,” Ally wrote in an e-mail.

“But I know that I am not strikingly different in any way. Though my brokenness is heightened, my friends have brokenness, too.”

Ally has lived in Waco for two years, the longest stability she has ever experienced. Her friends and the now-familiar places are important to her healing process.

“I wake up every morning to eight beautiful girls with whom I have shared much laughter, many tears and numerous stories.

They are good friends and close sisters, and through our faults, we forgive, grow and struggle,” she explained. “There is often irritation, tears and just simple confusion at the cards that life

“I wake up every morning to

eight beautiful girls with whom i have shared much laughter...”

- Ally

During their Equestrian class, Jessica and Jennifer chose the option of observing, preferring to socialize with each other.

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“Coming from a bad neighborhood where I fought every day and had to constantly look over my shoulder and be careful what colors I was wearing was unnerving to say the least,” he remembers.

“Coming here to Methodist Children’s Home where it is easier to relax has been nice.”

Saddiq has made friends since coming to the home, sometimes in spite of himself.

“When I first moved to the Home I was sad to leave my friends from back home. The first few days were hard; I am not a very social person if I have the choice. All the kids bombarded me with questions and it was hard to get to know everyone,” he wrote in an e-mail. “In fact, during my first few days, I tripped and fell, and it was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. Luckily, my future best friend came along and helped me up.

We’ve been close ever since then.” he Methodist Children’s Home is prepared Jocolby prepares the horses for riders. Saddling horses is one of to field the various challenges that accomhis responsibilities at the Boys Ranch. pany being a young adult with a difficult upbringing or personal problems that need to be dealt with.

At the charter school on the home’s campus, the seem to have dealt us. We express great frustration at our past student-to-teacher ratio is 4 to 1, so students receive the attenchoices and the choices others made that affected us. We are tion that they need to thrive in subjects that may otherwise be fighting and embracing community all at once.” difficult for them.

Also in high school, Torie comes from a difficult home life as Emphasis is well. placed on the “Before I moved to Methodist Children’s Home, I was not in child’s strengths a normal family. It was a very broken one. I did not know my and how to use mother or my father. I lived with my grandparents and my sister them to succeed, and brother,” she said in an e-mail. “I was going through evinstead of concenerything you can possibly think of. My life is very different from trating on a weakthose children with a ‘normal’ family. But it is hard to describe ness that needs how I am different, because I do not really know how a normal to be overcome. family works.” his fall Torie is in the National Honor Society and plans to get a costhere are metology license at McLennan Community College before going 76 graduon to Texas A&M University to become a veterinary technician. ates from MCH She has internships at Methodist Children’s Home, where she who are currently helps with Christmas shopping for the kids they serve, and asin college or trainsists in the Grandparents as Parents Program, a program that ing programs at helps grandparents who are filling the role of parent to their varying institugrandchildren. tions across the “Methodist Children’s Home is a blessing to kids like me who state, including do not have a place to call home, as well as other children who Baylor, the Unicould not stay in their home for a while,” she said. “I am thankversity of Texas at ful that I have a place to stay because otherwise, I do not know Austin, A&M and where I would be today.” the University of Saddiq, another student living at the home, pointed out North Texas. that “generally, kids are living at Methodist Children’s Home Methodist because they have problems. Problems that make them a bit Children’s Home more vulnerable. We have distinct personalities and different also focuses on cultures. I have learned things here about life, and people in restoring the family unit. The residents can receive counseling general, that I do not think I could have learned at home.” and healing so that they are able to return to their families.

Saddiq, an aspiring writer, has not always had the freedom to be himself.

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n other occasions, the home serves as a place to stay for a child whose family is going through a difficult time, anything from a parent with an addiction to parents and children who just can’t get along.

There are roughly 180 youth at the Waco campus of Methodist Children’s Home. The average length of stay is 18 months.

Carrie Anderson, the community relations officer, explained a bit about how the home works with families, and with the children as individuals.

“If there’s hope for redemption in the family unit, we

strive for that. But we also recognize that there are healthy relationships and there are unhealthy relationships,” she said. “A big part of what we do is helping the children realize what healthy and unhealthy relationships look like.” he youth at MCH are all a bit like the small group of teens learning to ride that day. Some have conquered their obstacles and eagerly await their chance to climb back on the horse. Others have reservations, unsure of how to approach things that are unfamiliar.

In time, they may grow and gain the confidence they need to ride, too.

T

“We are fighting

and embracing community all at once.”

- Ally

Brad, a student at the Methodist Children’s Home, has found great comfort in the home, as well as his horse.

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poor on purpose

/ story by Chad Shanks / photos by Shanna Taylor

S

ix friends sit together outside of Common Grounds on a damp and drizzly evening.

The table’s overhead umbrella keeps them dry as they discuss theology and the true meaning of Christian community, conversation foreign to most university coffee shops, but typical at Baylor.

A woman emerges from the darkness to briefly interrupt them, her black hair matted to her head, her deep wrinkles evidence she has seen better days. Her plea begins like most, with a tearful tale of misfortune followed by a passionate request for the funds to get her wherever she happened to be going.

The six friends, mostly 2009 Baylor graduates, appear to be stereotypical college students with their parents’ money to burn and a strong sense of sympathy.

She moves on without receiving any money, only the names of multiple Waco organizations that could provide her assistance.

Would she have saved her breath if she had known the six she solicited were intentionally living well below the poverty line? / photo illustration by Stephen Green & Cassie Mills

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I

children. n 2008, The American City Business Journal ranked “There are better paying jobs and jobs that are less stressful, Waco the 10th poorest city in America, and its jobs where I don’t have to deal with people violent crime rates are consistently well above state necessarily have everything,” Thornton said. and national averages.

Griffin Kelp joined Thornton in moving to North As a result, many Baylor Waco, gaining employment through Americorps students’ four-year stay includes building homes for Habitat for Humanity. anticipation for the day they He rides his bike through the neighborhood finally get out of Waco. and is frequently greeted along the road with, However, a growing number “You’re in the wrong neighborhood, white boy.” of graduates are choosing to remain in their college home The warnings do not detract Kelp from his and join the community, even sense of calling to the area, however. forsaking the comforts of their “It’s definitely not Baylor, but I love it,” he said. familiar Baylor neighborhoods The group is not ignorant of the racial tensions and venturing across Interstate 35 into parts of North Waco that going into a traditionally black neighborhood and have helped form the city’s bad reputation.

Ray Small and Ben Carroll, who live and work After meeting and bonding at Baylor, the six friends at teaches inner city youth sustainable farming Common Grounds agreed to techniques, understand the fine line they must dedicate their post-college lives Ray Small shovels pecans into a shelling walk. to changing that reputation. machine at the World Hunger Farm.

“Growing up in Chicago, I could avoid the parts As their contemporaries mount of town that forced me to face reality, but not the bottom rungs of various in Waco,” Small said. “It’s not our position to go into these corporate ladders, they each set up residence locally, choosing neighborhoods jobs that neglect the higher salaries their new degrees could have provided in favor of positions that impact the lives of their and say, ‘You should be a new neighbors. white person,’ ohn Thornton remained in Waco for Gederion and completely Wilkerson, an 11-year-old only child living in Parkside neglect aspects Village Apartments, a North Waco complex frequently of their culture.” blamed for the area’s high crime rate.

While The unlikely friendship developed after Thornton began tensions exist mentoring Parkside kids during his senior year. Today, the pair and some are can be spotted together all over town, from Baylor basketball not fond of games to Chick-fil-A. the group’s Thornton’s friendship with Gederion led to relationships with presence in the several other Parkside kids, making it a common sight to see neighborhood, him and a large group of children having lunch together after most are church. supportive, and Ray Small chases a chicken at the Waco Hunger However, these outings can be expensive, and Thornton their newfound Farm. Small says taking care of the farm animals usually picks up the check, even though his earnings as a tutor helps him learn to love people better. relationships do not necessarily cover food for other people’s children. form the Regardless, to Thornton, the relationships formed take foundation of their work. precedence over the numbers on his monthly bank statement.

“They treat us better when we go into their neighborhood “This isn’t something I just did for fun senior year; I’m still than we usually treat them when they come into here,” Thornton said. “These are people I’m committing my life ours,” Carroll said. to. I can’t imagine life without Gederion and his friends and Still, not everyone understands college graduates rejecting can’t picture going out to eat without a group the basic premise for getting an education. of kids with us.”

Kelp spent last summer working with his father as a financial Still, the pressures of building relationships in such a volatile analyst in Cincinnati, but turned down a area can take a toll. permanent position to return to Waco and take a job that Recently, a drive-by shooting in Parkside left a resident dead, makes him eligible for food stamps. and Thornton had the task of explaining the situation to the

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16

Naturally, his parents, like most of the group’s parents, are not exactly thrilled with their child choosing to live in poverty, Small said.

“My parents wish I had made different decisions. They’re not completely opposed to the idea, but they still bring up grad school every time I talk to them in hopes that I’m going to get this all out of my system,” Small said.

Julie Leary turned down a teaching job at La Vega ISD to work for less money with traumatized children, a decision her mother is attempting to get behind.

“My mom is surprisingly supportive. She’s not happy about me turning down a job but is supportive of what I’m doing,” she said.

Baylor graduate and current McLennan Community College and Waco Centers for Disease Control employee Gabriela Gatlin grew up on North 15th Street.

As a child, seeing prostitutes and people strung out on drugs walking up and down her street was commonplace.

Gunshots were so frequent she would hit the ground upon hearing a car backfire.

She has seen the influx of outsiders to her neighborhood and recognizes the good work done, but questions whether the results are due to true healing or simply the problems moving to other parts of town.

“People struggle all over the world, not just here. The reputation of this neighborhood says more about the fears and prejudices in the area rather than the neighborhood itself,” Gatlin said.

Gatlin, who still lives in the area and dedicates her life to improving it, believes it needs more societal structural change, such as increased educational opportunities and the chance to earn a living wage, rather than middle class people simply moving in and saying, “God loves you. Now be like us.”

She remembers a church group moving into her neighborhood and proclaiming a well-known local resident was demon possessed and putting hexes on neighbors’ homes, when, in fact, his odd behavior resulted from having damaged his brain on drugs years earlier.

“I appreciate all the work the various groups and organizations have done, but sometimes a passion for ministry can lead to an over-blowing of the situation,” she said. “People need to first look and listen and learn the history of the area before just jumping in and trying to fix everybody.” hile the six new Wacoans credit their Christian faith with motivating their choices, they do not consider themselves urban missionaries.

“What we do here is absolutely tied to our faith in Christ, but when people come in here with Bibles blazing saying, ‘We’ve got a week to convert everybody,’ it’s a very incomplete view of the gospel,” Kelp said.

Grace Ladd started the Waco Arts Initiative to give children hope through art but says it is a mistake to believe her presence is necessary for their well-being.

“We don’t have the mindset that these poor underprivileged people need our help. They’re actually really interesting people,” she said.

W

The kids John Thornton mentors do not see him as a pastor or a minister, but as a friend who wants what is best for them.

“Normal for them Grace Ladd enjoys a student’s work at the Waco Arts growing up Initiative, an after school art program for kids. was not normal for me,” Thornton said. “For them, being a drug dealer is a viable option. I hope I can help show them there are other options.”

Every one in the group emphasizes that they actively chose Waco as their home and plan on staying.

“I don’t want to leave. I don’t care if I only make a little; I love living here. I love my neighborhood and talking to the people and actually caring about them,” Small said. owever, their tenure as non-student Waco residents is in its infancy and has yet to stand the test of time.

Will they give into the temptation of better jobs in other cities after years of scraping by on meager wages? How will they support their eventual families and will they want to enroll their own children in a school district that ranks near the bottom in the state?

Some have labeled them young, wide-eyed idealists and predict they will follow the rest of their classmates out of town sooner or later, a possibility they recognize but refuse to let hinder their current work.

“Sure, we may be young and idealistic, but at least we’re giving it a shot,” Thornton said.

As their conversation at Common Grounds continues, a second panhandler emerges from the night.

His bushy beard, tinged slightly yellow from a buildup of filth, hides his deep-set eyes.

He avoids a sob story and simply asks for money.

As before, the group provides none. If they gave money, they would then be needing money, transforming themselves into the very impoverished they stayed to help — a circle of irony best avoided.

Again, they recommend a plethora of options for the man to seek help, options of which their new lifestyles have given them first-hand knowledge.

The man doesn’t respond, simply turns and moves to the next table.

As their conversation continues, he goes from table to table until there are none left, then continues down the street, disappearing back into the darkness.

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17

safe

When abuse hits home / story by Melyssa Brown / photos by Stephen Green

L

ast August, Karen finally did it.

“And he’s outside and he came up, just like a tornado, screaming in the front yard, hollering at me. “ He told her they needed to talk.

Her friend begged her not to get in his truck, but it “was a matter of getting in the truck or making a scene there.”

Karen didn’t want to embarrass her friend in front of all the neighbors. She didn’t want her friend to see how he was going to act.

They drove down to the corner where her ex-husband grabbed a fistful of her golden brown hair and smashed her head into the dash of his truck. The truck swerved and his yelling crescendoed.

“You whore! I know where you were last night!”

It didn’t matter that Karen spent the night at a girlfriend’s house, helping her get ready to move, or that she had never been unfaithful (God as her witness) in all of the years of her shattered marriage.

Her head hit again and again, the sickening thwack! all she could hear in her ringing ears. Black, red, then searing white lights shot through her vision — her ice-blue eyes, bloodshot and swollen. And with each collision, tears spattered the dash, her hair, her face.

She yelled back. “You know what?! I don’t have to do this anymore. I don’t have to do this!” He wouldn’t let go of her neck, wouldn’t stop bashing her head into the dashboard.

“Yes, you do! You’re gonna hear everything I have to say.”

“No! You need to let me go. Stop. Let me out.”

18

“You’re not going anywhere.”

She got a hold of the door handle but couldn’t get out. He still had her ponytail in his fist. After turning the wrong way on Bosque, he’d need to pull into the AMF Lake Air Lanes bowling alley to turn around. He’d have to use both hands to make that sharp of a turn.

The second his hand touched the steering wheel, Karen flung the door open.

She jumped. And she ran.

“I

n my relationship, [physical abuse] wasn’t all the time, every week, every day. The everyday stuff was him eating off my plate, or timing me going to the grocery store. It was more verbal and mental. Intimidating.”

They’d go out in public and he’d whisper stuff in Karen’s ear to hurt her feelings. If she’d get giggly, or get a little silly, he’d condescendingly grab her hand and pat it, murmuring, “Now, now, Karen,” as if she were a naughty child.

“I don’t know how to explain it to you. It doesn’t happen all the time. And when it’s good, it’s really good, but when it’s bad, it’s really, really bad and the in-between times, you can deal with — you know? And that’s what kind of keeps you going: the in-between times and the really good times. And absolutely the children, too, because you want your children to have their father around. By the time you realize how bad it is, you’ve lost your self-esteem, your self-worth.”

“At that moment, it was either

live or

S

he hit the pavement on her hands and knees, but she didn’t care. “At that moment, it was either live or die. How much more is it going to hurt to land on the concrete than it is for him to keep hitting me like this? I mean, all of the abuse from my past — hitting that concrete couldn’t possibly hurt as bad.”

Karen ran through parking lot and down the street. He followed her all the way back up to Lake Air Drive. She knew he’d be forced to take either a left or a right at Lake Air, so she doubled back and hopped across a couple fences.

Her nose was still bleeding, but not broken. Her knees were scratched up; her hands were raw. She had a “headache from Hades.” She wandered around and found some large bushes over by the Heart O’ Texas Coliseum, and she hid there for a few hours, hoping her husband wouldn’t find her. It began to get dark. She checked her cell phone. A single bar blinked up at her; she didn’t know how much longer the battery would last.

Karen couldn’t go back to her friend’s house — he’d look there. All of her other friends lived in South Waco, nowhere near where she was. So she started walking. Karen made five or six calls and got five or six answering machines. She kept walking.

She made it to the Lowe’s parking lot before she reached a friend who would let her crash at his apartment for the night.

The next night, she stayed at another friend’s house, then another — always moving so he wouldn’t find her. She bounced from couch to couch for a couple of weeks.

die.”

-karen

“H

e was drunk after the wedding. We were supposed to go out of town for our honeymoon. We were going to go to Austin, but we were going to spend the night in Temple. All we had was a checkbook and the hotel didn’t take checks. And he got mad. So we came back home. We lived in this itty-bitty house out in McGregor — it was kind of funny — and it had the pretty little glass panes all in the door.

“He passed out in the truck. Well, this is a 6-foot-3-inch man — almost 6 foot 4 inches — and a good 200 pounds.

Easy. Well, what am I supposed to do with him? So I let him sleep in the truck. I went in and went to bed. Well, I locked the door. I didn’t hear him when he tried to get in. So he punched the door, broke the glass, opened the door, cut his hand and punched me in the face for ‘busting his hand open.’

“That was it. That was the very first time.”

I

n 1999, nine years before she left him, before she leapt from his truck last August, Karen’s (then) husband went out to Sam Rayburn Lake on a bass fishing trip. “He came home, drunk as Cooter Brown … and didn’t say a word. Next morning, he looks over and the first thing out of his mouth is, ‘I want a divorce.’ Knocked me through the roof.”

“I don’t want a divorce!”

“I didn’t ask you what you wanted. I want a divorce.”

“But … I don’t want a divorce …”

“You’ve got three days and I’m leaving.”

He never said why he wanted it. Never offered any

19

explanation. Terrified at what he would do if she didn’t, Karen went to her lawyer and filed for the divorce and cried as she signed the check for $2,500.

“I felt like my heart had been shattered into pieces that could never be put back together again; there weren’t even tweezers that could’ve put it back together. He was my world.

Even though he did all this stuff to me, my world was my children and my husband.”

The night after Karen filed for her divorce, her husband started crying, saying he didn’t want divorce after all.

“It’s too late. I done paid it,” she said.

“You useless piece of trash!”

He took her by her throat, pinned her against the wall and screamed into her face. “I don’t love you and I haven’t loved you for a very long time!”

“Well, you won’t have to deal with me anymore. You got what you wanted.”

He dropped her onto the floor and walked down the hall, crying. “You don’t understand…”

“I haven’t understood for a while … I don’t understand at all.”

He moved out. He’d come by the house, trying to get her to take him back and she wouldn’t let him in. Slowly, Karen realized that she couldn’t pay for the house and two cars on her own. She told him he’d have to help out.

He issued an ultimatum: “The only way I’m going to help you is if you let me come home.”

W

ith no other way to get financial support for her family, Karen had no choice but to let her ex-husband move back into the house. Karen let him back in under the strict rule that he would sleep in his own room while she slept in hers; it was a fourbedroom house, after all.

Then it started again: the intimidation, the beatings. But it got worse.

“I’d be asleep at night and he’d come up behind me and … take it from me. And I couldn’t stop him. I’m not as big as he is. No matter how I would try to protect myself, I couldn’t. And that happened so many times.”

They were “back together” for eight years — until she escaped last year. They never remarried.

K 20

aren, a “big ole’ daddy’s girl,” was devastated when her father passed away 15 years ago. After a nasty falling-out about what to do with her father’s

possessions, she hadn’t talked to her mother since. But she wasn’t going back to her ex. No. She could never do that.

After she had exhausted her friends’ couches and a temporary living situation hadn’t worked out, she had nowhere else to go and no one else to reach out to. She walked to her mama’s house to beg her to let her stay there for a while.

Mama wouldn’t believe that Karen was abused.

Karen told her mama time and time again about how he beat her with a crowbar, punched her in the face. How he ate off of her plate to “keep her from being a fat-ass,” threatened to drag her behind his truck with a chain if she gained weight, or how she was timed going out to buy groceries and bludgeoned with a baseball bat if she came home “late.” She told her about the black eyes, the blood, the broken bones — the broken heart.

Even Karen thought her ex was an awesome father, a great employee, a good friend. He “just sucked as a husband.”

“My dream catcher was on the wall...

I was safe.

“I

He couldn’t get in here.

This place is so safe.”

hate admitting this, because it’s so embarrassing, but he took the bathroom door off so that he could walk in there and see what I was doing at all times. If I would get in the bathtub — and I love taking baths.

I like the candles and the jazz music and the bubbles — and you know? I get to do that now! I didn’t get to do that before. I like it. I like it a lot.”

She laughed and hugged her binder full of poetry to her chest like a child would her teddy bear.

She tilted her head up, imagining the bubbles, the warm water, almost hearing strains of “You Make Me Feel So Young.”

“Anyway, he would stand there with the door off and just look at me. Just stare at me. It would just unnerve me. It made me feel like —” Her voice just hung there, and her eyes were far away, remembering, reliving.

K

aren stayed at her mama’s house until April of this year. Then one day, the police showed up. Mama told them that Karen tried to commit suicide. She didn’t; Mama just wanted her out of the house. Mama snapped.

She told Karen that no one could ever love her.

And Karen believed that.

Emotionally ravaged and homeless once again, Karen

- karen

21

I’ve hit this man back — and I just wailed him in the leg with it. And it embedded into his leg. And he turned around and knocked the crud out of me. I hit the floor, busting my face all up; blood was everywhere. All the way down to my knees, it was just pouring. And all I could remember was screaming, ‘Look whatchyou’ve done to me! Look whatchyou’ve done to me!’

“I got up, put my keys in my purse and ran out to my car. And driving — this is the most alone I’ve ever felt in my whole life except when I arrived at the Family Abuse Center.

Driving, just driving. I had nowhere to go. Nowhere to go.

Just driving all over town, crying. I couldn’t believe what had just happened.

staggered into the back of the police car. They checked her in at Providence Hospital for a psychological evaluation.

After being discharged a day later, the doctors thoroughly assured of her sanity, Karen sat in the lobby, waiting, for what, she didn’t know. A nurse made some calls and a man pulled up in a big white van. They arrived at the Family Abuse Center and Karen was shown to her room. Was she in jail? She didn’t know where she was. She just lay in her bed, covers up to her chin, and cried, terrified.

A

t the Family Abuse Center, the whole of what happened to her began to sink in to Karen. Night terrors left Karen sleepless. If she got even one hour of sleep a night, she was doing well. She laid in her bunk, pressed between the mattress and the wall, the air conditioner cooling her sweat into goosebumps. Then she would feel somebody breathing on her neck.

And the fear would triple, quadruple.

Karen stared at the wall, eyes transfixed on the dream catcher hanging by her bed. He couldn’t get her if the dream catcher was there.

“I kept looking at the wall and I finally realized where I was, and that my dream catcher was on the wall and that I was safe. He couldn’t get in here. This place is so safe, it’s not even funny.”

“O

K

ne time, he beat me bad. We’d gone out with another couple, and I really don’t know what happened. We walked out to the truck — everybody laughing — and they get in their vehicle and we get in his truck and as soon as I’d shut the door — and, I’d been drinking, but I was not drunk, ‘cause I don’t drink a lot. I put my head against the window and he says something and I didn’t hear him, but I kind of laughed about it. Next thing I know, he nailed me in the temple with his freakin’ fist and started pounding — I mean, just pounding — on my head the whole way from Cryin’ Shame to where the house was over in Hewitt.

“And he’s just nailing me, just punching me in the head the whole freakin’ way. We get out of the truck and he goes to unlock the door and I went running in there and I grabbed the fireplace poker — and this is the only time that

1.3 MILLION: 20-24:

aren, now in her 40s, stayed at the Family Abuse Center for four months. She spent each day talking with counselors, doing a lot of self-examination and healing. She worked to find a job to get her back on her feet. By this point, her children were full-grown and living on their own, so she could just worry about herself.

Then, she had a “wow moment” with another woman at the center.

“I was laying in my bed crying and she walked over to my bed and she looked at me and she says, ‘Someone asked me to speak to you on their behalf.’

“And I kinda looked at her like, What are you talking about? I don’t know anybody here. No one knows me. Who could possibly want to speak to me?

“She said, ‘Why don’t you come down and talk to me?’

So I got down off of the bed because I was really curious to see who could possibly want to speak to me. So we went and walked down to the other end of the room and sat on her bed.

“And she looked at me and said, ‘My Father asked me to speak to you. My Father wants me to tell you that He knew you.’ And she didn’t know me from Adam, didn’t know my situation. ‘He knew you before your mother knew you. He wove you into your mother’s womb. And he loves you.’

“You think I was bawling before? I was really bawling after that. I was like, wow. And it was so weird because at that moment, it wasn’t OK, but it was a little better.

Since that day, I have become a Christian and God is

GET THE FACTS:

FEMALE VICTIMS OF PHYSICAL ASSAULT BY AN INTIMATE PARTNER A YEAR

85%

OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE VICTIMS ARE WOMEN

AGE OF WOMEN WHO ARE THE MOST AT RISK FOR BECOMING VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

22

210:

AVERAGE NUMBER OF REPORTED CASES OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN

WACO

EACH MONTH

doing some awesome things in my life.”

B

efore she knew it, Karen had been there four months and was accepted into the center’s Supportive Living Program. She could live in her own apartment and still receive support from the shelter for two years.

“This is not my doing,” she said. “None of this is my doing. I wouldn’t be where I’m at were it not for the Family Abuse Center. Don’t get me wrong; I worked for where I’m at. But if it weren’t for the FAC standing behind me, being

Karen has made an astounding recovery. There is still much pain and psychological damage, but it is no longer debilitating and is being quickly replaced with love and support from her daughters and from the staff at the center.

“W

hen I first got here, one of the things they had us do first was to make a poster to tell about ourselves: where we were, where we are and where we wanted to go. And I couldn’t do it. Could.

Not. Do it. So instead, I drew this picture of a saucer and a cup and I said, ‘I want my cup to runneth over with life, love and happiness.’

“I couldn’t look back because I knew where I’d been and it hurt too bad. I couldn’t talk about where I was because I wasn’t sure where I was. But I knew where I wanted to go.

“And, four months later, I actually got to stand in that hall and say, ‘My cup runneth over!’ And that’s such an awesome feeling: that you can live your life.

“What more can you ask for?”

so supportive, holding my hand every step of the way — if it weren’t for my faith in God, I wouldn’t be here.”

T

hrough the pain of owning and coming to terms with her horrific abuse, Karen has become a strong Christian. She is active at her church and has begun a crisis intervention program there for other women who need help to escape domestic violence. She has also found a new, “God-given” talent: Karen writes poetry as an outlet for her thoughts and feelings.

She is compiling her poems into a book, called Faithwalkers, dedicated to the Family Abuse Center.

800.283.8401: P 30-60% 0:

HONE NUMBER OF THE

24-HOUR

HOTLINE TO GET HELP

OF PERPETRATORS ALSO ABUSE CHILDREN IN THE HOUSEHOLD

HOW MANY TIMES DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SHOULD BE TOLERATED.

INFORMATION FROM THE

NATIONAL COALITION AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

AND THE

WACO POLICE DEPARTMENT’S FAMILY VIOLENCE UNIT

23

/ story by Ashleigh Schmitz / photos by Will DeWitt

Almost 10 years after recovering from breast cancer, Deborah Deaton heard what no woman wants to hear: “Your breast cancer has returned, and it’s worse this time.”

“That time sent me to the deep end,” Deborah said.

“They told me it was more aggressive. They talked about a mastectomy, not a lumpectomy. I just wasn’t ready to die.

That’s exactly what I told the doctor when I left the first day.”

Deborah came to the American Cancer Society and the Look Good . . . Feel Better program after her second breast cancer diagnosis. Deborah’s first diagnosis was caught in 1997 at stage 1 and only a lumpectomy was necessary.

Since Deborah’s first diagnosis led to a quick recovery, when she was diagnosed the second time she wanted to know what would happen.

“I met with American Cancer Society and had them mail me everything on breast cancer,” she said. “I had enough knowledge to question what my doctor was doing. It’s your life and it’s your decision; you need to be a part of making your own conclusions.”

More than anything, Deborah thought about her 39-yearold blind son, John Parker.

“He was as scared as I was,” she said. “He’s my only son. We’ve always been very close.”

During Deborah’s second bout with the disease, John was her main caregiver, staying by his mother’s side through everything cancer treatment brings.

“He was there 24 hours; he was there when I was hugging the toilet,” Deborah said. “I don’t know what I would have done without him.”

John said that he did whatever his mom needed, whether he ran errands with his grandmother or helped wash her when she needed it.

The help from family was well received, but it couldn’t put Deborah back together physically. After turning to the American Cancer Society, Deborah found the Look Good … Feel Better program. Here she rediscovered her confidence.

The program showed her how to apply makeup even though she did not have eyelashes or eyebrows. When Deborah’s hair started falling out Look Good … Feel Better provided her with a free wig and showed her how to use scarves and hats when it got hot.

The program also holds seminars with a cosmetologist and provides bags of makeup samples that different sponsors donate. Deborah said having the stylist there to guide

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Cancer never looked so

Good

“They showed me that I could still be a complete person” -Deborah Deaton

Women learn make-up and wig techniques through the American Cancer Society’s Look Good ... Feel Better program.

her and show her how to apply the makeup made all the difference in how she felt about her appearance.

“They show you how to accentuate the positives and forget about what’s not there — even having to wear a prosthetic; that was the most traumatic of all,” Deborah said. “After my [mastectomy] I wouldn’t look at myself in the mirror. Getting in the shower, oh Lord! It took my mom to force me to get out of bed and in the shower.”

But Deborah soon realized she wasn’t alone.

“Once I got around other ladies who lost a breast who were dealing with it, things changed. This program helped me realize I was still the same person I was before,” she said. “They showed me that I could still be a complete person.”

Look Good … Feel Better also helped Deborah realize that being bald was beautiful. Rather than let her hair fall out while at church or at work, Deborah took control and decided to shave her head. She planned one day to meet at the hair salon with her sister-in-law, but instead her entire family showed up to give their support. What began as a day to take care of another aspect of her disease turned into a fun family event.

“As the stylist was cutting my hair, it was probably below the ear, halfway down the neck. As she cut we went shorter and my sister said, ‘Let’s do a mohawk.’ She put the hardening cream on it and I looked like a rock concert person,” Deborah said. “Then we shaved it totally smooth.”

Deborah was not the only one to shave her head that day; her son John showed his support by having his head shaved, too.

While Deborah is a survivor, she is not yet in remission.

Regardless, Deborah feels so grateful for everything the American Cancer Society has helped her with that she now volunteers with one of its programs. She meets with women who are newly diagnosed with breast cancer and draws from her experience to answer their questions and address their concerns.

She recalls having many of the same questions at the beginning of her diagnoses: What am I going to do?

Where do I get the bra? How do I get the prosthetic? One of the many reasons, Deborah believes, that God left her here is so that she can help other women.

“One woman was alone. She didn’t know where to get a prosthetic; she didn’t have a support group,” Deborah said. “It just makes you feel better because you’re able to give back.”

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Q&A an Kay FuMrism sion Waco

Q A

Why should people volunteer?

Volunteering brings a different kind of satisfaction than a job.

You do it solely when you want to with the satisfaction and the knowledge that you are helping people. You get a better idea of what you have. It’s not easy for most people, especially for those with physical handicaps or MR [mental retardation]. They have a different life than you do that is not always pleasant.

Q A

How has volunteering benefitted your life?

You get a lot more pleasure, satisfaction and joy for yourself in a way that nothing else brings. It blesses others and is so worthwhile. I would recommend it to anyone with time to spare. It’s very fulfilling.

Q A

How did you become interested in helping the poor?

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Way back in high school I always had empathy for folks that don’t have what I have.

I felt some kind of responsibility and wanted to help them so that they have dignity and respect. A lot of this came from my church background. I’ve always liked working with the poor. People with MR have no money. Most receive money from family or get $500 a month of Social Security if they’re lucky.

with local volunteers

/ By Lela Atwood

Q A

How did you get involved with Mission Waco?

I wanted to work with the poor. We forget that there are people in Waco who are pretty bad off. I thought I’d like to work at Mission Waco, but things didn’t work out until Jimmy Dorrell [founder of Mission Waco] spoke at my church.

I decided I needed to go outside of the church, inside of the community, to see what was going on, so I signed up online and talked to the coordinator. I volunteer at the Meyer Center in downtown Waco where the people off the street often need psychological services. There are so many people in need and not enough hands. We stay busy.

& Joanne Lux

Q A

Meals on Wheels

How did you get involved with Meals on Wheels?

My pastor kept announcing from the pulpit that Meals on Wheels [at Woodway First United Methodist Church] needed a coordinator. We had a crew but needed someone for paperwork and to be a spokesperson. I felt that it was something worthwhile to do. He was so relieved.

Q A

Does Meals on Wheels have another purpose besides serving meals?

People we give meals to want us to stay and visit. Human contact means as much to them as food does. They’re lonely and I feel like the visit means the world to them. Some elderly people don’t have family nearby or know their neighbors very well. Usually just a few minutes of conversation will mean a lot to them. It blesses others and is so worthwhile.

Q A

How has Meals and Wheels given you purpose after your husband’s death?

My husband was a very good person. It was easy to love him and take care of him because we were so close. He had a stroke in December 1995, so I took care of him. Since my husband’s death it’s always been important for me to do something that brings purpose and meaning. I have to get up and be at the church by 8. You can’t help but have structure. If you don’t have anything to do, you feel adrift. Meals on Wheels is worthwhile because I know the reactions of elderly people who get the meals. It’s not just a busy work thing.

“Human contact means as much to them as food does.”

-Joanne Lux

A Good D e at h

Story by Cody Winchester

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/ story by Cody Winchester

N

/ photos by Denton Ramsey

Nina Ferguson

Lucy Lupu

ina Ferguson, 91, is resting in a hospital bed in her room in the home she shares with her friend and caregiver, Lucy Lupu. Nina is slender and frail — Lucy estimates her carrying weight at 95 pounds — but her eyes are bright and clear, and she thumps her chest defiantly when Lucy suggests she could be eating better. Lucy is talking about how, in early February of last year, Nina almost died.

She had been staying in a local nursing home when she developed a sore on her foot. She said the staff didn’t change the dressing for two weeks, and infection set in.

Her decline was rapid. A doctor recommended discharge and home hospice care; Nina’s diagnosis was “adult failure to thrive/debility,” one of nine noncancer terminal diagnoses recognized by all Medicare-certified hospices. This meant, according to the doctor, that she had less than six months to live.

Nina has been on hospice care for more than a year and a half now. Five months after her ordeal at the nursing home, she moved in with Lucy, who built her spacious brick home outside Axtell with patients like Nina in mind. All the supplies Lucy needs to care for Nina — diapers, pain medication, an oxygen machine, her bed — are supplied by Providence Hospice, one of eight Waco-based hospices and one of two that operate on a not-for-profit basis. Additionally, a hospice nurse visits Nina once or twice a week.

“It’s a blessing,” Lucy said. “Without them I don’t know how we’d do it.”

The philosophy behind hospice care is often summed up as “care, not cure.” Teams of nurses, chaplains, social workers and volunteers work with terminal patients to maintain quality of life, providing things like pain medication, speech therapy, dietary counseling, help with housework, caretaker relief and, after the patient dies, bereavement counseling for family members.

“Having people surround you, being in a caring environment, being at home — but still having professional care?

That’s a good death,” says Dr. Lacey Gillentine, who teaches a popular class on death and dying at Baylor University.

The idea of hospice care, which dates to midcentury England, represents a cultural shift in our expectations about dying, Gillentine says. It used to be that you died at home, with your family, and people were more apt to view death as a natural extension of life. Advances in medical technology meant that more dying people went to the hospital, where death is

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hidden, remote, “cleansed of its organic blight,” as Sherwin Nuland, author of How We Die, puts it. Hospice offers patients and their families a greater measure of control, as well as a more holistic approach that helps mitigate the loneliness and anomie of death.

“I think now we’re just trying to get back to those roots, and trying to get back a little of that comfort and control we once had,” Gillentine says.

Despite this, more people still die in a hospital or nursing home than die in hospice or home care. And America is graying: The population aged 65 and over is increasing at a faster rate than the population as a whole. The Census Bureau predicts that a fifth of the Texas population will be over age 60 by 2030. Hospices generally treat terminal patients of every age, but the majority are “natural” end-of-life cases (Providence puts its average patient age in the mid-70s). While the official cause of death may be cancer or heart disease or pulmonary infection, with elderly people these are often merely proximate causes. In the end, our bodies simply wear out.

P

rovidence is an affiliate of Community Hospice of Texas, the state’s largest hospice network, which sees patients in a 60-mile radius of Waco. In 15 years of doing business, they’ve seen their average monthly patient census jump from around 90 to 231 in August. The average stay is 75 days.

They treat mostly home-care and nursing-home patients — at present, they don’t have a freestanding inpatient hospice, though they do have rooms on reserve at St. Catherine Center — and as a nonprofit they don’t turn away charity cases. Last year they provided $458,469 in charity care, and hospice staff say that number is increasing each year.

In the two years he’s volunteered at Providence Hospice, 74-year-old Charles Koch has worked with close to 40 patients.

He lives in Gholson but drives to Waco twice a week to see patients for visits that last anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours.

He stays as long as they want to talk, runs errands, sometimes just sits quietly with them.

“All you can do is try to make it as easy and peaceful as you can, to see them through,” he says.

It’s difficult, he says, to form relationships he knows beforehand will be cut short prematurely, but it’s helped him “see the good in people.” He was with Joe Harrison, an octogenarian with lung cancer, for three and a half months before he died last winter. Caring for Joe “touched me very deeply,” he later wrote.

“We were his family,” he says. “He trusted me with everything he had.”

Because Medicare stipulates that 5 percent of a hospice staff must be volunteers, Providence enlists the help of 35 people who, like Charles, provide respite for primary caregivers.

“I don’t think that people realize how all-consuming taking care of somebody that has a terminal illness is, and the more that disease progresses, the more consuming that becomes,” says Sonya Rawlings-Aleman, the volunteer supervisor.

Many Providence staff members have watched a friend or family member die, and although caring for a dying stranger is less personal than caring for a dying loved one, it’s always emotionally taxing. To cope, they meet regularly to remember former patients and hang “bereavement wreaths” on the office walls.

“It’s tough to say goodbye,” says Deborah Simox, a social worker. “There is a sense of loss.”

Sometimes, as in Nina’s case, a patient’s family is able to hire a full-time caretaker. More often, though, the task falls to a family member, often a grown child. Traditional familial roles are reversed: Children feed their parents, bathe them, change their diapers.

“It’s a whole new level of family dedication,” says Gillentine, the Baylor professor.

Death, frequently, is a relief — for family members as well as for caregivers and hospice staff.

“You have to remember that when death happens, it’s not about the person who died, it’s about the people left behind,” Gillentine says. “It’s tough for them.”

saw.

It took about a year for Nina to warm up to her after moving in, Lucy says. Both women were the fifth of 13 children, and Lucy was married the same day as Nina’s son. (In another coincidence, Lucy’s daughter was born the same day as one of Nina’s granddaughters.) Lucy’s daughters watch after Nina when she has to visit her other patients; her 16-year-old, Debbie, sings to her.

“We love each other very much,” Lucy says.

Nina was “skin and bones” when Lucy took over her care, she says, but Lucy nursed her back to health on a regimen of rich foods: crêpes, lamb, chicken sausage, poppy-seed cakes. Now she brags about having a little fat on her belly, but she can’t get out of bed by herself anymore, and fluctuating blood pressure causes her to pass out frequently.

“Her heart feels young, you know, but it’s just her body being given up,” Lucy says.

Although her greatest frustration is the loss of independence that accompanied her creeping infirmity, Nina still finds delight in little things. Lucy planted a garden in the spring, and Nina took great pleasure in watching her work, offering suggestions and playing with the green beans Lucy placed on her chair tray.

“I don’t want to be here, but I’m happy,” Nina says.

Nina’s husband, Harold, has been dead for 13 years. During World War II he lied about his age and joined the Army, a 14-year-old fighting in the Asian Theater. Nina says Harold fell ill in May of 1996 and, rather than suffer through a prolonged illness, shot himself.

She looks down. Lucy begins to grow uneasy.

“He learned early,” Nina says quietly.

Nina Ferguson talks about her friendship with her caregiver, Lucy Lupu.

L

ucy, Nina’s caregiver, migrated to Texas from Romania in 1983.

She is tender toward Nina, whom she calls “mammy” and “sweetie pie” — stroking her hair, adjusting her blanket, offering a quick glass of ice water when her threadlike voice falters. Lucy talks in complexly accented English but answers the phone in rapid-fire Romanian. Her right index finger was severed at the first knuckle when she blacked out while running a table

A

side from its social benefits, hospice also offers a fiscal advantage, one the federal government recognized in 1983 when it made hospice a Medicare benefit. In 2008, for example, the inpatient Medicare charge for a hospital was

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$6,196 per day; for routine home hospice care, it was $149.

No one at Providence would say specifically what they’d like to see out of federal health care reform — at this writing, the Senate hadn’t yet reconciled its bills with the House version passed on Nov. 7 — but Director Tammera Ryan said that personally, she just wants to make sure they can still operate effectively.

“Let us take care of our patients,” she said. “Let us take care of our families.”

As hospice care for elderly patients has become more popular, it has come to represent a greater portion of Medicare spending, a third of which now goes to terminally ill patients in their last two years - Nina Ferguson of life. Last year the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), a Congressional advisory agency, recommended cutting an abstruse component of the hospice benefit known as the budget neutrality adjustment factor (soon after, Congress approved a temporary moratorium on the funding cuts).

They’re also pushing for a U-shaped payment schedule in which Medicare outlays would decrease the longer the patient was on hospice care, then pay out an adjusted sum after their death. As it stands, Medicare pays a per-diem rate that varies depending on the level of care needed.

Patients must be recertified for hospice eligibility at 90 days, 180 days, then every 60 days thereafter.

This restructuring would especially affect patients who, like Nina, have been on hospice for a long time. According to a MedPAC report delivered to Congress in June, Medicare payments to hospices increased nearly 250 percent between 2000 and 2007. Much of this they attributed to patients staying on care longer.

Nina says she’s not afraid of death, though she’s not ready to go just yet. The longest-living member of her family, she wants to make it to 100.

“I don’t really have regrets,” she says. “I just didn’t do enough.”

Lucy Lupu helps Nina Ferguson into a chair.

As Lucy fetches Nina’s glasses and places them carefully on her face, Nina blinks slowly, owl-like, and smiles broadly. Her voice is clear.

“I can tell you one thing: I’ve had a good life. A good life.”

“I can tell you one thing: I’ve had a good life

A good life.”

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.

Contact this issue’s nonprofits to get involved Parents of Premature Babies Inc. www.preemie-l.org Heart of Texas Autism Network www.hotautismnetwork.org Baylor Autism Resource Center (254) 710-6222 autism@baylor.edu Rapoport Academy www.rapoportacademy.org (254) 754-8000 Methodist Children’s Home www.methodistchildrenshome.org (254) 753-0181

Habitat for Humanity www.wacohabitat.org (254) 756-7575

Look Good…Feel Better www.cancer.org (877) 227-1618

World Hunger Farm www.worldhungerrelief.org (254) 799-5611

Mission Waco www.missionwaco.org (254) 753-4900

Waco Arts Initiative wacoartsinitiative.blogspot.com info@Wacoartsinitiative.org

Meals on Wheels www.mowaa.org (703) 548-5558

Family Abuse Center www.familyabusecenter.org 1-800-283-8401

Providence Hospice www.providencehospice.org (254) 399-9099

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visit www.baylor.edu/focus for other stops on the road of life