Ready to roll...

It's been a rough week for our chef. RA training has been really long hours and a couple of days she had to be on her feet a lot. She tried explaining to her boss what happens if she's on them for many hours, but I don't think he believed her. She finally asked me to engage by sending him an e-mail, which I did. Thankfully, I also copied a couple of other people on campus who needed to know what was going on. The lady from the disability office called me back and we talked for quite awhile about Amy's pain levels & physical challenges over the summer. Unfortunately, it wasn't soon enough to save Amy from 6 hours of picking up trash in a park yesterday. Brian and I got a phone call in the afternoon..."Will you please send my wheelchair up with Janis on Sunday?" We knew she was in trouble. So yesterday afternoon BA and I headed to Denver to get her out of the dorm for a night. We took her out to dinner at Olive Garden and let her spend the night in air conditioning, and I think that was just the boost she needed to get thru another week of training. She said with no consistent cell phone reception in her room, no internet access, and no A/C in her room it's been kind of rough and she was rather homesick. I hope she'll feel better when she wakes up. The wheelchair was a lifesaver and I'm so glad we decided to invest in one "just in case." My biggest concern is that her dorm isn't wheelchair accessible. I'm not sure how she's going to navigate getting to the laundry room and out the door to head across campus. She has to go down 2 steps once she leaves her room to even get to the front door. Hopefully there will be others around to help her out. We've done all we can for now, and she and the disability office will have to address those issues. For now, we're praying her boss will learn that she doesn't cry wolf...that she knows her limitations. Maybe in the future when she tells him she'll be in trouble if he asks her to do something that involves being on her feet for long periods of time, he'll believe her. She said he's really a nice guy. But he's probably never worked with someone who's disabled before. And really, how can anyone understand just what she's going thru unless they've been in her shoes? I just hope and pray that this episode doesn't last long and she'll be back up and "running" soon. By the way...when she expressed concern about trying to do an internship in the spring, Jean from the disability office volunteered to go with her to talk to whomever she interviews with to help explain her situation...same with talking to the career counseling office. It seems that Jean is an awesome advocate and will do everything she can to help Amy with some of these issues. Bless you, Jean!