A Place for BJ
“This time, there will be no surgery.”
The doctor sounded somber and the words themselves were ominous—hitting with the force of a massive wrecking ball—except instead of a wall, it was my mother’s life and hopes and plans being attacked.
Mom had lots of things to sort out. We started the conversations. At the forefront of these concerns was my brother, Bruce James Ernst, who everyone knows as B.J.
B.J. is the classic mama’s boy who, at nearly 34 years old, still lives at home with his mother. Of course, he gets a little bit of a pass because he has cerebral palsy. BJ is completely dependent on the care of others for his basic, daily needs.
My mother has cared for him his entire life, with only the exception of a few days of respite care here and there and several weeks while she was recovering from surgery during her last fight with lung cancer five years ago. Caring for him, and doing it well, has been one of her biggest priorities to the point that it took major surgery to get her to give up any control of his care.
Throughout his life, my mother has not allowed many other people to care for him. My sister and I have offered respite care from time to time when Mom needed to go somewhere, but generally her attitude has been that no one else could ever care for him like she could. Of course, she’s right. Aside from understanding everything that goes into his care, from meds, to positioning, to feeding, his caretaker must know him well enough to be able to tell when he isn’t acting right, when he might need medical attention, when he’s happy, what he likes, and what he doesn’t.
Only one other person has ever managed to win her trust and join the ranks of our family to help with his care on a long-term basis, and that is Debbie. Debbie is that rare, special kind of person who works with special needs folks for the sheer joy of it. She provides wonderful care for B.J.
We discussed how to best handle BJ’s future, and several options arose. Mom pondered them and made her final decision. B.J. should go to live with Debbie. Debbie is happy with this idea, too. She’s ready and willing to provide a wonderful home for him that can accommodate his needs. However, Debbie’s lovely home was not designed for a B.J.
The idea is to add a room onto Debbie’s house to accommodate him—an accessible bedroom with an accessible bathroom—so that he can have his own space and not take anyone else’s. Mom would like to see him settled in there, so we would like to get started quickly.
To help facilitate this, we are starting this fundraiser in the hopes of covering some of the costs of building the addition.
