With Nurses Week just coming to an end, I want to give a special thanks to all of the nurses and nurse assistants that have helped me along the way as I’ve disabled my limits. When I was 18 and it was finally time to move out of my mom’s house, the government approved me for about 110 hours a week of community based services. Thankfully, this enabled me to chase my dreams wherever they’d take me. The first stop on my journey was Temple University. While I was excited to start college, I was also anxious as this represented a big adjustment I’d have to make. This would be the first time I’d be on my own with a stranger to help me with activities like bathing, dressing, and using the bathroom. I went to camp growing up where I had new people help me, but there were always other people around to lend a hand if necessary. In college I’d really be on my own. Despite a little nervousness, I was excited to embrace this challenge and continue making this life of mine.

After the initial nerves wore off, having aides became kind of fun for me. The nursing agency sends people to my house, usually around my age and of the opposite gender, and I get to choose who I want to hang out with. It’s almost like blind dating minus the sex. I don’t consider myself difficult to take care of, even though my needs may be a lot, so I am confident that whoever walks through my door will be able to manage my needs; it is more about finding the right person that I enjoy being around. And as much as I choose them, they choose me, because the people who I work with the longest treat me as a person rather than a job.

At this point in my life, when it comes to aides I’m settled down. I have two amazing aides that I will refer to as Aide A and Aide B just in case the Feds are watching, and by the Feds I mean the nursing agency. Aide A is one of my best friends; we have similar taste in music and reality tv, we both like to sleep, and we both LOVE to turn up! I won’t define “turn up” because it goes beyond her line of duty, but we have a lot of good times. Aide B is like my mother, except she can’t ground me when I act a fool. She makes sure my apartment is clean and smells good, and she always gives me wise words of advice. Even though my relationship with the two of them is different, I appreciate them more than I can express because they take care of me the way I’d like to take care of myself. Often times I don’t even have to ask for anything because they’ve come to know me so well. They don’t just help me maintain; they help me disable my limits so that I can be exactly who I want to be, Jimmy Curran.