Press Enterprise

August 28, 2011

Home but not alone

By Dan Bernstein

Joel Clark was at the wheel that day in '95 during SoCal's wettest mid-June storm in 120 years. He hit a bus. He was just 17.

Joel still lives in Norco, not far from the accident. When we met at his home a few days ago, he said, "I wasn't such a good person (before that accident). Now, people say I'm a pleasure to be around."

He said it with a sweet smile, and he said it slowly because his vocal cords were damaged that horrible June day. He said it from the hospital bed next to his mom's double bed. Now 34, Joel has been a quadriplegic half his life. He is classified as "severely impaired."

I wanted to meet someone like Joel because I'm growing weary of the numbers. Every time there's a state budget hiccup, talk turns to triggers and cuts -- from higher ed to Uncle Fred.

In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS), the $1 billion-plus Medi-Cal program for the blind, disabled and elderly -- the program keeps Joel Clark out of a nursing home -- seems a juicy target. IHSS pays "providers" to help more than 17,000 RivCo "recipients." But the state recently cut the number of hours it pays providers to provide. Another attempt to cut hours failed. But if the state doesn't meet revenue targets, IHSS will be back in the crosshairs. With this in mind, I rode along with social worker Crystal Green to visit the Clark family.

Loretta Clark, 69, gets about $2,000 a month to take care of her son. She bathes him, feeds him, makes sure he doesn't get bed sores. She now brushes his teeth several times a day after discovering the sugar in Joel's mostly liquid diet (Ensure) was ravaging his teeth. Ever since he almost choked to death, Loretta hasn't left Joel alone for more than 10 minutes.

"To care for Joel is a joy," she says. But it's not easy with her heart problems.

"Without them," Joel says of his family, "I would have killed myself a long time ago." There's a lot of love in that converted family room. Considerable banter, too. "He's not blind," cracks a sister. "A vegetable, maybe."

Joel's stiff, slender fingers seem to splay in every direction. "I've got my own gang," he smiles. His own sign.

No one knows how much time Joel has left (in '95, the docs said four years), but everyone knows where they want Joel to spend it.

"He was in a nursing home after his injury," recalls Loretta. "They put a rag over his face" because a nurse was "bothered by his stare."

Loretta doesn't understand that any more than she understands why government pays her to take care of her own son. "I don't think it's their place. I was raised to take care of your own. But I have to have it or I wouldn't stay home and take care of him." Joel might not get to stay home, either. "Now," says Loretta, "he sees his family every single day."

"He loves children," she adds, showing me a photo of Joel's niece. "His brothers' lives went on, but his stopped. It's what he can't do that bothers him."

Joel smiles. "What's the use of complaining?"

As we talk of cuts and triggers, it doesn't hurt to remember, even fleetingly, that there are thousands of people behind the mountain of numbers. It's just hard to see around a mountain.

Reach Dan Bernstein at 951-368-9439 or dbernstein@PE.com