smelliness

the other day we had a dramatic day in clinic. seriously, like all the most complicated patients happened to be scheduled on the same day and they all happened to show up.
God must really love us and wants us to experience Him (through suffering/sanctification). hah.

anyway. T shows up with her 3 kids. she doesn't really have a major tooth issue, but i wanted to see her because i wanted to refer her to our social workers. i felt dumb for not thinking of it before. it was pretty clear that she needed help, but i dunno why it never occurred to me. it took a lot of deliberation on behalf of my very compassionate and astute auxiliary team for that thought to click. so, after polishing her filling (it was 'rough') i asked if she had ever talked to a social worker before, and if she was interested in doing that. i explained that our social services managers are great because they could refer her to a lot of resources. there is a ton of aid for single mothers, especially.

back story is that, T is 25, three kids ages - 5, 3, 1. parents abused her throughout life. she eventually got kicked out of the parents house. youngest baby was the result of a stranger rape off the street. everyone smells like urine. 5 year old touched the white counter top with her hand and it turned black. toddler and baby have major diaper rash, visibly spreading out of diaper to thighs. first time i saw the baby, he pooped his diaper. i told mom that she could change him if she wished, and not to worry about making me wait. she said she would prefer to just get the dental checkup over and done with and offered to "just wrap him in a blanket". so she rolled him up in a blanket like a burrito and we did a knee-to-knee exam. wth? ... T is struggling w/ depression, stuff like that. she's currently homeless, but occasionally her mom will help w/ the kids (once per week), and then i guess the oldest child's baby daddy (+new girlfriend) have taken them all in, just to help out. but apparently he is stealing her food stamps. i unfortunately see a lot of "the other baby mama" interactions. sigh.
on top of that, i recently discovered that T's father was a pt i had seen when i first started working... he had just gotten a sex change. so, i guess that makes him a grandma now.
i once saw HER on the streets walking with a stroller and baby, prolly the 1 yr old, now that i look back. it blows my mind to think about the baby's worldview and concept of 'grandma/pa' and how it'll differ from what he sees in all the children's books/movies/tv. i mean, not just the fact that grandma is trans-sexual, but she also has tattoos randomly located all over her body (looks like a kid stuck stickers all over her), multiple piercings in both cheeks, and the fact that s/he was staying w/ his/er wife.

T seems interested in talking to a social worker and even waits in the waiting room until she can come upstairs to assess and refer. DHS was not anywhere on my radar. but for some reason T suddenly became very anxious once social services came upstairs to talk to her. the kids became more outta control. there was a ton of commotion/noise coming from them.

T denied that the kids were always in that filthy external condition.and that today was the exception. we knew that it was not. but we also knew that T consistently also smells like urine. perhaps her nose just got used to the smell. and once we are dirty for several days, we forget how dirty we are, i guess.

as heart-breaking as this situation may be, i was convicted of my own sin and depravity. how it's easy to just get used to the smell. and God sees all of our sins as putrid. THE SMELL is repulsive to Him. the more i'm in it, the less i can smell it. the less i notice. i just live with it. but it doesn't mean that others can't smell it. and it doesn't mean that the smell doesn't exist.