Living and Dying in Brick City (15 page)
Read Living and Dying in Brick City Online
Authors: Sampson Davis,Lisa Frazier Page
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Physicians, #Nonfiction, #Retail, #Personal Memoir, #Healthcare
$8,000 to $40,000+ (includes prospective parents’ cost of finding a birth mother, certain birth mother expenses, and attorney’s fees)
Who Can Adopt
birth mothers typically choose the adoptive parent—preferences tend to run toward younger, affluent, married couples
How Long It Takes
varies; as long as it takes to find a birth mother who will see the process through to finalization
Agencies Specializing in African American Adoptions
African American
Adoption Agency
2356 University Ave. W
St. Paul, MN 55114-1850
888-840-4084 or 651-659-0460
African American
Adoptions, Inc
.
8471 Canyon Oak Drive
Springfield, VA 22153
703-829-5641
Another Choice for
Black Children, Inc
.
2340 Beatties Ford Road
Charlotte, NC 28216
800-774-3534 or 704-394-1124
Ardythe and Gale Sayers Center for African American Adoption
2049 Ridge Ave.
Evanston, IL 60201
847-733-3209
www.+cradle.+org/+adoption-+agency/+adopt_+aa.+html
The Black Adoption Placement and Research Center
2332 Merced St.
San Leandro, CA 94577
510-430-3600
Black Adoption Services Three Rivers Adoption Council
307 Fourth Ave., Ste. 310
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
412-471-8722
Children’s Bureau, Inc
.
615 N. Alabama St.
Indianapolis, IN 46204
317-264-2700
Dallas Minority Adoption Council
P.O. Box 764058
Dallas, TX 75376-4058
214-371-5280
Dunbar Association, Inc
.
1453 S. State St.
Syracuse, NY 13205
315-476-4269
Families First
1105 W. Peachtree St., NE
P.O. Box 7948, Stn. C
Atlanta, GA 30357-0948
404-853-2800
Family Matters of Greater Washington
, D.C.
1509 16th St. NW
Washington, DC 20036
202-289-1510
http://+family+mattersdc.+org/
Harlem Dowling-West Side Center
2090 Adam Clayton
Powell Jr. Blvd.
New York, NY 10027
212-749-3656
Homes for Black Children
511 E. Larned St.
Detroit, MI 48226
313-961-4777
www.+homes4+black+children.+org
Institute for Black Parenting
1299 E. Artesia Blvd.
Carson, CA 90746
877-367-8858 or 310-900-0930
www.+blackparenting.+org/+services.+html
Institute for Family & Child Well-Being
P.O. Box 7845
Upper Marlboro, MD 20792
info@familyandchildwellbeing.com
www.+familyand+child+wellbeing.+com
Minority Adoption Program Child Saving Institute
4545 Dodge St.
Omaha, NE 68132
402-553-6000 or 866-400-4274
Mississippi Families for Kids
407 Briarwood Drive, Ste. 209
Jackson, MS 39206
601-957-7670
National Network of Adoption Advocacy Programs (NNAAP)
5601 Chamberlayne Road
Richmond, VA 23227
804-377-1627
The New York Chapter Association of Black Social Workers’ Child Adoption Counseling and Referral Service
1969 Madison Ave.
New York, NY 10035
212-831-5181
New York Council on Adoptable Children
589 Eighth Ave., 15th Fl.
New York, NY 10018
212-475-0222
One Church One Child of North/North Central Texas
2860 Evans Ave.
Fort Worth, TX 76104
866-42-ADOPT (866-422-3678)
Rejoice! Inc
.
1820 Linglestown Rd.
Harrisburg, PA 17110
717-221-0722
Tabor Children’s Services
57 E. Armat St.
Philadelphia, PA 19144
215-842-4800
Women’s Christian Alliance
1722 Cecil B. Moore Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19121-3405
215-236-9911
*
Source:
All of the birth control information in the preceding pages was reprinted from
womens+health.+gov
, a federal government website managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women’s Health.
†
Note:
It is also possible to adopt children by first becoming a foster parent; many children who have special needs are adopted by their foster parents.
Drawback:
There is no guarantee that foster parents will be able to adopt either the child in their care or any other child. Most children in foster care return to their birth families, and some are placed in the custody of relatives or adopted by parents the agency feels are best able to meet the child’s particular needs.
Advantages:
Children who enter foster care are, on average, younger than children who become legally free for adoption after spending years in care. In addition, parents who take in foster children have time to get fully acquainted with a child before committing to adoption. The more parents know about a child, the better their chances are for a successful adoption.
Source:
North American Council on Adoptable Children, 970 Raymond Ave., Suite 106, St. Paul, MN 55114, 651-644-3036,
www.+nacac.+org
. For a more comprehensive list of adoption agencies, go to:
www.+child+welfare.+gov/+nfcad/
.
CLUBBING
B
eep. Beep. Beep.…
I’d just about drifted off to sleep one night in late spring 2001 when the sound of my pager startled me. Instinctively, I jumped off the cot in the resident call room, the tiny quarters where young doctors can rest, and slid into my sneakers. I glanced down at the small electronic screen to find out what awaited me two flights down: a combative twenty-three-year-old male, gunshot wound to the abdomen, arriving in five minutes.
No time to stop at the sink or run through the shower to freshen up. Within seconds, I was standing at the elevator, pressing the button in rapid succession. It gave me something to do as I waited. When the door swung open, I jumped on board, rode to the ground floor, and ran toward the emergency department. Once there, I quickly put on a disposable yellow gown to cover my scrubs. This case would be bloody for sure, and I couldn’t ruin the only pair of scrubs I had with me. I made it to the ambulance bay with the rest of the trauma team to await our patient. This was my second rotation at University Hospital’s trauma center, and I was one of two visiting residents. The rest of the team included the chief trauma resident, the junior resident, and a couple of medical students.
Ron, the trauma nurse, was there, too. With two decades of
experience, he was the true leader of the department and got a kick out of us bambinos learning the field. Like many of the nurses, he would make biting remarks to prove that the nurses were the true kings and queens of this jungle. You couldn’t show fear or weakness, or they would eat you alive. I’m sure they sat around most days laughing at the first-year residents (also called “interns”), wandering around the E.R., barely able to distinguish a stethoscope from a blood pressure cuff. An outsider could probably figure out our seniority just by our facial expressions and body language. The more confused and bewildered, the less experienced they were. The chief resident looked more exhausted than anything else, and the king of the jungle was looking for his prey. Ron’s shift had just begun, which meant he was fresh and ready to torment one of the residents or medical students.
In an instant, the doors flung open, and the emergency medical technicians were rushing a stretcher toward us. The team quickly lifted our patient onto the gurney, and I used a huge pair of shears to cut off his clothes. Ron swooped in and barked at the intern: “Now, you know you don’t know what you are doing, MOVE!” Within seconds, he had hooked the patient to a monitor, established a second IV, drawn blood for the lab, and placed a Foley catheter, while the rest of us assessed the damage.
Our patient, a young brother, was alive, but barely. The monitor picked up a heart rhythm, and as I placed my gloved hand into his groin region to find the femoral artery, I could feel a faint pulse. I inserted a large bore IV right next to the artery into the femoral vein, allowing us to pump in saline and blood. Blood gushed from the wounds in his chest and abdomen, toward his crotch, and my gloved hand was suddenly bright red. The junior resident moved in with a Number 11 scalpel to insert a chest tube, and the rest of the team completed our mental checklist, examining the patient for further injury. I counted three gunshot wounds, two to the abdomen
and one to the chest. The X-ray technician moved in, giving us a quick look at things on the inside. The bullet appeared to have struck the spine, knocking its alignment off track, indicating a high probability of paralysis. The patient was rushed to the operating room. Finally, Ron retreated. As the stretcher disappeared around the corner toward the elevator, the intern fought back tears. Just one year removed from such status, I knew how overwhelmed she must have felt.
Moments later, I heard yelling on the other side of the department. Another young man was stumbling in, his white T-shirt drenched with blood—another shooting. He was a big guy, six feet two inches tall, roughly 250 pounds. A female companion was struggling to keep him upright; his legs were wobbling underneath his large frame. Then his feet gave way and he collapsed in the middle of the department. Ron quickly grabbed a stretcher. Newly regloved, the rest of the team rushed to the patient’s side and tossed his limp body onto it. Ron whipped out a needle from his back pocket and established almost immediate IV access. Fluids were attached to the catheter and squeezed in. Ron was back on his throne, and his target, this go-around, was the junior resident.
“What the hell are you doing?” Ron yelled. “Get this guy intubated. Come on, let’s go!”
Ron was as good as any trauma surgeon. In a pinch, he might have even been able to perform surgery—at least that’s the kind of confidence he exuded. “Listen, if you can’t do it, then move and let someone else.”
Sweat formed on the junior resident’s forehead as he pushed the tube into the patient’s trachea. I checked for sounds of breathing and gave a thumbs-up, signaling that the tube was in the proper place. I believe the poor resident feared Ron more than missing the intubation. The medical student took my shears and removed the patient’s jeans and bloody T-shirt. I inspected his body and found
one gunshot wound in his abdomen. There were no bowel sounds, and his stomach was swollen to the size of a full-term pregnancy. He was surely bleeding inside. The chief resident placed a central line catheter into his neck. Ron hooked him up to the monitor, and we rolled him over for the standard back and rectal exam. The white sheet covering the black foam mattress was now a bright maroon. The patient’s blood pressure was low, and his heart rate was fast. He was barely hanging on. I could see the attending trauma surgeon making his way through the department, and, like the parting of the Red Sea, everyone moved. This was the only time I saw Ron back down. It wasn’t as much a retreat as a show of respect for a fellow king of the jungle. If challenged, though, Ron would rise up, and he and Dr. Langston would battle, right there in front of everyone. Dr. Langston looked at the chief resident and quickly uttered two words: “Let’s go.”
Eight more traumas came in that night—a total of twenty during my thirty-hour shift, not reaching my personal record of thirty-five. I was so drained that I welcomed the morning report, when all of the trauma docs, radiologists, nurses, and other staff gathered in a room to sign out the cases from the night before and hand over operations to the next team. This was the attending trauma surgeon’s stage, as he drilled us, pointing out every mistake. The chief resident usually got it the worst, but no one was exempt. It was like a fraternity den, and hazing was allowed.
“You radiologists are fancy art critics,” Dr. Langston joked while making his assessment of our performance the night before. “All you do is read pictures and offer your impressions.”
I sat back in my seat, coffee in hand. Medical school had introduced me to the world of coffee, and I’d since become somewhat of a connoisseur. Even with the caffeine, I was struggling to keep my eyes open. The initials of all the patients from the night before were marked on the green board. The gunshot victim who had
walked in with his female companion had made it out of the operating room—critical but alive. He needed more surgery. “Severe internal damage occurred, and he was unable to be closed up,” the chief resident said. A plastic covering from a saline bag had been placed over his exposed abdomen to prevent bacteria from entering the body cavity.