HEALTH PROBLEMS Family hit with bad luck seeks a home

The family is determined to manage mental illness and get off Social Security.
By NANCY TULLIS
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LISBON -- Cindy Davis is searching for a new place to call home. This time, she doesn't want it to be the street.
Davis, 49, of Lisbon, is looking for a house to rent in Lisbon in time to move by June 5. That's when she and her husband Ted, 40, and son Justin King, 18, have to vacate the East Chestnut Street house they rent because it's been sold. They're running out of money and time.
The family is on a fixed income due to mental illness. Cindy is a recovering alcoholic, and all are being treated for depression. Justin has attention deficit disorder. Ted suffers from agoraphobia -- an abnormal fear of being in an open space.
"We want to stay in Lisbon because it's a good community and it is a comfortable and safe place for us. There are no bad memories here," she said. "The Counseling Center is two minutes away. Everything we need is here."
They moved into the East Chestnut Street house three years ago. They made repairs to the house and painted the interior to their tastes. Cindy said she decorated the house in "early American garage sale."
More problems
The same day they learned they would have to move, Ted suffered what doctors later determined was a diabetic episode. He is particularly phobic about doctors and hospitals, and that fear nearly cost him his life, Cindy said.
Ted was behaving strangely and was incoherent, she said. Cindy called an ambulance, and Ted was rushed to Salem Community Hospital, then to University Hospitals in Cleveland by air ambulance.
His glucose level was extremely high and his kidneys began to shut down. Cleveland doctors put him into a drug-induced coma.
Cindy has traveled back and forth to the hospital nearly every day -- an expensive venture with gas prices nearing $2 a gallon. She spent several nights on a cot at Ted's bedside.
"We didn't think he'd make it, but he's a fighter," Cindy said. "The doctors are saying it's a miracle, not only that he survived, but that he's recovering so quickly.
"He's going to need rehabilitation and we will all have to get used to a new lifestyle," Cindy said. "I'm learning to give Ted his insulin shots."
Cindy is involved with programs at the Counseling Center, both for her own personal counseling and by assisting with programs to help others like her who are coping with mental illness. She is active in a program to help people with mental illness who are homeless.
"Once you've been homeless, you don't want to go there again," she said. "I'd been on my own and had a home for 20 years before my divorce," she said.
"Then it was just move, move, move. I moved 16 times in 14 years. Once all I had was a lawn chair and a barbecue grill."
Early years
Cindy said both she and Ted grew up in environments of violence and abuse. Cindy's previous marriage went much the same way. She and Ted have been together eight years.
"We don't have a lot, but we have each other," she said. "He is my best friend and I thought I was going to lose him. I was just on automatic pilot. He was getting better with the agoraphobia, getting out more; then I thought he was gone. The doctors said he would have died if he'd come in an hour later."
Now that Cindy is certain of Ted's survival, she is once again thinking beyond the immediate crises. She said although they are receiving federal assistance now, they are determined to manage the mental illness and be able to work full time.
Their personalities
She said Ted is a quiet, shy man who enjoys working on cars. Justin is an intelligent teen-ager who loves to read, especially classic novels such as "Crime and Punishment" and "Les Miserables." He wants to get his high school diploma because he wants to be a human services worker and work with children, she said.
Cindy wants to attend classes at Kent State University to be a paralegal so she can be a legal advocate for people with mental illness.
"It's hard to break through the stigma of mental illness," she said. "People don't want to deal with that. I want to educate attorneys about what is true and what is not, and that mental illness can affect anyone."
"We've worked hard to make a home and we want to do better," she said. "We want to get off of the Social Security and be independent. We want to let people know about mental illness and diabetes and how our situation can happen to anyone," she said.
"It can happen, no matter how much you are trying to do all the right things."