My new friend (I'm going to call her Pamela from now on) came back to the clinic this morning and told us she had a seizure earlier this week.

The details are kind of hazy. There was some confusion at first because she kept claiming she had had a stroke when she meant to say seizure. She was hospitalized for a couple days, so the doctor I work with filled out some forms to get access to her medical records. It's one of the many difficulties in treating the homeless -- they usually have several different doctors and none of their information is centralized.

Pamela said the seizure happened when she ran into her brother on the street. "It's just all the stress from everything that's happened," she said. "But I put it in God's hands now." Personally, I'm concerned that the seizure may have been due to some type of recreational drug use, which I truly truly truly hope is not the case.

She was in much better spirits this week, though. And she's adopted a very sweet blind man who lives in her shelter. He lost his vision when he was shot in the head last year. He needs a lot of help. He's scared of everything and everybody. He's not used to being handicapped yet, and he said some people have taken advantage of him (stealing his Vicodin and other heinous stuff like that). So Pamela's looking out for him. It was incredibly sweet seeing them together. At one point during his appointment he started freaking out that he'd lost his California ID, and Pamela kept telling him "Don't get down, now. You gotta keep your spirits up."

I love this woman.