Cheryl Sherry column: Homeless man sings praises of work done by shelter

-ThePostCrescent

07/15/2008- He's a chef by trade who over the years has worked for others, owned his own restaurant and was a partner in another. At 45, when the restaurant where he worked in Baraboo abruptly closed, Hart quickly found other work as a machine operator for a printing company.

Despite his lack of experience, he worked hard to learn the job and spent more than nine years there, the last six as a lead trainer.

Yet, now at 55, Hart is without a job and homeless. For the past three months he has lived at the Emergency Shelter of the Fox Valley.

He wrote a letter last week to The Post-Crescent. He'd read a Q&A I had done with Emergency Shelter executive director Debra Cronmiller and wanted to applaud the shelter's efforts.

Hart said his downward spiral began the morning he woke to find painful, itchy blisters the size of quarters covering the bottoms of his feet.

Thinking the problem was associated to friction and long hours at the printing company, Hart was advised by a doctor to keep his feet clean, change his socks and shoes often and was prescribed a topical hydrocortisone cream. The combination didn't work.

Neither did subsequent visits to other doctors who suggested a variety of treatments that didn't work.

Hart's arthritis also began severely affecting his neck and was not helped by the new anti-inflammatory he had been taking.

Between mounting pressure at work, the skin condition now accompanied by shooting pain in the legs, the pain in Hart's neck and a bout with shingles, he used up all his family medical leave at work, his savings and tapped out his 401K plan.

He lost his job. He lost his home.

Not wanting to take advantage of friends and family who initially provided him a place to stay, Hart hitchhiked last year to Stevens Point when he found the shelter there hardly ever turned people away. His talents as a chef led to a cooking job at the shelter, where he stayed until April.

Determined to find the root cause of his afflictions, Hart spent time at the library devouring medical journals and Web sites in hopes of finding the right questions to ask doctors to finally get answers.

When he moved into the Emergency Shelter, the Fox Cities Community Health Center, which provides a medical clinic and mental health services at the shelter, listened to and helped Hart find relief.

"Because I have arthritis I took one of those miracle drugs that came out a few years ago," he said. "Those drugs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or NSAIDs) are now off the market because of catastrophic results to some people that used them and the medical community's inability to recognize the damage and what was causing it."

The Federal Drug Administration approved Vioxx in May 1999 for the reduction of signs and symptoms of osteoarthritis. It was voluntarily pulled off the market in 2004 when studies showed there was an increased relative risk for confirmed cardiovascular events, such as heart attack and stroke. Severe allergic skin reaction was a leading side effect, causing Stevens-Johnson syndrome, which is the disease Hart developed.

Going from hard worker to homelessness has been brutal. Hart said asking for help made him question his worth.

"Imagine that you were one of the key people in your job, your friends and family could always count on you and now you are neutered," he said. "It is humiliating and degrading to be in this situation."

Yet, he sings the praises of the Emergency Shelter, which has never judged or shown prejudice due to his situation.

"You get just about anything you need to find a job or a home and get back to being that vital person you were," he said. "There is one thought you should have: There but for the grace of God, go I."