By Mason Edwards, the Chattanooga Times Free Press
Single mother Kayneasha Smith devoted her life to her son after a car accidentally struck and paralyzed her six-year-old son while he was crossing the street in 2009. Since then, Smith has juggled work and education while ensuring her son, her number one priority, feels loved.
“I’m at the point where I say I have lived my life,” Smith said. “I want to be able to show him, you know, there's more to life than just sitting in his chair or sitting at home watching TV.”
Her son, Jacquez Smith, turns 22 in January. He attends Brainerd High School, loves watching wrestling and playing video games with his adaptive controller. He’s fully conscious of his surroundings and will grin after hearing a good joke or his mother brag about his achievements, but he’s wheelchair-bound and has trouble speaking. Even though Smith thinks taking care of him has gotten easier as time has gone on, Jacquez still needs assistance in every aspect of daily life and a home nurse to monitor his round-the-clock medication schedule.
His current nurse, Crystal Speed, who has 26 years of nursing experience, spent the last two months helping Jacquez for Maxim Healthcare. According to Speed, Jacquez needs care for everything related to his personal hygiene, intestinal movements and breathing treatments. Moreover, he’s dependent on his feeding tube for 18 hours a day and needs medication through his gastrostomy tube four times daily.
“He is an insulin dependent diabetic and has his blood glucose checked four times daily with the use of sliding scale insulin in addition to his regular dose of insulin,” Speed added.
Because Jacquez can’t survive without constant care, Smith schedules her life activities around being available to tend to him. Up until April, Smith worked as a dental assistant for Greater Brainerd Dental. As she applies for new jobs, her working hours and availability still depend on whether and when she can get homecare for her son.
“Every job that I get is like a touch-and-go,” Smith said. “One minute it will be fine… I’m going to work everyday.. then the next couple of months.. due to sickness of a nurse or personal reasons why they can’t come in, if they can’t come in, then I can’t come to work and most jobs, and most jobs, they, they don’t care.”
According to Smith, the number one question employers ask her is whether there are relief, backup nurses available to take care of her son. She explained that, as the residual effects of the COVID-19 pandemic created a nurse shortage, leaving Smith without backup support. When she has to quit her job and keep her son alive, she said it makes finding employment difficult.
“At the end of the day, I'm very independent, so if I can get up and go to work, then that's what I am going to do,” Smith said. “I just feel like there’s other people out there in far more worse situations than we are that might need it. I don’t go digging for the resources just because they’re out there.”
Jacquez’s disability funds and food stamps help, but they don’t cover the entirety of their rent. Even though Smith is currently a full-time student at Miller-Motte College, studying for an associate degree in business, she scours the internet every morning for resources in the area to find help for Jacquez, who can’t currently go to school because of a lack of a usable wheelchair accessible ramp at their house.
“I’m in the midst of trying to see if there’s programs that can help get us a ramp built or donate us a portable ramp,” she said.
She is also trying to find a more permanent housing solution through the Chattanooga Housing Authority's Housing Choice Voucher Program, also called Section 8. According to Speed, Section 8 provides people with stipends for housing and utilities based on need.
“I’m actually waiting to hear back from section 8 to make sure everything went through, so hopefully all my worries will be over with,” Smith said.
In the meantime, without employment for a few months and behind on rent in August, Smith reached out to United Way of Greater Chattanooga through their 211 phone number service, which is a free service helping connect people to resources they might need, like the Chattanooga Times Free Press’s Ochs Community Fund.
“I don't know what we would have been if I wouldn't have been able to get through the United Way,” Smith said. “You just give them your information and they take it from there.”
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