Jerry’s Green Thumb Grows with His PCM Care Team

My name is Jerry, and I worked as a security guard at Pantex Plant in Amarillo, TX, from 1970 to 1973.

While working there, I ensured all security measures and standards were met. This included checking badges as employees arrived for work and checking buildings to make sure they were secure after hours of operation. I also escorted vendors who occasionally needed to be inside the plant to install or repair equipment.

I hope my work made employees feel safe from any outside threats so they could concentrate on their jobs. I hope that our security helped keep any serious outside threats from ever becoming a reality.

I have been a Professional Case Management (PCM) client since January 2019. PCM had an informative meeting at a nearby motel, and I became acquainted with PCM at that meeting.

It is very hard to put into words what PCM means to me and my family. I am a widower and live alone, but next door to my son and his family. I was diagnosed with cancer in 2014. I have chemical-induced neuropathy from chemotherapy treatments. This condition is very hard to live with.

My nurses prepare meals for me, do my laundry, and keep my floors and dishes clean. I am on oxygen, moving my oxygen tank around the house. I am a fall hazard due to no feeling in my feet, so all the chores that my PCM nurses do for me help to keep me safe, especially when my family next door is at work.

My family has a great sense of relief that I am taken care of when they are at work. My PCM nurses and case manager are all very good at monitoring my prescriptions and making sure I take my medications as prescribed. Using a cane and with the assistance of my nurses, I am able to go to my greenhouse and take care of some plants. I am writing this on December 27, 2024, and I currently have tomatoes, lettuce, onions, and Swiss chard growing in my greenhouse. The greenhouse is about the total of my outside activity, all thanks to my PCM nurses.

I would recommend PCM to a stranger if they had the need, for the reasons I listed above as to how they are helping me.

Even though it is not PCM, I recommend that everyone who has a friend or co-worker that has the opportunity to go to a U.S. Department of Labor wellness screening — GO! I went in 2012, and everything was fine. I had an opportunity to go again in 2014 but was reluctant as I was clear in 2012. My wife insisted I go, so I went and found out I had lung cancer. Tell your friends, “DON’T PASS UP THE OPPORTUNITY!”