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Toady has a new haircut, a clean-shaven face and a heart-shaped balloon in his room.

The balloon is a gift from his daughter, and she visits him often at his group home in Caswell County.

Toady’s other relatives come, too. They bring him clothes, toiletries, chocolate-chip cookies, anything he needs — except, maybe, cigars.

Still, Toady’s family worries.

They thought it would be easy to get Toady on disability because of his story and their 10-year search to find him. Some thought he was dead after he wandered off following the death of his parents.

A few weeks back, they found him living beside the railroad tracks near Bennett College. Afterward, they heard about his version of reality. He believed he owned a bank, a factory, a ranch in Texas and the property beside the tracks where he had lived for three years.

Yet, he didn’t know his daughter.

Toady’s family figured he’d be a shoo-in for collecting disability and getting the money he needed to stay in his room, the place with his heart-shaped balloon.

Not quite.

Getting disability is like walking through a maze. It’s mind-numbing at every turn.

The process can take six months or a year —  at least.

For any family, that could feel like forever.

If Toady was a threat to himself or to other people, disability would come quickly. But that’s not Toady. Plus, he’s 52, too young to qualify for Social Security.

So, Toady’s family is left to scramble.

They need money to keep him in his group home or they need to figure out a way to keep him in their own homes. But they either work or they’re too old, have too little space or spend too much time away from home.

At any home, they worry Toady could leave — just like he did a decade ago.

“I’m real scared,” says Harvey Neal, his younger brother. “I don’t want to see him going into a tent because I don’t think we’d see him again. We’d find him dead.”

Unusual? Not at all.

Toady’s family has run into what every family faces in trying to file any disability claim. It’s an endurance race, fraught with frustrations and heartache. And right now is the worst time.

“A lot of people put it off thinking, 'You know, I can’t do what I used to do, but I don’t want to ask for help,’” says Paula Rachal, assistant director of The Servant Center, a local nonprofit that helps the homeless and disabled. “But now, they can’t do anything because there are no jobs and there are more applications than ever.

“I know people who’ve lost their house, their everything, and they’re still waiting. They’re trying to speed it up. The government. But there’s only so much they can do.”

Tell that to Toady. He lives in his own world. I’ve seen it firsthand.

Right before Christmas, I sat on a trash bin underneath Toady’s spider web of tarps and cardboard and listened to his story.

He sang in a bluesy baritone, told me about his Santa globe and laid on a mattress supported by cinder blocks, surrounded by comforters, packing blankets and sofa cushions. All I could see was his face. His beard looked like steel wool.

I wrote about Toady for Christmas Sunday. The name he gave me? Stephen Vanstory, which is his mother’s maiden name. His real name? Stephen Neal, which is his stepfather’s last name.

His family told me that when they called a few weeks after my column ran. They read about him in the paper, and they told me that he drove trucks and earned his nickname as a kid for catching frogs. They wanted to find him and bring him home. Toady agreed.

They figured they’d get him in the group home. Then, they’d get him in his own home after getting him on medication that would stabilize his schizophrenia, a mental disorder in which people deal with delusions.

Like owning a ranch in Texas.

Harvey Neal and his cousin, Ron Flack, have Toady’s health care power of attorney. Harvey works as a security guard; Flack works as the nursing director for the medical surgical intensive care unit at Moses Cone Health Center.

Flack has been at Moses Cone for 28 years, and he thought he knew the ins and outs of health care. With helping Toady, that all changed.

A doctor who examined Toady diagnosed him with schizophrenia and early dementia. Yet, a psychiatrist needs to make the final call, and Toady won’t see one until early April. Only then can Toady get the medication he needs.

As for getting disability, Flack says he’s been told that could take anywhere from six months to a year.

And what recourse does the family have? Find money and pray.

“We have a great system, don’t we?’’ Flack says.

Last month, Toady arrived at the group home with the clothes he wore.

Today, he has a closet filled with shirts, pants and a new pair of boots from Walmart.

“When we were coming up as little bitty boys,’’ Harvey says, “he always wore boots. Not tennis shoes. Boots.”

Every morning, Toady makes his bed and sweeps and mops his floor. He takes a shower every day. His mottled beard is gone. In its place is a strong chin and freckled cheeks.

I barely recognized him when I saw him the other day, sitting on a picnic bench, a cigarette between his fingers.

“He looks 20 years younger,” says a female resident at the group home, sitting nearby. “He’s jailbait.”

“All right, all right!” Toady says, laughing. “Don’t go that far, hear?”

Toady knows his brother and knows his cousin. Toady calls Flack “The Doctor.” But he didn’t know his daughter, Pamela Russell.

At least not at first.

“I didn’t know her until she told me,” Toady says. “But I’m good to go. She brought me Valentine’s candy, cards and a balloon. I told her to bring me some cigars. Two or three. She told me not to smoke anymore.

“But I’d rather be in my damn tent,” he continues. “I eat too damn much, and when I leave this place, I’m going to Texas. That’s where my stuff’s at. Cows and horses. Cows and horses.”

So goes Toady’s world.

Flack and his family worry Toady may need to leave the group home in a week or so unless they find another $1,000 for another month.

That, they say, will give them more time to deal with the confusion of disability, the need for medication, the heartache of the wait.

“Why did we go get him?” Flack says. “It’s almost like you’re being punished by the system by trying to help someone who’s mentally ill and whose judgment is off. We love him. He’s our family. But $1,000 a month in these economic times?”

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com