This is a two-person family, with a single mother and a son, age ten. The mother ran away from home at age 15, met and married an alcoholic, and had two sons. She eventually divorced that husband because of his alcoholism and abusiveness, but quickly became involved with a married man. She became pregnant with her son, but the man abandoned her and she has not been able to locate him since. Although she returned to her family in Michigan to have her third son, she ultimately returned to Oklahoma with him.
Ms. J. has no close relationships with family or friends. Although she has siblings, she has no contact with them. In addition, she has no contact with her older sons (ages 16 and 18), because her husband will not let her see them. She does not belong to any church or other community, although she favors the Baptists because they are good people and bring food baskets around at Christmas time. In other words, Ms. J. is extremely socially isolated which probably contributed to the long-term abuse in her first relationship and certainly contributes to her low self-esteem.
Ms. J. is one of the working poor and likely to remain that way for the near future unless she gets significant help in changing her status. She has only an eighth-grade education and no plans to pursue her GED. She makes the minimum wage cleaning other people's houses and receives some help from the social service system. She receives a medical card for her son, for example, but does not have any medical insurance of any sort for herself. She also obtained HUD housing in a development, living in an apartment. She expressed herself as distressed by the environment for her son, however, since there it was filled with drugs, alcohol, and fighting.
As noted above, Ms. J. has little or no contact with her family, so she is not very knowledgeable about her family health history. She recalled that her grandfather on her father's side died of a hear...