KAREN:  Were there times when you were scared when something happened? 

BARBARA:  Oh, yes, a lot of times.  A lot of times when I was scared, you know, because we've had things like suicides and then people overdose, you know, and want to commit suicide. 

And I've had to talk with people, you know, that were trying to do that.  And you just have to really pray when you're talking to them and trying to help them, you know, through that. 

And down in Southeast, it was worse than up here, you know, as far as that was concerned, because -- and I don't know, really know why it was, you know. 

But I've had days when I couldn't sleep. 

KAREN:  Right. 

BARBARA:  Because I had to go to someone's place that, you know, when they shot themselves or things like that.  And I could not sleep because it was so hard to, you know, dealing with that and dealing with the family and dealing with my own feelings.  But we just kept on going.
 
KAREN:  Were you able to talk with other health aides in the region? 

BARBARA:  Uh-hum. 

KAREN:  And did that help? 

BARBARA:  Oh, yeah.  We used to have health -- at least have each year, we'd have something that we would be learning, you know.  And we'd talk with each other, you know, about different things that were hard for us. 

And then sometimes when we had training, they would bring somebody in that would counsel us, you know, and try to help us through hard times. 

But we did -- we did also have what they call stress --

KAREN:  Oh, stress, that's right.  Getting together with the other health aides?
 
BARBARA:  Uh-hum. 

KAREN:  Sorry for that interruption. 

BARBARA:  That's okay.  One of the things that we did, we do, is we have this stress debriefing.  If there's something really bad that has happened, like if someone commits suicide, you know, and for us to deal with it, they would come in, you know, from -- from Juneau or somewhere, they have a debriefing team.  And they'd come and talk with us about it. 

So you know, that was good, too, you know, to be able to do that.  But a lots of times you're -- we have no one.  You know, sometimes our family, our own family we have problems, too, you know, so it's very hard for the health aide to try to get through that, you know, and sometimes they just quit --

KAREN:  Yeah. 

BARBARA:  -- when that happens. 

KAREN:  Yeah.