“Well, Beth, my first weeks here were somewhat trying, to say the least. There was a lot to adjust to and figure out. In some ways it was similar to my stay in hospital, but mostly I was in unfamiliar territory. It was definitely a lifestyle change. A lot for an old woman to get used to, for sure.
I saw so many new faces, way too many to remember. The staff all knew me by name, but I didn’t know any of them. They were all strangers. There were just so many of them, and they all work in different capacities. There are the nurses, the housekeepers, the laundry girls, the cooks, the dietary aids, and all the activity workers, and then there is the office staff. Wow, that’s a lot of new faces, never mind all the residents.
Every morning I had a new nurse help me to get washed and dressed. Some were pleasant and friendly, and others were abrupt and impatient. Those kind I seemed to remember quite readily! And their timing was never the same. Some mornings they came before seven and woke me, and other mornings I was up and waiting for them to come. I couldn’t seem to get it figured out. Of course, it didn’t take me many days to come to the realization that, unlike the hospital, there were too few nurses to go around for the number of residents that needed their help. They were running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to accommodate all of us and care for our needs. Mornings and evenings are the worst. A few more hands on deck would sure make everyone’s life a little better.
Dealing with all the constant noise and commotion here is hard. It wears on your nerves. It was like that in the hospital, too. The sound of call bells drone on forever. That was part of my difficulty to adjust and settle into living in this big house. Even during the wee hours of the night, there are lights on and people up and about. It seems people just don’t want to sleep. There are nurses here all night, and they have duties to carry out. They go around every few hours during the night and check on all us residents. When they come into my room, I always hear the door clank and see the beam of the bright flashlight they use to check to see if I’m still breathing. It startled the heck out of me at first. I wasn’t sure what was going on. Being disturbed like that during the night disrupts my sleep. Sometimes it takes a while to drift back off to sleep again.
Some of the nurses are a little too loud with their traipsing around and interaction with the night crawlers. Those are the residents that seem to have their days and nights scrambled. The nurses say that’s what happens with Alzheimer’s sometimes. Of course, it doesn’t help the matter when your neighbour in the next room yells continuously. Morning, noon, and night, she’s hollering for help. I don’t think she has any conception of it, but I do! I guess I just really miss my solitude and country environment where at night it’s deathly quiet and black as the inside of a cow when the lights go out. That’s how I had lived my whole life.
After several trips to the dining room, I got my bearings and knew the route. I sat with three other ladies at first. Two of them were still aware enough that we could converse. The other was not. One of the nurses had to sit with her and feed her at every meal, and I needed help at that time, as well, as I was unable to cut my meat and such. All of those ladies have since died, and I’ve had quite the rotation of residents to dine with.
Everyone who stops in to visit asks me about the meals here. I guess I don’t have too many complaints in that regard. It’s certainly not like the cooking I’m used to doing or eating, but it fills the hole. We don’t get many homemade meals. Most everything comes in premade and is frozen. The kitchen girls told me that they used to make everything from scratch here, but government cutbacks took away funding to pay enough staff to do the work involved. It’s cheaper to buy the food premade. They just thaw it, heat it, and serve it.
I guess most of the residents are too far gone and aren’t able to know the difference. A big lot of them have to have help to eat their meals, and some people have to be totally fed, just like a baby. That was so hard to watch at first. Still don’t like to see it, all that drooling, choking and coughing at the tables takes the enjoyment out of mealtime. Turns you right off your victuals. I always thought that I had a cast-iron stomach. Well I don’t! I hate to complain and make a fuss, but there are just some things a body can’t make concessions for, and eating with someone who has no manners is one of them. I try real hard as I know these poor folks aren’t able to do or think for themselves, but I just can’t stomach being at the same table with the likes of that. The nurses know, and they have tried real hard to put me with good dinner mates. I’m grateful for that. It makes me laugh, though, when the Administrator drops by once a month to dine with us. He gets to be choosy as to who he eats with. They set him up a special table and put some of us capable folks with him for dinner. Well, enough said about meals. I guess a person could write a whole chapter on that subject.
I found out right off that there are daily activities scheduled. I usually accept all the invitations to join in with the various activities that go on. It helps to pass the time. At first I used these excursions as a form of education, so to speak. It helped me to get oriented to the building with its many hallways and rooms, and I soon started to recognize various residents and staff members by name. I surprised myself, in fact, by how fast I picked these things up.
I moved here a few weeks before Christmas, and the home was well into the swing of things. The whole house was decorated very festively. They had many Christmas trees decked out and lit up in various corners. They decorate each year at the beginning of December and leave the decorations up till the first week of January. Any residents that are still capable are invited to help and get involved with the decorating. All the glittering lights and shining colours do bring some cheer to the otherwise drab décor of the home. Along with all the decorations come the special activities that take place here during the holidays. Many outside groups come to sing Christmas carols, and school children come to put on plays and do dance and music recitals. I must say, it is very enjoyable. The children’s happy faces always make me smile.
I wasn’t up for much whoopla for Christmas myself last year. I’m guessing I was full of self-pity. I was starting to get more use of my right arm, but eating was still difficult. I didn’t want to have to be coddled by my children so I chose to stay here at the home on Christmas Day. They put on a pretty nice spread with all the trimmings. We were even offered a small glass of wine with the dinner. I lucked out because my table mates either didn’t want theirs or were unable to partake, so I enjoyed four shares. Merry Christmas to me! The staff didn’t let on they knew. After all, it was Christmas.
It wasn’t long before the New Year of 2001 settled in, and we were back to the hum-drum of daily living. With each week that passed, I found my arm improving and was soon able to complete my own daily tasks of washing and dressing. I was glad of that. I got some freedom and independence back. I could sleep longer and dress at my own leisure as long as I got to the dining room on time for breakfast.
I still wasn’t real happy to be living here in this place, and often times found myself thinking back to when I used to visit my sister Rose here all those years ago. Things have changed somewhat since then. The building has been renovated to upgrade it to the new government standards. There are no more ward rooms with four occupants in them. Two person basic rooms are the new standard with a washroom that is shared by those two residents. There are semi-private rooms, as well, where you have your own bedroom and share the washroom with your neighbour.
I guess I’m fortunate to have a private room. It was available when they were giving me the skedaddle from the hospital. I have my own washroom. That provides me with a little more normality. Of course, none of these living arrangements provide a person with a great amount of space. I was lucky to be able to have my reclining chair, TV stand, and a small dresser squeezed in. Darn near have to back out to change my mind with those extra furnishings, but I’m grateful to have them with me.
I think one of the biggest adjustments I had to make was being exposed to so much senility. Rose had spoken of that, as well. Our generation had never been around people who were not in control of their senses. That kind weren’t allowed to go out into society and integrate with us normal folk. Now, I’m not saying that that was right; I’m just saying that that was how it was.
A body doesn’t get to know how to approach people like that when you’ve never had any exposure to them. I find those residents hard to predict. You can’t have any sort of conversation with them, and you can never tell what they’re thinking because their words don’t often make any sense. One minute they’re talking in a happy tone and, then, in the next minute, they might be yelling at you. Some of them don’t seem to have any control over their actions, either. You can be walking down the hallway beside them and they seem to be pleasant, and the next thing you know, they might reach out and hit at you. They make me fearful, so I just try to stay away from them.
I had one big fellow in a wheelchair come into my room soon after I moved here, and he blocked me in. I couldn’t get around him to get help, and he wouldn’t leave when I asked him to do so. He didn’t make a lick of sense at all with all his garble and mumbling. He kept bumping into my dresser and marked it up with his chair. That got my dander up and made me mad. I don’t have much of my own stuff here, and I didn’t want what I do have to get wrecked. I rang my call bell, but it took a while before a nurse finally heard the ruckus and came and took him out. I guess I was pretty excited by that time and was using some colourful language. The nurse wasn’t happy with me and said that I should be more tolerant of others. She thought I should be thankful for my own good fortune of good health and a clear mind. She said he meant no harm, but he had me all nerved up. I was really frightened. They put us folks here so we can be cared for and be safe, but when something like that happens you sure don’t feel very safe. If this is to be my home, I should at least have the comfort in knowing that no harm will come to me.
Sometimes I’m not so sure that it is such a good fortune to have a clear mind when you have to live in a place with so much sadness and human suffering all around. Being exposed to people in such poor states does nothing for a person’s spirits. It depresses you. It really pains me to see so many people whose bodies or minds have betrayed them. I don’t figure that modern medicine is doing some of them any favour by offering them pills to keep them going. As coarse as it sounds, death would be kinder. The medical society has developed the capability to keep people living beyond their time, and so they do. I’m not sure that I agree with that, but that’s just my thoughts on it.
Some of these poor folks aren’t able to do anything anymore. They can’t walk or talk, and they have no control over any of their body functions. They slump over sideways in their chairs, or slide down in them, and then they can’t get back up. Drool runs out of their mouth and onto their clothes or the floor. If their noses need blowing, they can’t ask for a Kleenex. The mucus runs out, down their face, and drips onto whatever surface it finds first: their clothes, the table, or the floor. It’s such a sad thing to have to witness, and I’m sure that they would be humiliated beyond tears if they knew what kind of physical state old age had left them in.”
“It’s disturbing for me, too, Gran,” Beth states. “It’s heart-wrenching to see so many frail people. It’s a harsh reality, for sure. Unless you work in health care, I don’t think that there’s anything that could totally prepare a person to live in this environment.”
“I know the nurses do the best they can, Beth,” I continue. “But, as I said, there’s a real shortage of PSWs. They wash and dress those poor souls and put them in reclining Geri chairs with tables on them. Then they park them in the living room. It makes me feel like they’re on display. Some of them bang their tables and holler continuously. That’s pretty annoying to the other residents that are trying to watch TV. All that commotion upsets the ones with dementia, too. It sends them into a tailspin. What a room of chaos that becomes! I’m lucky that I can come to my own room and watch my own TV. Not everyone here has that luxury.
The biggest adjustment that I had to come to terms with was the fact that I would never be able to go back to my home to live. When I got here in December, I didn’t want to give up the hope, but as the months passed and my arm healed, I knew that, even with the weekly visits from the homecare gal, I wouldn’t be able to manage. Even though I was able to use my arm, I never regained its full movement or strength, and the longer I stayed here, the more I depended on all the help I was getting. I had come to realize that, like it or not, this was the place I needed to be.
When April rolled around, and the spring weather was upon us, I decided to let Jackie and Jacob go ahead and sell the house. I knew I had to let it go. It was just a burden on them and was sitting idle with no one to love it. It would be no time at all before it would start to deteriorate and depreciate. The time had come, and I had to let it go. I had to make up my mind to settle in here and make the most of it. This would be the setting for my last chapter, and this is where I’ll spend my last days. That is just the way of it. Fate had intervened.”