{"id":512,"date":"2017-04-25T15:40:54","date_gmt":"2017-04-25T15:40:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/innovativehomecare.com\/?p=512"},"modified":"2019-10-15T13:35:56","modified_gmt":"2019-10-15T18:35:56","slug":"this-life-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovativehomecare.com\/staging\/8503\/this-life-now\/","title":{"rendered":"This Is My Life Now | An interview with a nursing home resident"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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I walked into the cheerful, rather narrow halls of the care center. It didn\u2019t smell of feces and urine like many I had been in. Up to the hill from where I walked in, was a small dining room. Some of the residents were sitting there. I found out later that they were waiting for dinner. It was two in the afternoon. They don\u2019t eat until five-thirty. \u201cI\u2019ll just wait\u201d, said one resident who sat in a wheelchair, watching people walking by. She called all the nurses by name. She had been here a while, I imagine. I traveled down the hall to the room of my friend. She was lying in bed, reading a book. The room is small, two beds, two dressers and two nightstands in this room are a tight squeeze.<\/p>

My friend has many pictures of loved ones on the wall. \u201cI can\u2019t remember who they all are, so my daughter pasted those little name tags under each of the pictures.\u201d She explains. Her roommate is not so lucky. No pictures of loved ones adorn her walls. She has very few living relatives and none close. I sit down to talk with my friend. \u201cHow are you doing?\u201d I ask her. I haven\u2019t seen her in a while. \u201c Oh, about the same. Same thing every day.\u201d My friend says. We fill the air with some more conversation. My friend loves to talk. She enjoys sharing stories of her life. She has many to share.<\/p>

\u201cY\u2019know, I survived the great fire of 36\u2019\u201d she tells me. She has short-term memory loss and she knows it.<\/p>

I have heard her stories before. I don\u2019t mind hearing them again. Someday, I will miss hearing them and treasure each time that I did. We get to talk about some \u201cgirl talk\u201d stuff. My friend loves to talk \u201cgirl talk\u201d. My friend says she feels like we\u2019re sisters. I agree. I ask my friend how she likes it here. She has lived here for three years.<\/p>

\u201cOh, it\u2019s all right I guess. It\u2019s not home. I\u2019d rather be home\u201d she tells me.<\/p>

What\u2019s the best thing about being here? I ask her.<\/p>

\u201cHaving somebody to take care of you. If something goes wrong, if you have an \u201caccident\u201d or anything, somebody is here to help you. But, it takes them so darn long to get to you. Sometimes I wonder if it really matters to have the nurses here at all.\u201d She tells me.<\/p>

What do you think they could do to make it better for you here?<\/p>

\u201cHire more nurses! The nurses are always saying that they are short-handed. That they\u2019ve got too many people to take care of and not enough of them to go around. But, the nurses say that when the money gets tight, the extra nurses are the first to go. Most of the time in the evening and at night, there are only two nurses here.<\/p>

I get sick of waiting for someone to come change me. I think nurses should have a union. If they don\u2019t hire enough or pay them very much, they should strike!\u201d My friend says. But, that would mean that until things were settled, there\u2019d be no nurses for you, I tell her.<\/p>

\u201c Yes, maybe. But, at least something would change. Right now, it\u2019s the same old thing; \u201cNot enough nurses! Too short-handed! Not enough time!\u201d<\/p>

If you could run the nursing home for a week, what would you do differently? I ask her.<\/p>

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t want to run this place. I wouldn\u2019t want to be president, either. Too much responsibility. You\u2019re never going to make everybody happy. I know that. But, I\u2019d have more nurses. And I wouldn\u2019t have grumpy ones either. Y\u2019know, ones with problems. That one girl that worked here, her husband was on drugs. She was so nasty all the time. Poor girl, I know that must\u2019ve been terrible for her. But still\u2026and I\u2019d PAY the nurses more, too. Most of these girls said they don\u2019t make enough to make ends meet. Then they get mad about that. That\u2019s not my problem. But, when they are so gruff with you; that\u2019s my problem\u2026.\u201d<\/p>

Have nurses ever been gruff with you? I ask.<\/p>

\u201cOh, you get them sometimes that are gruff. I guess it can\u2019t be avoided. Some people are just like that.\u201d<\/p>

What do you do when a nurse gets gruff with you? I ask.<\/p>

\u201cWhat can you do? Just ignore them if you can till they go away. I try not to ask them for help. But, sometimes, I have nobody else to ask. I got tired of asking for the bedpan. It would take so long for someone to come and then when they got tired of bringing it to me, they left it where I could give it to myself. Then I\u2019d spill it and they\u2019d have to change the bed. And they\u2019d think I did it on purpose. Who would do something like that on purpose, for heaven\u2019s sake? About the only thing, you can do is hope that those nurses don\u2019t work with you that day.\u201d<\/p>

Have you ever told anyone else? I ask. \u201cWhat good would it do? They don\u2019t like it when you complain. Besides, things get worse sometimes if they found out you complained.\u201d There was some silence between us for a while and I know that\u2019s when she has said all she cares to about some topic.<\/p>

Is there enough to do? I ask. Are you ever bored?<\/p>

\u201cOh, yea. Waiting for lunch, that\u2019s the worst. Usually, we just sit there and wait and wait. Then where lunch comes, it\u2019s the same old thing. I think it all tastes the same. I can\u2019t have salt. And I can\u2019t have too much cholesterol. I can\u2019t see the food very well. It all looks the same. I love chocolate. But, everybody keeps telling me I can\u2019t just eat chocolate. Then, the nurses complain that I\u2019m getting too heavy to lift. It takes two of them to move me. They can\u2019t do it with just one of them like you can. They need one on each side of me. That\u2019s why it takes them so long to help me to the commode. Because they have to go find someone to help them. And, no one is ever available. So, I wait and wait. That\u2019s all I do these days. Oh, they try to make sure there is something to do, I guess. Except for right before lunch. You have about an hour with nothing to do but wait. I would just rather go to bed and read.\u201d<\/p>

Are you happy here? I asked her.<\/p>

\u201cI\u2019m as happy as I can be. This is not the way I thought my life would turn out. This is my life now. This is it. I\u2019ll die here, I know I will. I don\u2019t want to. But, people die here all the time. This is where they come to die. This is my life now. Waiting to die. I know now why my husband shot himself. He didn\u2019t want to get old and helpless and die in a place like this. I understand now\u2026\u201d She looks around her room a little and shrugs: \u201c This is my life now.\u201d<\/p>

Original Article by<\/span> Sarah Wood<\/strong><\/em><\/h6>
www.caregiver.com<\/em><\/a><\/h6>
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I walked into the cheerful, rather narrow halls of the care center. It didn\u2019t smell of feces and urine like many I had been in. Up to the hill from where I walked in, was a small dining room. Some of the residents were sitting there. I found out later that they were waiting for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nursing-homes","tag-nursing-home-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innovativehomecare.com\/staging\/8503\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innovativehomecare.com\/staging\/8503\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innovativehomecare.com\/staging\/8503\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innovativehomecare.com\/staging\/8503\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innovativehomecare.com\/staging\/8503\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.innovativehomecare.com\/staging\/8503\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8405,"href":"https:\/\/www.innovativehomecare.com\/staging\/8503\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512\/revisions\/8405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innovativehomecare.com\/staging\/8503\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innovativehomecare.com\/staging\/8503\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innovativehomecare.com\/staging\/8503\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innovativehomecare.com\/staging\/8503\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}