At The End Of Her Rope-More Nursing Home Drama Edit Blog Entry

05-14-2012 at 05:56 PM 

Today is Mothers Day and I knew no one was going to visit my grandmother for good reason so I decided to be the family representative and take my family with me for a visit.

I saw her the other day at the “home” for the Mothers Day event they had for the residents. They served cheesecake, that fortunately I had the power to decline and asked for fruit instead, and watched my grandmother eat a few bites of one of her favorite foods. She seems confused and agitated I believe due to her lack of familiarity of her environment. She seldom left her wing at ‘the home’. And I joined her, my mother and aunt for an early mothers day lunch last week at a restaurant. My grandmother ate very little and her attitude was somewhat agitated being out of her element.

It was a nice occasion with live entertainment and roses for all the ladies. The event took place in the main dining room in the building and in order to get there I walked through her wing where I noticed most of the mothers that live there sitting alone. I wondered where their families were and why more of them were not attending the special event. It saddened me.

We brought my grandmother one of her favorite sweets, Halva, and some cookies for the kids to share while visiting their great grandmother. I figured 80% of the old ladies that live there were sitting at the dining room tables having just finished their lunch. I did not see any visitors except for one woman who was feeding one of the old ladies.

Shortly after we arrived an old lady was standing in the hallway clinging to the wall that seemed to be holding her up. She was alone and crying. I approached her and tried to comfort her. She said she wanted help to get across into the dining room where everybody else was. I held her hand and escorted her across the hall taking her away from silence and loneliness and into a room full of people whom she may have been familiar with. The difference between night and day I imagine to these people who sometimes forget their own name. I sat her in a chair as she held my hand tight. Once I had her seated she held onto my hand and rubbed it. I took that as a ‘thank you for your help’ but she wouldn’t let go. She held on tight and tried to stand up. My grandmother didn’t like what she saw. Out of what seemed to be jealousy my grandmother said in a firm tone, “that’s my granddaughter, leave her alone” and demanded me return to her side. As hard as I tried to walk away from the old lady she had my hand in a tight grip. It was bittersweet for me. I imagined how good it felt to hold someone’s hand and I also felt uncomfortable because I wasn’t sure the old lady knew what she was doing. When I finally freed my hand she grabbed my other one and held on as if her life depended upon it. I finally had to pry my hand away from her and did it as gently as possible. Another old lady sitting in a wheelchair and connected to an oxygen tank competed for my attention. While I was trying to do what I could for these ladies my husband went out to the hallways to look for staff members. There was nobody in sight and the old people were done eating waiting to be taken to their next scheduled event whether to their rooms for a nap or to the living room for a nap in front of the television.

The old lady with the oxygen tank wanted to be taken into the next room to watch television. Holding back my frustration I apologized to the old lady and told her it would be better to wait for one of the staff to help her. Again, there was nobody in sight. They always seem to disappear during mealtimes. Again, my concern with that is the fact that any of these people could choke on their food and die from lack of oxygen and all because of neglect at a facility where we entrust our loved ones be looked after. Of course had that happened and nobody was there to witness it the family of their loved one would probably have been told something different.

My husband and I had been discussing the lack of staff and how the old people needed assistance. As much as I was happy to help these people I was not insured. And, the biggie, we pay a lot of money to qualified people to take care of our loved ones. The worst thing about all of this is the lady who I thought was a guest feeding one of the old ladies was a staff member. She sat in her chair on her butt the entire time I’m running around trying to help the people she gets paid to help. I had two young children running circles around everyone and they were my responsibility and required my attention. I was shocked when she finally spoke up. She said, “She’s going to go to her room to change.” She was referring to the old lady in the wheelchair with the oxygen tank.

I looked at her as if she was crazy. I said, “your going to take her?”
“Yes.”
“Do you work here?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you were a guest or a private nurse considering you didn’t say a word when my husband and I were looking for the staff?”
“No”, she smiled.
“And you know this lady was standing in the hallway literally crying for help?”
“Dorothy just likes to walk around.”
She avoided answering my question. I took her as a lazy ‘person’ who didn’t want to get off of her lazy ‘butt’ and didn’t have anyone supervising her.

I guess she didn’t see things the way I saw them and what was more annoying than anything was that my husband and I had been openly discussing the entire time how there was no staff around and how we couldn’t believe how they could just leave all of these elderly people alone while eating. She was sitting next to where I was standing when I told the old lady that I was looking for a staff member to help her. She sat on her ‘butt’ and listened and watched as we scrambled looking for staff. We left our children to run circles around the elderly while we looked for assistance for the ladies who were calling for help.

We returned to our visit with my grandmother who kept saying, “I want to go home.” If it were for the appropriate reason I couldn’t blame her! I have not heard these words pass through her lips in months. I thought she was finally content. She was agitated and my frustration over the lazy nurse didn’t help. I pointed out to my grandmother several times that she has Halva to snack on and every time I brought it to her attention she smiles and thanked me as if it were the first time she saw it.

I do not look forward to my next visit. My grandmother seems to be more agitated every time I saw her in the last few weeks and I hate to witness the neglect that occurs when I am at ‘the home’. She is dwindling away to nothing with her continuous weight loss and confused state of mind. The last thing she angrily said before we said our goodbyes was, “I have to go home to my mother and father so I can take care of them.” Naturally the thought that went through my mind was that she was ready to die. Had she known her parents were dead would she have agreed?