At work, we have several people who are what polite folks call, 'hard of hearing'.
I call them 'deaf'. It's quicker.
Anyway I was trying to explain to one of our residents about the bus trip we had scheduled.
He kept saying. 'What was that?' Or, 'Sorry, can't hear you.'
So I grumbled to myself quietly, 'Ah, he's so deaf...' And then he replied, 'I am not deaf.'
Ha ha! Nice one, Mr B. I can't say what his real name is, since I would get fired... So yep that's life in a roujin houmu.
Resthomes are interesting. Surrounded by people who are suffering and dying but they still have the moxie to tell you to go to hell, because they don't WANT a shower today. And sometimes they punch you too...
One lady bites. I like her best because it doesn't hurt. She says stuff like, 'I'll eat you up!' I tell her, 'Please don't bite our visitors... here, have a bikkie...' So she eats that instead. I don't mind her biting people, but she bites everything. So if I run an activity, I have to be careful not to seat her too close to the table if we are painting, or she bites the paintbrush and tries to eat paint.
I always buy non-toxic paint for kids anyway... But still! I don't want her to get sick. If she ate too much paint and threw up, I might get in trouble for redecorating the suite without permission.
That was a joke. Sorry.
Working in a hospital resthome... I see a lot. You can either laugh or cry.
Everyone is so alive, even though they're dying. I wish you could understand what I mean.
A lot of them are dying. I quickly learned that almost everyone who is admitted here will be wheeled out by the funeral directors. I have become friends in a way, with many of my residents. And then one day I will come to work and I will hear that they died last night, they died on the weekend, they got taken to the city hospital and died there, they died in the early hours of this morning. They died. And if they died at work, I can go and say goodbye.
But whenever I have been able to say goodbye, I know they are gone. I go into the room and the person is no longer there. It is merely an empty shell that looks somewhat like wax. The facial expressions are blank and gone, the mouth is open, the eyes are (usually) shut, the face is sunken somehow. The person has GONE. Nobody is there. I know that I am in an empty room. I don't mind it. I don't cry. That doesn't make me cry. I think I cried the first time. It was mostly for myself. It usually is, because they are no longer suffering so there is no need to cry on their behalf.
We cry for the rest who have been left behind.
In this place where I work, life and death are like left and right hands. They are very close indeed.
One lady died laughing at a joke her family told her, at Christmas time. No warning. She had been ok, no particular illness at the time. One man died suddenly after going to the dentist to have an ulcerated gum looked at. He had also had all of his teeth removed, and quickly went downhill. I cried when I saw him suffering. He had medication but I think somehow it wasn't enough. Everything was just too much. I'm glad he left us so quickly. Some people linger for years. I hate that the most.
They tell me, 'I want to die. I want to die.' Or one lady would ask, 'What day is it?'. 'It's Friday.' we would reply. 'Ah, Friday? I think I will die today.' She would say. Every day she said that, for about a year. Then one day, I came to work and was told, 'Mrs S died at Easter.' And the nurse said to me, 'I was on duty and she asked me what day it was and I said it was Good Friday. Then she said to me, 'I think today is the day.' And then she died at about 3 a.m. She finally got to go. She kept asking me to ask Jesus to come and get her.'
I remember that particular lady, she was a lovely lady. She was so funny. But when the pain came, she couldn't think of anything else. Pain does that. When it hurts, you can't focus on anything but the pain, the pain. I tried to calm her down a few times when she would press the bell. Nobody had time to sit with her and hold her hand because there is always someone who needs to go to the toilet or you have to put them to bed for their nap. One typical day, I sat with her. She kept saying how lovely I was... How despicable it made me feel.
I only sat with her when I could find the time (I also am kept running around an awful lot), and she told me how lovely I was, for sitting with her for only a few minutes out of a long, long day. Because for invalids, the day is very long. Especially after the family has been and gone, and you miss them already. You know they may come back tomorrow, but it's so lonely. I sat with her and tried to calm her down but she was fixated on two things, one, the pain in her leg, and two, her son. 'When is he coming? He has to drop off his granddaughter at home but he said he will come back. I don't know when he's coming back. Oh, my leg, my leg!' This went on for about twenty minutes. In the end, I told her I would get the nurse. I couldn't do anything. I had tried all kinds of conversational topics that usually she would readily switch to, but this time it didn't work. A few weeks later, she died. I'm glad. No more pain for her. No more worrying about her family. No more anxiety attacks. No more fear of falling and hurting herself again. No more. It's times like that, you count up all the pros and cons, and death is no longer an enemy. Death can actually be a pleasant option to consider. As for this lady, there are many like her where I work. A lot of them are like that, they get anxious, they are afraid of falling and getting hurt. They want their family near as often as possible. They want to sleep, oh, how they want to sleep! And many of our residents love their desserts. Many people love desserts, they want ice-cream, or pudding, or jelly, or fruit salad, or all of the above! They love chocolate too. As a bingo prize, it is the winner! Always. I'm learning a lot about getting older. I'm learning a lot about people.
I had better stop now, I suppose. I could say so much more. But maybe another time. I'm not sure if I can handle the thought of being 'old' just yet, but it's become a real possibility in my mind more so than it was. I'm not good at imagining the future, or planning for it. But the future seems more real now.
