Saturday, October 18, 2014

Diary of Assisted Living Facility (Diary of Hell)

Diary of Assisted Living Facility (Diary of Hell)

August 14, 2014



I bent over. I bent too far.  I fell forward.  I tried to divert my course, mid-air.  I was wearing leopard print high heels. My hand shot out to break my fall.  Landing hard on cement, I felt nothing. Because I broke so cleanly.  If you break cleanly, there is no pain.

"Oh, let's go upstairs and enjoy a gin and tonic!" I said to my guests. Someone, maybe Chuck, carried me upstairs. We sat around and joked. I didn't climb the stairs to bed. Instead, I slept on the main floor, and, by morning, I could not move.  

I screamed and screamed until I woke Barbara, at 5:20, a.m.  Barbara called 911 and the ambulances arrived. I wore the dress I had worn the night before, to the restaurant with my friends. At the hospital, the orthopedic doctor leaned forward and looked into my eyes.  "You have broken your hip," he said.

I assume they had taken x-rays.  I'd carried with me my dress and my purse.  They conducted the surgery. They put in an artificial hip. Now this, this hurt like hell.

August 20, 2014 

"I can't stay here," I say to the lady behind the desk at Island Health and Rehab.  "This isn't the place for me. I made a mistake. I wanted to be close to my home, but.....this won't do.  I don't belong here and I can't stay."

"Wait a minute now," says the lady. She grabs some papers and rolls my wheel chair down to Room 23.  She has me sit on the bed and sits beside me.  I am weeping.  The shock of seeing where I am, so much like how it was in 1955 in Bismark, North Dakota, traveling with my mother, stopping at all the nursing homes, trying in vain to find my mother's grandmother: the smell, the comatose looks on the faces, the gowns.....the lady says, "now, Kay.  Focus.  Focus.  I have a nice plate of chicken for you.  Just sign the papers and here you go.  Some nice chicken.  Won't that be nice?"

"I'm sure it would be nice for some people, but not for me," I say.  "Is there a phone here? I just have to make a few phone calls and then leave here. May I use a phone?"

"You may only use that phone if you are a patient here," the lady says. "Have some nice chicken and sign the papers."

I am very hungry. It is after seven o'clock p.m.  I sign the papers.  I go to sleep.


August 21, 2014

How large the impact of the smallest physical movement.  How much it all matters. Practice. Practice. Someone was  screaming, "Help me!  Help me!" all night last night.  There is no possibility of sleep. Call buttons are going on and off nearly every second.  We are awakened at 6:30.  Six-thirty a.m.! When all I need is sleep!  The eggs are powdered.  The milk is powdered.  The aides look exhausted already.

"Welcome the pain," Ovid once wrote," for you will learn from it."  But you will only learn from it if you are open to learning.  I am fascinated by my body; by the differences between the "good" undamaged right side of my body and the disrupted, sore, deeply aching side of my body. The left side.     

August 22, 2014

I am writing from one of this country's poshest islands.  I spent six days in the hospital and chose to be sent to this assisted care facility because it is two blocks away from my home. It's on Bainbridge Island, how bad can it be?  This bad.  It can be this bad.  People wailing, call lights never stopping,  nobody attending to the "Help me!" voice, never being able to count on your medication being accurate, cold broccoli smothered in mayonnaise, powdered food, artificial ice cream,  a plateful of mashed potatoes with a thin line of tomato sauce being passed off as Shepherd's Pie. I have to get of here. I can feel myself sliding into a depression. In the bathroom, my deodorant dropped from my hands and I can't bend far enough to pick it up.  Impossible to get an aide in here to help me. Laughable, even, to think of making such a request. There aren't enough aides. Period. The aides are wonderful, but there aren't enough. Today I saw an aide, exhausted, lower herself onto a bed, curl herself around an eighty-seven year old patient, and take a ten minute nap.  Get hold of an RN?  Very very difficult.       

August 23, 2014

Today an RN rolled me down into the lobby and attempted to give me one of my noon blood thinner shots, which are extremely painful, through my clothes, in front of everybody.  Not only that, but she attempted to give it to me in an intimate area some distance beneath my tummy.  I screamed, "WHAT are you doing?"  She said, "Oh!  I'm sorry!  I hope you won't hold me to that standard!"  "But...can't you tell the difference between this place......and this place?"  "I'm so sorry," she said again.   "But," I kept on,"...."through my clothes?  And in public?  "Well," she said, "you know it's hard to tell. "ll you wear is black."

Oh my God.  It's my fault.  Because all I wear is black.  Aren't shots to be given under the clothes?  What kind of hell hole is this?

Today people from my personal life visit.  "Why are you here?"  "We must get you out of here, this is terrible, this place is the worst."  "We must get you out of here."

Last night my daughter called the desk and asked about getting Kay Morgan out of this facility.  The woman at the desk said, "Oh, no, Kay Morgan is not even ambulatory.  She hasn't had any physical therapy or occupational therapy.  She simply lies in bed.  She can not be released."  When my daughter said, "You're not talking about my mother," the woman argued with her and finally hung up on my daughter.  A few minutes later, the desk woman came into the woman I share with a (lovely) ninety-nine year old woman and said, "Well, it seems there are some people around here I just haven't met!"

I plumped up my pillows,  sat up and said, "I think you might be referring to me - and I think it might be a good idea if we had a little chat! Come on over and let's talk!  First," I said, "I have been walking with a walker ever since I arrived here. Secondly,no staff member has ever helped  me into or out of the bathroom. No staff member has ever assisted me in getting me dressed.  I have done all of that by myself. Consistently. I am completely ambulatory.  And. If any member of my family ever calls again, I expect whomever is at the desk, to answer courteously and completely."

The desk woman blinked and then said, "Well. How was I to know about this?"

I was flabbergasted at her question.

"Did you just hear yourself?" I said.  "That's just the problem.  "Why didn't you know about me? I've been here several days!  I've been walking with my walker all by myself up and down the halls. Have I been invisible?" And you know what?  I'm leaving here tomorrow!"

The desk woman's shoulders rose.  "You can't leave tomorrow.  Tomorrow is Saturday. You won't be able to be released on a Saturday," she said.

"Lady," I said, " if tomorrow were Christmas, I'd be out of here."

But, really, I had not idea how I was going to get out none at all.  I only knew I was going to go.  I could call 911.  I could call my daughter and have her take me to my home, whether I knew how to walk up steps or not.  More possibly, I could rent a motel room.  Anywhere but here.