Last night, Brett and I caught most of a program that was Nancy Reagan, Patty Davis, and Ron Reagan Jr. talking about their perceptions of Ronald Reagan. The Man They Knew, or something like that. It was really interesting, but it was also profoundly sad and poignant, especially watching Nancy fight tears as she answered some of the interviewer's questions.
Today, I am glad I'm not home, because not being home means that I can't (couldn't) watch any of the proceedings. Amy and I talked about it briefly, particularly about the relationship that Ronald and Nancy obviously shared, how it's still written in every line of her body, even after his death. How it jumps out at you in old photographs of the pair of them, that kind of thing.
We also talked briefly about how Alzheimer's is an absolutely horrible way to go--which it is. I've written about it before, sort of--I worked in nursing homes for several years, and spent a majority of that time in lockdown units.
What was it like in the lockdown? Well...
There was a keypad on both sides of the two doors that lead in and out. The combination changed every month. We had to walk in and out quickly, and make sure the door closed behind us, lest someone try to sneak out. Anyone with a pet who streaks for the open door to try and get outside every time a guest comes in will have a sense of what that was like.
What was it like?
There were daily 'orientation sessions,' not to introduce newcomers, but to try and keep our residents oriented to certain things. What day of the week it was. What year it was. Who the president was. ... What their names were. Their names, the names of their spouses, the names of their children and grandchildren. It was easier for some than others. For some, we couldn't make their attendance mandatory, because they couldn't remember how to speak anymore.
What was it like?
The ones who could still speak, the ones who were easily oriented, it was simply a matter of trying to take care of them the best we were able. There were occasional squabbles when someone wanted to go out and we couldn't allow them to do so, but on the whole, they were simply very pleasant, if absentminded.
The ones who'd lost their power of speech, those were the ones to watch out for. It was clear they'd be trying to communicate--they'd follow you around, or meet your eyes with that sense of urgency that let you know they had something on their minds that they were desperate to get out. They'd mumble softly, or make hand gestures, they'd try everything they could think of, and if that didn't work (and it so rarely did), they'd start to hit or kick, whatever they felt they had to do to get the point across.
The best example I can give of what it was like for me, though...
I've spoken about this before, though I don't remember to whom.
Eastridge was a three floor home. The first floor was all maintenance-type stuff. Dining room and kitchen, laundry, staff room, etc. The second floor had two wings, a long term wing, and a critical care wing. The long term wing is pretty self-explanatory. The critical care wing was for patients who'd just come in from the hospital, or needed a lot of very intensive, very specialized care. The third floor was also separated into two wings: long-term, non-lockdown psychiatric, and the lockdown.
I started out working the long term wing on the second floor, and floated over to the critical side as needed. That was where I first learned how to deal with colostomy bags, and how rabidly infectious staph is.
I ended up on the third floor because they were short staffed, and never ended up going back. On the third floor, we had several schizophrenic patients, a few obsessive-compulsives...not flight risks, but they had to be kept under close observation and weren't quite sufficient enough to live on their own.
I shifted to the lockdown at my own request. I got tired of having bedpans thrown at me, being sworn at, and all kinds of other weird and unpleasant crap. There were maybe forty patients in the lockdown, and the first day that I was there, sitting at the nurse's station and looking over charts, one of the patients stood patiently there by the desk, with the world's biggest smile on his face. None of us could quite figure out what was going on, but since he was one of the more combative patients, and he didn't seem to be so inclined toward me, they let me handle the care of him when it was my shift.
Proving that there's still something of them in there, somewhere...not a day went by that he wasn't standing inside the door waiting for me when it was time for my shift to start. Every time he saw me, his face lit up, and he cupped my face in his hands gently for a minute, always mumbling. Always, always mumbling, looking at me in that expectant way someone does when they've just asked a question, or expect you to be listening.
His wife was the one who finally solved the mystery for us.
As some men are, he was especially close to his mother. Once she saw me and heard about what was going on, she brought in a picture of the two of them. The resemblance between his mother and me was pretty startling. If I'd been thinking, I would have tried to trace the geneaology, butI never considered it at the time.
He was my patient after that, moreso than before.
When I finally left Eastridge for a different facility, with better pay and better care, he was the hardest one to leave behind.
Posted by Liz at June 11, 2004 06:25 PM