Soul killing place

A friend of mine had hip replacement surgery last week. She was moved to a rehab center on Wednesday. I spoke to her that day and she was still as high as a kite on morphine so I waited until last evening to go see her. When I talked with her on Wednesday, she didn’t quite know where she was, but there are only two possible places in town and both are on the same street.

Last night I stopped at one and she wasn’t there. Drove up the street and found her at the other one. Having been in both places now, I can without doubt and with great vehemence claim that when I get old and decrepit, the last place on earth I want to be is a nursing home. I would rather be hit over the head with a 2x4 than be stuck in a place like that. These two homes are supposed to be good ones, but what I saw was depressing and sad.

While both of these establishments are also rehab centers for people recovering from major surgery, they are mainly places to stick elderly people who can’t live by themselves anymore. I arrived at both places around 7:30 last evening. The halls were filled with elderly residents in wheel chairs and hobbling around in their jammies, which looked as if they’d been through the wash about a thousand times. Their hair looked as though the inmates hadn’t seen a comb in days and most looked as if they were bored witless. I have never seen so many pairs of eyes in one place look so dead. When I walked into both places, there was a cluster of folks gathered around the front door looking out. In the dark. Maybe wishing to escape for all I know.

The place where my friend is recuperating has an alarm system at the front door. There was a sign that said to “push the red button before entering.” I pushed it. Nothing happened. I pushed it again and waited a second. I shrugged a bit and opened the door. And guess what? Alarms went off.

I walked over the the nurses station and said, “Excuse me, I think I set your alarms off. I pushed the red button a couple of times, but nothing happened.”

The nurse looked at me and said, “Oh.” She looked at the alarm monitor on the wall and saw that the alarm was activated—how her ears could miss the evidence is beyond me—and wandered over to the door to reset the alarm. For all the interest she exhibited in the alarm going off and the speed with which she turned it off, I figure at least two of the inmates clustered around the door would have had ample opportunity to escape. None did, I guess.

When I finally reached my friend’s room she was propped up in bed with her suitcase packed at the foot of her bed. That didn’t seem like a good omen to me.

She told me that she’d had her first physical therapy session that afternoon and the pain afterward was worse than anything she had ever been through. Worse than the weeks of suffering prior to her surgery and way worse than childbirth. The pain was so bad that she literally broke out into a cold sweat and her entire body was wracked with spasms of shaking and she ended up barfing all over the place. Nice image, yes.

She asked for pain medication and the nurse said she’d have the patient liaison come in and talk with her. Shortly after a woman walked in with a rather belligerent attitude. They ended up in a screaming match with the liaison telling her to get over herself. She had two choices: Either leave and go to the emergency room or stay and behave.

I can see why her bags were packed and ready.

She decided to stay and call her physician this morning and try to get some things straightened out. First of all, she said, she is given pain medication in the morning when she doesn’t need it. Her next dose is in the evening, when she also doesn’t really need it. What she needs is something after physical therapy. But the rules of medication dispensing seem to be etched in stone and to suggest a realistic meds schedule for her needs gets the troops all in a lather. And for someone in excruciating pain, being yelled at and threatened is about the last useful strategy.

While I was there a couple of the inmates across the hall were screaming and crying. One had to go to the bathroom and no one was paying the slightest attention. Obviously, given her screamed bulletins, there is no such thing as modesty or dignity left in a place like that. The other seemed desperately sad and lonely.

What a hell of a place for someone to have to live. Or work, for that matter. It must a soul killing environment. Is this the best we can do for elderly people who have no place left to go?

I imagine my friend will stay there today. She has to relearn simple things like walking and climbing stairs and the proper ways of getting up out of a chair without ripping the tissue connecting her new hip with the surrounding bone. It’s going to be a hard rehabilitation in that place, but I’ll do my best to help her stay sane. I’m going back over this evening with a pile of reading material and fun magazines to help her mind move out of her horrible environment. She also asked if I could bring her some diet coke. With that, she thought she might feel a little more like a human being.

What a depressing experience. I swear to God I’d shoot myself before I’d allow myself to be stuck in a hellhole like that to live out the rest of my days.