Tuesday 21st April
It is the day before I leave this rehabilitation hospital - St Georges - Kew. I am in a 4 room. I remember when I came three and a half weeks ago, it was like coming into, seemingly, Third World conditions. I sat on a chair for over an hour before anyone (physio - Ot etc) spoke to me. At least in The Gables I had my own room. I am 1/3 - room 1 - bed 3. The woman diagonally opposite saw my distress and said I'd soon "get used to it" - and I suppose I did in many ways.
It turned out she had worked at Le Louvre in her heyday - that dress Salon at the top of Collins St. She was a talker but it was quite good though, because she was intelligent. We got on well. Shared a similar ironic sense of humour. I played her some of the music I have bought off the Net. She enjoyed it - so have promised to burn some CDs her daughter brought in. It is interesting in a 4 room - everybody else's visitors also become yours and vice versa. Everyone brings in "real" coffees for the others.
She and a couple of others have now gone. The replacements are not as bright - and not as interesting. The fourth bed - 1/4 - is now occupied by a tiny Vietnamese woman who is in her late seventies - originally from Ho Chi Min City (Saigon). She is like a tiny doll. She speaks no English but is a real character and we have learnt to communicate with sign language. We have laughed a lot. A real cammeraderie developed over time. And we ended up looking out for each other and translating her needs to the nurses. Standing up against the more "bossy" ones for each other. Commiserating in the mornings at the lack of sleep. It was an interesting dynamic. I was not expecting this. When offered a small private room I turned it down as it would have been more peaceful - but lonely. Bill encouraged me to stay too - said it would make me more "humble." I have no idea what he means! Last night I found out, after all the sign language, that Mrs Nguyen speaks some French! I should have realised that! Her daughter also brought me some sandles from Vietnam today - "for my daughter" she said.
The only way you get some privacy here is by pulling blue curtains around you. A strange sense of privacy because you can still see everyone's legs beneath the curtain. So there is this odd sense of voyerism alongside a sense that you are hidden. It is almost entirely false though. Like a child who covers his face and tells you that he cannot be seen. You see all manner of pants, very old mottled legs and worse, sometimes. I now know why lady 1/1 commented on my "good shaped" legs. Because that's what you end up concentrating on mostly.
I have felt even more immersed in old age here because the people are still mentally all there but physically very broken. Slow Rehab they call this. Old aged people repaired and sent home till the next fall. Then the merry-go-round begins again. Many of them have surgery - fall - then return. There are so many old women here too. Husbands died long ago. Most are not very educated and one switches off to the conversations. And the endless day-time television. As at The Gables - I have found some retreats. The few old men here are very frail and seem to be always in blue striped pyjamas. What is it about blue striped PJs that is so depressing? Especially when they do physio in the gym with them on. The sensuality gone. The bent bodies. Old, hairless, white. The innocent child again. That's what happens. We return to a child of sortsin old age - dependent - naive again. At the end though, it's just daily survival. Getting up and going to bed again. Nothing much in between except the littany of woes repeated to whomever will listen.
Again - as at The Gables -for some time - there was an old man whom, at night, they wheeled out to "sleep" here near the lifts - in the foyer. So they could watch him they said. So he didn't fall. Right next to the nurse station and our room (1). It was awful listening to his pleading for a pan and some nurses' seemingly cold, compasionless response. We had to shut our door but felt for the poor, confused soul. Recently he has not been out there so seems to have "improved" a little. Tom is his name.
Here, I have had physical activities to do which have relieved the boredom and given me focus - a goal. The physio, a young bloke with a weak handshake, has been down to earth and interesting. We have had long converstaions while I do my exercises. And - Gradually I have become more independent. Able to shower and dress myself - able to lift the left leg up on the bed by myslef - able to walk fairly fast with the frame. Such seemingly small achievements - but - at the same time huge steps forward. When I could lift my leg onto the bed, it was a watershed because I didn't have to ask tehe nurse to help. Then the visit to the surgeon and now 50% weightbearing instead of 25%. In a couple of weeks fully weightbearing.
So - a long journey is nearing its end. Tomorrow I get sent home with a bag of pills and my old friend , the gutter frame. (Not something one can be seen with at the best restaurants!) I have organised food in the freezer and have bought some lovely new bedding. After these hard hospital beds, new bedding and a softer bed, will be just wonderful. As will be the view from my bedroom window. On the home visit, with the OT last week, it was good to see the garden thriving - thanks to the watering/drip system and Marg's watering in the Summer. It is Autumn. The nights are colder here - I wrap myself up in the red mohair. The lack of heating means I use it every night. I have begun reading fiction again. Bill has leant me "Seven Types of Ambiguity" by Elliott Perlman. I am liking it. I am looking forward to tidying the house - the study - which is full of various "bags" I have carried with me. Full of my "needs." My life in a bag - so to speak.
The afternoon sun is mellow. Marg is coming to help me pack. Kate is shopping - a big $200 shop! I have been visited by the OT and the Social Worker and the Doctor. A send off of sorts. Tomorrow morning I will shower early and be out of my bed by 9AM so the fraction of this room - this blue-curtained- section, I have occupied for these weeks, can be cleaned and disinfected for the next arrival - who will be here by 10 Am. Promptly.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
A Week to go?
Friday 20th March
I have been unable to write. One needs inner strength to do so and this has been missing recently. Every now and then I "collapse" emotionally and to restore myself I have to kind of "shut down." Probably understandably, I cannot summon enough "distance" from events to write about them.
Last Friday (13th) - (should have known it would be a bad day) - Marg, Kate and I went "armed" to the surgeon. It was the 10 week visit. X-rays to check the hip and, we thought, time to discuss rehab. But no - it seems I cannot go to rehab - or start rehab till the end of the month (March) - literally. Originally he said 12 weeks - now it's 3 full months.
St Georges Rehab are fine with my going a bit early but he has done nothing to make contact with them. Again, as in the beginning, it seems there are no specific procedures to follow and we end up making all the contacts and trying to get the 2 parties talking to each other. I phoned the admissions person again today - only to find again - that no contact has been made. I will now have to leave it till Monday. I am trying to avoid a situation where I miss a place there because of their lack of organisation. If I cannot go on Friday 27th it will cost another $1000 - another problem.........................I think I should become "The Patient from Hell" ........the book!
As I write this I can hear, in the background, a nurse trying to deal with the blind/deaf 103 year old lady. She is yelling the menu to her..........."I don't want jelly!!!" 103 screams..............I said the same - but quietly. Jelly seems to be the fall-back position of the chefs here. Jelly - jelly and more jelly. Jelly with cream. Jelly with custard. What is it about jelly? A metaphor for old age? Wobbly - bland - ugly.
The elderly lady in the room next to me (4) has gone to hospital because her kidneys are failing. I was sad to hear that and I hope she recovers - but I must admit, I was grateful for a good night's sleep. She talks and yells out repeatedly throughout the night and I find myself feeling sorry for her one minute - then getting "tough" and asking the nurses to speak to her so that she stops............to no avail, however,........it's ingrained. It's what she does to get through the nights. And I wonder whether the deterioration in her condition has to do with being in this place..........it is as if her soul is dying..........now her body is giving up too. She is quiet and silent during the day and she grieves at night. Sometimes, I must admit, when I am very tired and cannot sleep because of the yelling and crying, I think of Raskalnikov and his moral justification of the killing of the old woman...................
Last Wednesday I had an outing with Kate (daughter). Hired a "Maxi-taxi" and, in wheel-chair, travelled to the Rivoli to see "Easy Virtue." Thoroughly enjoyed it - even if Colin Firth didn't do his wet T-shirt routine. Interesting though, when we were leaving the restaurant, two people, who were sitting near us, turned 180 degrees to watch me be wheeled out. I waved at them. The royal wave............ What makes intelligent adults stare like that? Do they have no real understanding of what they are doing? I almost asked Kate to stop, and wheel me back over to them so I could give them the once over. Almost.
In here I have come to know and like many of the "carers." They too like me because, as they say, they can "talk" to me, whereas with most others it's like a loud, child-like monologue. Why do people put on a child's voice to speak to babies and the elderly? The woman the other side of me (R 5- Jean) responded to a remark by the carer one morning. "Come on Jean," she said in a little, rising and falling voice, "they're all waiting for you at breakfast." "I doubt that very much," Jean responded, flatly. And I thought - good on you Jean! Bring on the cynical - the reality!
Anyway - back to the carers. Many of them are Indian and some have other qualifications - physiotherapy and teaching qualifications etc. They cannot use them here till they do a "catch-up" course. I quite enjoy the more intelligent ones though. They catch on to people's needs quickly.............others need every instruction repeated over and over. I wonder, shall I become Miss Faversham when I do go into a home for good?? Shall I find it difficult to suffer fools? I can see this in 103 - she screams at them when they try to give her tablets - blood curdling screams - because she thinks they are poisoning her.
Then there is Bea - a 90 year old with whom I played Scrabble earlier on. She reads avidly and always has about 6 books on the storage section of her zimmer frame. She reads, to relieve the boredom, she says. She talked to me of her husband, who died a few years ago, and how she misses her "mate." The majority of the women here have lost their "mates." How sad that must be. To go through the whole of life together and then be alone for the last few years. It would be easier, I think, to lose them earlier on, would it not? I don't know. And I think, if you meet someone now, you have to factor in the reality of losing them soon. Bette Davis was right - "Old age is not for sissies."
The last couple of weeks I have been trying my hand at drawing some of the small, beautiful seed pods and grasses that Bill brought me from his walking. It has been lovely doing this small, intricate, detailed work. I have done them on the beautiful blank post-cards Kate M gave me. To lose myself in this task is good - and I promise myself that, when I move, I must make some sort of a studio.
I have also found a music site - Folktrax - which sells all my favourite, hard to find CDs - the ones that JB say they cannot get. I have even found some "Pentangle" and "Fotheringgale" - a band Sandy Denny was in. They also have a lot of World music from the Womad etc. A good site.
Ahhhhhhhhhh - enough for tonight. I am finishing a glass of wine. The room is getting darker. The seasons and light are changing. Seemingly passing me by. It will nearly be Winter when I get home. I am using my thick red mohair blanket at nights now. I shall watch Rebus tonight. Nothing like a Scot on a Friday night.
I have been unable to write. One needs inner strength to do so and this has been missing recently. Every now and then I "collapse" emotionally and to restore myself I have to kind of "shut down." Probably understandably, I cannot summon enough "distance" from events to write about them.
Last Friday (13th) - (should have known it would be a bad day) - Marg, Kate and I went "armed" to the surgeon. It was the 10 week visit. X-rays to check the hip and, we thought, time to discuss rehab. But no - it seems I cannot go to rehab - or start rehab till the end of the month (March) - literally. Originally he said 12 weeks - now it's 3 full months.
St Georges Rehab are fine with my going a bit early but he has done nothing to make contact with them. Again, as in the beginning, it seems there are no specific procedures to follow and we end up making all the contacts and trying to get the 2 parties talking to each other. I phoned the admissions person again today - only to find again - that no contact has been made. I will now have to leave it till Monday. I am trying to avoid a situation where I miss a place there because of their lack of organisation. If I cannot go on Friday 27th it will cost another $1000 - another problem.........................I think I should become "The Patient from Hell" ........the book!
As I write this I can hear, in the background, a nurse trying to deal with the blind/deaf 103 year old lady. She is yelling the menu to her..........."I don't want jelly!!!" 103 screams..............I said the same - but quietly. Jelly seems to be the fall-back position of the chefs here. Jelly - jelly and more jelly. Jelly with cream. Jelly with custard. What is it about jelly? A metaphor for old age? Wobbly - bland - ugly.
The elderly lady in the room next to me (4) has gone to hospital because her kidneys are failing. I was sad to hear that and I hope she recovers - but I must admit, I was grateful for a good night's sleep. She talks and yells out repeatedly throughout the night and I find myself feeling sorry for her one minute - then getting "tough" and asking the nurses to speak to her so that she stops............to no avail, however,........it's ingrained. It's what she does to get through the nights. And I wonder whether the deterioration in her condition has to do with being in this place..........it is as if her soul is dying..........now her body is giving up too. She is quiet and silent during the day and she grieves at night. Sometimes, I must admit, when I am very tired and cannot sleep because of the yelling and crying, I think of Raskalnikov and his moral justification of the killing of the old woman...................
Last Wednesday I had an outing with Kate (daughter). Hired a "Maxi-taxi" and, in wheel-chair, travelled to the Rivoli to see "Easy Virtue." Thoroughly enjoyed it - even if Colin Firth didn't do his wet T-shirt routine. Interesting though, when we were leaving the restaurant, two people, who were sitting near us, turned 180 degrees to watch me be wheeled out. I waved at them. The royal wave............ What makes intelligent adults stare like that? Do they have no real understanding of what they are doing? I almost asked Kate to stop, and wheel me back over to them so I could give them the once over. Almost.
In here I have come to know and like many of the "carers." They too like me because, as they say, they can "talk" to me, whereas with most others it's like a loud, child-like monologue. Why do people put on a child's voice to speak to babies and the elderly? The woman the other side of me (R 5- Jean) responded to a remark by the carer one morning. "Come on Jean," she said in a little, rising and falling voice, "they're all waiting for you at breakfast." "I doubt that very much," Jean responded, flatly. And I thought - good on you Jean! Bring on the cynical - the reality!
Anyway - back to the carers. Many of them are Indian and some have other qualifications - physiotherapy and teaching qualifications etc. They cannot use them here till they do a "catch-up" course. I quite enjoy the more intelligent ones though. They catch on to people's needs quickly.............others need every instruction repeated over and over. I wonder, shall I become Miss Faversham when I do go into a home for good?? Shall I find it difficult to suffer fools? I can see this in 103 - she screams at them when they try to give her tablets - blood curdling screams - because she thinks they are poisoning her.
Then there is Bea - a 90 year old with whom I played Scrabble earlier on. She reads avidly and always has about 6 books on the storage section of her zimmer frame. She reads, to relieve the boredom, she says. She talked to me of her husband, who died a few years ago, and how she misses her "mate." The majority of the women here have lost their "mates." How sad that must be. To go through the whole of life together and then be alone for the last few years. It would be easier, I think, to lose them earlier on, would it not? I don't know. And I think, if you meet someone now, you have to factor in the reality of losing them soon. Bette Davis was right - "Old age is not for sissies."
The last couple of weeks I have been trying my hand at drawing some of the small, beautiful seed pods and grasses that Bill brought me from his walking. It has been lovely doing this small, intricate, detailed work. I have done them on the beautiful blank post-cards Kate M gave me. To lose myself in this task is good - and I promise myself that, when I move, I must make some sort of a studio.
I have also found a music site - Folktrax - which sells all my favourite, hard to find CDs - the ones that JB say they cannot get. I have even found some "Pentangle" and "Fotheringgale" - a band Sandy Denny was in. They also have a lot of World music from the Womad etc. A good site.
Ahhhhhhhhhh - enough for tonight. I am finishing a glass of wine. The room is getting darker. The seasons and light are changing. Seemingly passing me by. It will nearly be Winter when I get home. I am using my thick red mohair blanket at nights now. I shall watch Rebus tonight. Nothing like a Scot on a Friday night.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Thursday 27/2
The end of another day. I stay here in the library for as long as I can. My room does not catch the sun and is dull. Here the sun is golden through the leaves. I have ABC FM playing - an Irish tune. Oh - to dance! An ambulance screams by, passing the plodding trams. Home-bound traffic. Life moving - in motion - outside. All quiet here except for the cries of the lady who has bad dreams of falling. She has been "yelling/crying" intermittently all afternoon. I surprise myself that I can force it to the corners of my mind. Perhaps because it's daytime. At night it is always more chilling. The cries are the mad wife in the attic (Jane Eyre - The Wide Sargasso Sea)- ignored by staff and others. It seems so to me, anyway. If I dwell on it - there-in my own madness lies, and I have achieved a kind of balance this week. I am holding fast to it.
But This morning it almost came undone again. I cried. Any problems set me off and today. When trying to find out what the next move was, I rang the surgeon's secretary. During our discussion, I confirmed my 11 week check-up appointment on the 16/3. She promptly told me I did not have an appointment on that day - that he'd be away. It turned out she'd made it for 16/2 and had listed me as "not turning up". No apology for her silly mistake. But, as she could hear my distress, she is now trying to do more about getting me into rehab earlier. I was angry because I would have turned up in a wheel-chair taxi, with daughter helping, only to find surgeon not there! why don't people do their jobs properly? Virgo's require less stupidity in people!
Yesterday, as I sat here a Greek man wheeled in his old mother and sat with her. He talked with me more than her. How awkward relatives are. They do their duty by coming in for a short time. They barely connect and then go home. They see the surface only. I looked at the old lady and realised that she was the one who cries out at night. It was a secret I held. He told me that a fall had ceased her independence. That she had now become silent and different. I could see why. These rooms, though neat, were not her home.
Another elderly lady, 97, who has moved in next to my room, sat talking gently to a friend about her past. "I was a good wife" she'd say. "I built up a business...." And suddenly you see identities, personalities shrink. She was trying to sum up. To hold onto who and what she had been. As if it was all seeping away in this place. It is as if the visit of the friend normalises her (as it does me) but at night I hear her calling "sister...sister" over and over. She has forgotten that you press the button and they will come. So - I press mine because I cannot bare that she is helpless and in need. The other night, and again last night, her loud scream woke me. There was running in the passageways. She had fallen out of bed. Fractured a hip. It happens so easily. Now she too calls out at night and mutters in her sleep. Misses her family.
There is one nurse who narrates all that she does....."turning on the tap"...."pulling down the blind"...lifting the legs into bed"......it is awful. Reminds me of "The Cuckoo's Nest." She is on automatic pilot. She is not a thinker. One day I asked how she was...etc and any personal stuff was deflected quick-smart. The narrating is spooky. More tomorrow.
The end of another day. I stay here in the library for as long as I can. My room does not catch the sun and is dull. Here the sun is golden through the leaves. I have ABC FM playing - an Irish tune. Oh - to dance! An ambulance screams by, passing the plodding trams. Home-bound traffic. Life moving - in motion - outside. All quiet here except for the cries of the lady who has bad dreams of falling. She has been "yelling/crying" intermittently all afternoon. I surprise myself that I can force it to the corners of my mind. Perhaps because it's daytime. At night it is always more chilling. The cries are the mad wife in the attic (Jane Eyre - The Wide Sargasso Sea)- ignored by staff and others. It seems so to me, anyway. If I dwell on it - there-in my own madness lies, and I have achieved a kind of balance this week. I am holding fast to it.
But This morning it almost came undone again. I cried. Any problems set me off and today. When trying to find out what the next move was, I rang the surgeon's secretary. During our discussion, I confirmed my 11 week check-up appointment on the 16/3. She promptly told me I did not have an appointment on that day - that he'd be away. It turned out she'd made it for 16/2 and had listed me as "not turning up". No apology for her silly mistake. But, as she could hear my distress, she is now trying to do more about getting me into rehab earlier. I was angry because I would have turned up in a wheel-chair taxi, with daughter helping, only to find surgeon not there! why don't people do their jobs properly? Virgo's require less stupidity in people!
Yesterday, as I sat here a Greek man wheeled in his old mother and sat with her. He talked with me more than her. How awkward relatives are. They do their duty by coming in for a short time. They barely connect and then go home. They see the surface only. I looked at the old lady and realised that she was the one who cries out at night. It was a secret I held. He told me that a fall had ceased her independence. That she had now become silent and different. I could see why. These rooms, though neat, were not her home.
Another elderly lady, 97, who has moved in next to my room, sat talking gently to a friend about her past. "I was a good wife" she'd say. "I built up a business...." And suddenly you see identities, personalities shrink. She was trying to sum up. To hold onto who and what she had been. As if it was all seeping away in this place. It is as if the visit of the friend normalises her (as it does me) but at night I hear her calling "sister...sister" over and over. She has forgotten that you press the button and they will come. So - I press mine because I cannot bare that she is helpless and in need. The other night, and again last night, her loud scream woke me. There was running in the passageways. She had fallen out of bed. Fractured a hip. It happens so easily. Now she too calls out at night and mutters in her sleep. Misses her family.
There is one nurse who narrates all that she does....."turning on the tap"...."pulling down the blind"...lifting the legs into bed"......it is awful. Reminds me of "The Cuckoo's Nest." She is on automatic pilot. She is not a thinker. One day I asked how she was...etc and any personal stuff was deflected quick-smart. The narrating is spooky. More tomorrow.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
19/2/09
I have been unable to watch a great deal of trauma in other people's lives while in this situation. It is as if it is more heightened and it affects me - almost too much. The news on Gaza and the bushfires have made me feel defeated at times. Perhaps it is because I am a captive audience - watching morning breakfast television's postings from the fire scene etc - which I would never normally watch. Perhaps too it has to do with that sense of vulnerability and fragility. Do we normally watch this type of thing in a more "balanced" way?
I cushion myself from it all and, sometimes, I do this through music and now, reading. Strange, but I have not felt settled enough to read till now. But I think it has also to do with the fact that I have not found the type of reading material I wanted. I have needed poetry rather than novels. The insight that this gives on the human predicament. I am therefore reading "Stepping Stones" - a book of interviews with Seamus Heaney.
He talks of himself as a child........having that inner core of being that gives us our sense of "always-alone-self" as well as being the way through which we experience those little epiphanies in life. "..............I have a sense of being close to that unsatisfied, desiring, lonely, inner core. He hasn't disappeared but now he dwells farther in behind all kinds of barriers he learned to put up in order to keep the inwardness intact...........................and I had this visitation of humanist joy? Awe? A tremendous sense of what human beings had achieved on earth. Something akin to Wordsworth's revelation on Westminster Bridge." Is it this inner core that allows us to empathise, sympathise with both the woes and the joys of the human struggle? I can hear some cynics saying - I just have too much "time" on my hands...........at the moment.
Each day, after listening to the Throsby interview, making various phone calls and checking my email, I retreat to "The Libary." This is a pleasant space that overlooks the main Rd and connects me more with the outside world. Also light and airy. It is a strange little procession that trundles down the corridor as my small world moves with me. There's me in a wheel chair then, what follows, are two "over-bed" trollies piled with books, folders, magazines, drawing equipment, radio, drinks and my lap-top. It's like the procession of the Queen of Sheba. I am aware that it is a cumbersome manouvre but I persist as it ensures sanity. I think too - how small one's world can become when necessary. Rather like when one is travelling. All I have is on these trollies.
I too am a type of traveller. Nothing, except these bits and pieces of possessions, belongs to me. Sometimes I try to remember the ambience of my own bedroom. That lovely big window which overlooks the garden. My little photos and notes and poems that make it mine. Everything here reminds me of being "temporary." I look into the other rooms sometimes as I pass and see small efforts at individuality - a different couch, a painting, a light - but they are so "sparse" the sense of temporariness is still overwhelming. I have an urge to plaster the walls with posters and things - like a teenage bedroom - just for that sense of "anarchy" that one needs in life. There is an air of sedateness and neatness and blandness that stubbornly persists. I don't have to feel any sense of belonging really but, I wonder about the residents who are here for the rest of their lives. Do they ever feel "at home?" Or has that sense of "home" gone forever?
I present a strange "problem" to some. I have had to explain my story because many think I am here permanently. Some find it difficult to treat me "normally" and want to treat me in an almost child-like way as they do most of the other residents. It's not really a condescending way of speaking to people but it verges on it. The soft lilt. The clear pronunciation. The upward inflection. Perhaps it comes from the fact that I am somewhat physically helpless so they assume I might be mentally a little "clouded" as well. It also has to do with being "in bed," in a "wheelchair" and not standing eye to eye.
Last night I heard my neighbour, a gentle woman, trying to settle to go to bed. She is known as "the wanderer" (happy, I hope) and I have often heard her at about 3am coming out of her room and muttering......."where have they all gone?"....."Joan" is then led back to her room and put to bed. But last night she couldn't settle. She kept coming out of her room and then going back in and slamming the door several times. It seemed as if she wanted to make a definite "cut off" from being out in the corridor. The slamming was a type of ritual of dis-connection. To talk to, she seems fine until something you've said, causes some difficulty in her mental processing. It's probably why all or most of the conversations around here are so polite and bland. Nobody dares dig too deep.
Today I fill my time well. I tutor this afternoon. I keep some sense of normality.
I have been unable to watch a great deal of trauma in other people's lives while in this situation. It is as if it is more heightened and it affects me - almost too much. The news on Gaza and the bushfires have made me feel defeated at times. Perhaps it is because I am a captive audience - watching morning breakfast television's postings from the fire scene etc - which I would never normally watch. Perhaps too it has to do with that sense of vulnerability and fragility. Do we normally watch this type of thing in a more "balanced" way?
I cushion myself from it all and, sometimes, I do this through music and now, reading. Strange, but I have not felt settled enough to read till now. But I think it has also to do with the fact that I have not found the type of reading material I wanted. I have needed poetry rather than novels. The insight that this gives on the human predicament. I am therefore reading "Stepping Stones" - a book of interviews with Seamus Heaney.
He talks of himself as a child........having that inner core of being that gives us our sense of "always-alone-self" as well as being the way through which we experience those little epiphanies in life. "..............I have a sense of being close to that unsatisfied, desiring, lonely, inner core. He hasn't disappeared but now he dwells farther in behind all kinds of barriers he learned to put up in order to keep the inwardness intact...........................and I had this visitation of humanist joy? Awe? A tremendous sense of what human beings had achieved on earth. Something akin to Wordsworth's revelation on Westminster Bridge." Is it this inner core that allows us to empathise, sympathise with both the woes and the joys of the human struggle? I can hear some cynics saying - I just have too much "time" on my hands...........at the moment.
Each day, after listening to the Throsby interview, making various phone calls and checking my email, I retreat to "The Libary." This is a pleasant space that overlooks the main Rd and connects me more with the outside world. Also light and airy. It is a strange little procession that trundles down the corridor as my small world moves with me. There's me in a wheel chair then, what follows, are two "over-bed" trollies piled with books, folders, magazines, drawing equipment, radio, drinks and my lap-top. It's like the procession of the Queen of Sheba. I am aware that it is a cumbersome manouvre but I persist as it ensures sanity. I think too - how small one's world can become when necessary. Rather like when one is travelling. All I have is on these trollies.
I too am a type of traveller. Nothing, except these bits and pieces of possessions, belongs to me. Sometimes I try to remember the ambience of my own bedroom. That lovely big window which overlooks the garden. My little photos and notes and poems that make it mine. Everything here reminds me of being "temporary." I look into the other rooms sometimes as I pass and see small efforts at individuality - a different couch, a painting, a light - but they are so "sparse" the sense of temporariness is still overwhelming. I have an urge to plaster the walls with posters and things - like a teenage bedroom - just for that sense of "anarchy" that one needs in life. There is an air of sedateness and neatness and blandness that stubbornly persists. I don't have to feel any sense of belonging really but, I wonder about the residents who are here for the rest of their lives. Do they ever feel "at home?" Or has that sense of "home" gone forever?
I present a strange "problem" to some. I have had to explain my story because many think I am here permanently. Some find it difficult to treat me "normally" and want to treat me in an almost child-like way as they do most of the other residents. It's not really a condescending way of speaking to people but it verges on it. The soft lilt. The clear pronunciation. The upward inflection. Perhaps it comes from the fact that I am somewhat physically helpless so they assume I might be mentally a little "clouded" as well. It also has to do with being "in bed," in a "wheelchair" and not standing eye to eye.
Last night I heard my neighbour, a gentle woman, trying to settle to go to bed. She is known as "the wanderer" (happy, I hope) and I have often heard her at about 3am coming out of her room and muttering......."where have they all gone?"....."Joan" is then led back to her room and put to bed. But last night she couldn't settle. She kept coming out of her room and then going back in and slamming the door several times. It seemed as if she wanted to make a definite "cut off" from being out in the corridor. The slamming was a type of ritual of dis-connection. To talk to, she seems fine until something you've said, causes some difficulty in her mental processing. It's probably why all or most of the conversations around here are so polite and bland. Nobody dares dig too deep.
Today I fill my time well. I tutor this afternoon. I keep some sense of normality.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
It is Wed 18/2. I have decided to detail what is happening to me as my hip heals - as I take this seemingly "endless" journey to walking again - and again - leading a "normal" life. It is part diary - part musing on happenings and experiences.
After a month in Hospital, and having been assessed by ACAT as "needing temporary high level care" while this second hip replacement, deamed "non-weight bearing," heals, I have now transferred to a "nursing home." When I was told I had to do this for 8 weeks, I felt very down because my images of nursing homes were bleak. They had come from the experience, some 30 years ago, of having to find one for our grandfather. This, coupled with the recent press about nursing home poisonings and closures, meant I was quite frightened about spending an extended period of time in such a place. It was also a stressful time for those around me, particularly Marg, who had to find a suitable place because the Hospital Social Worker was totally incapable of having any real input herself. In the end a top hospital administrator assisted us.
The day of the transfer was 45 degrees. I had been cushioned from this heat in the hospital but that day, I was wheeled out into the hot northerly wind which hit me as soon as the automatic doors opened. I was transferred with an elderly lady who was going to "Cedar Court." We dropped her off first, then came on to "The Nursing Home." I had past this many times when driving down the road but had never noticed the place. I suppose, when one has no need of these places, one does not take an interest.
The first shock was being put upstairs in a room (bedroom) that was not air-conditioned. Only the main social areas and corridors had air conditioning. It was stifling. It also appeared that the equipment I had so carefully ordered and arranged to be there, when I arrived, had not come. This included a gutter frame (for transfers) and a monkey bar for the bed so I could sit up aand move. Without these, I was left helpless, lying on a bed, unable to move. I felt like a beetle on its back. Kafka. Helplessness and loss of independence is a frightening, distressing thing. Eventually, with Marg making a fuss and phoning the hire place, it was found that the equipment had arrived but no-one thought of bringing it upstairs and had left it in the basement. A communication problem, evidently. Difficult for Virgos, who cannot see why others can't do their jobs properly, when they do. This upstairs section was also isolated. There were only another 3-4 residents up here so the lounge-room was empty..........for some reason it reminded me of the empty hotel in "The Shining"where Jack Nicholson went mad.........the "Here's Jonny" scenario. After about half an hour of trying to piece together the equipment, the manager suggested I move to a room downstairs. I said yes, as it meant I would be "closer to the action" so to speak. You learn fast that, if you're near the nurses station, you get the attention when you need it - so - I made the decision in order to survive well.
I have learnt many strategies to "survive." One, which I learnt quickly, was to have an "advocate" who can negotiate for you. It is extraordinary how, even with all my faculties in tact, people would defer to Marg as the decision maker. In the book "The Patient from Hell" it suggests this too. You need someone, not in a "disabled" position, to be able to "make a fuss" - ask "difficult questions" and to basically defend your rights. Marg, of course, does this brilliantly. But, at the same time, I cannot help but see that it's rather like the real-estate agent who talks to the husband rather than the wife. Because of my "less-abled" position - I have suddenly become "the wife." The powerless one. It reminded me of another time I was in hospital, and the doctors were running an inservice titled "The Patient and the Professional." They didn't even recognise the implied status of inferiority of their title.
I have also learnt to "cultivate" the "good" nurses. They then look after you that little bit better and favours are done. Saying please and thankyou for everthing is also a must. Particularly for wiping your bottom. I see this as the ultimate humiliation. But as Morrie said, in "Tuesdays with Morrie" - it's something you just have to accept. It's exactly what the nurses say to me. I can see that now, after 2 weeks of being here, I have become less anxious about it. I muse - will there be a time where I will wipe someone else's bottom? Quite probably. And it won't worry me. I also learn to give very clear, specific instructions about what I need when I want assistance. Some good nurses pick it up and remember. With others, particularly those with language difficulties, or those who are a little dull, I have to patiently repeat the same things over and over. I am learning patience and perseverence.
It is strange too, in many ways, being a "young" person (60 years is young) in a nursing home where the average age is closer to 90. I am told I look "young" and that my skin is good. I have learnt to make my own niche here. I spend most of the day in the "library" - a room that faces The Road and affords a view of beautiful trees and is light. Surprisingly, none, or very few, of the residents come here. I am pleased about this as it allows for some quiet privacy. I can play my music reasonably loud. It seems to be accepted that this is "my" space. On a couple of occasions however, I have shared it with a private physio who does her "session" with a 103 year old lady who lives here. Prue is very good with her and massages her bent neck and humped back. The lady moans with pleasure and repeats, when being shown exercises to do, "Be severe Prue. Be severe." This old lady is deaf and pretty well blind but she comes down here somedays on her zimmer frame, carefully positions a chair to face the window, and sits. She is watching the trees she says, because she likes them.
All this has made me think about old age and how, watching the "inmates" here, it seems to rob us of a "robustness." Everyone here seems "meek." Accepting of routine and repetition - childlike. I wonder whether fear of death makes shadows of us all in the end. I wonder whether I have become "meeker" being here. When I put this to my daughter, Lou, she disagrees and uses my "firm" instructions to the nurse as an example that I have not. Sometimes I am not so sure.
The nights are the worst. Perhaps it has to do with the sounds and cries or the fact that a different type of nurse does night duty. Often the odd people. Decidedly odd. I found this was more so in the hospital, however. Here there are some gems who treat me well. There are more night traumas here though. One old woman screams loudly over and over. When I ask about it I am told the sad story. Up until about 6 weeks ago, she had been operating quite independently. Then a fall. A spell in hospital. A change in the mind. Unable to go home, she now relives that fall almost every night. She clutches the bed and cries, believing she is falling. The other women congrgate outside my door and discuss how awful it is that she cries out. They see her as just "not coping" and this seems to annoy them. Part of the survival here is to become almost bland. This woman, in her primal unleashing of emotions, is not bland. A few nights ago there was another scream. It was so loud, it woke me up. When I asked what it was the nurse explained that a husband, in the married couple units, had "hit" his wife. She herself, was upset by it too and said they had often found this man "playing tricks" on his wife. Raising and lowering her bed as a joke. The nurse said that when they reported this "bullying" it had been ignored. This morning I asked her what the result of this incident had been and she reported that they had given him a thorough talking to and he had apologised to the nurse too. It had been made very clear to him that this sort of behaviour was unacceptable. But it made me wonder. What if underlying tensions in a marriage eventually "blossom" into domestic violence when one partner becomes very much the less able one? He said he'd done it out of frustration.
I will write more another day.
After a month in Hospital, and having been assessed by ACAT as "needing temporary high level care" while this second hip replacement, deamed "non-weight bearing," heals, I have now transferred to a "nursing home." When I was told I had to do this for 8 weeks, I felt very down because my images of nursing homes were bleak. They had come from the experience, some 30 years ago, of having to find one for our grandfather. This, coupled with the recent press about nursing home poisonings and closures, meant I was quite frightened about spending an extended period of time in such a place. It was also a stressful time for those around me, particularly Marg, who had to find a suitable place because the Hospital Social Worker was totally incapable of having any real input herself. In the end a top hospital administrator assisted us.
The day of the transfer was 45 degrees. I had been cushioned from this heat in the hospital but that day, I was wheeled out into the hot northerly wind which hit me as soon as the automatic doors opened. I was transferred with an elderly lady who was going to "Cedar Court." We dropped her off first, then came on to "The Nursing Home." I had past this many times when driving down the road but had never noticed the place. I suppose, when one has no need of these places, one does not take an interest.
The first shock was being put upstairs in a room (bedroom) that was not air-conditioned. Only the main social areas and corridors had air conditioning. It was stifling. It also appeared that the equipment I had so carefully ordered and arranged to be there, when I arrived, had not come. This included a gutter frame (for transfers) and a monkey bar for the bed so I could sit up aand move. Without these, I was left helpless, lying on a bed, unable to move. I felt like a beetle on its back. Kafka. Helplessness and loss of independence is a frightening, distressing thing. Eventually, with Marg making a fuss and phoning the hire place, it was found that the equipment had arrived but no-one thought of bringing it upstairs and had left it in the basement. A communication problem, evidently. Difficult for Virgos, who cannot see why others can't do their jobs properly, when they do. This upstairs section was also isolated. There were only another 3-4 residents up here so the lounge-room was empty..........for some reason it reminded me of the empty hotel in "The Shining"where Jack Nicholson went mad.........the "Here's Jonny" scenario. After about half an hour of trying to piece together the equipment, the manager suggested I move to a room downstairs. I said yes, as it meant I would be "closer to the action" so to speak. You learn fast that, if you're near the nurses station, you get the attention when you need it - so - I made the decision in order to survive well.
I have learnt many strategies to "survive." One, which I learnt quickly, was to have an "advocate" who can negotiate for you. It is extraordinary how, even with all my faculties in tact, people would defer to Marg as the decision maker. In the book "The Patient from Hell" it suggests this too. You need someone, not in a "disabled" position, to be able to "make a fuss" - ask "difficult questions" and to basically defend your rights. Marg, of course, does this brilliantly. But, at the same time, I cannot help but see that it's rather like the real-estate agent who talks to the husband rather than the wife. Because of my "less-abled" position - I have suddenly become "the wife." The powerless one. It reminded me of another time I was in hospital, and the doctors were running an inservice titled "The Patient and the Professional." They didn't even recognise the implied status of inferiority of their title.
I have also learnt to "cultivate" the "good" nurses. They then look after you that little bit better and favours are done. Saying please and thankyou for everthing is also a must. Particularly for wiping your bottom. I see this as the ultimate humiliation. But as Morrie said, in "Tuesdays with Morrie" - it's something you just have to accept. It's exactly what the nurses say to me. I can see that now, after 2 weeks of being here, I have become less anxious about it. I muse - will there be a time where I will wipe someone else's bottom? Quite probably. And it won't worry me. I also learn to give very clear, specific instructions about what I need when I want assistance. Some good nurses pick it up and remember. With others, particularly those with language difficulties, or those who are a little dull, I have to patiently repeat the same things over and over. I am learning patience and perseverence.
It is strange too, in many ways, being a "young" person (60 years is young) in a nursing home where the average age is closer to 90. I am told I look "young" and that my skin is good. I have learnt to make my own niche here. I spend most of the day in the "library" - a room that faces The Road and affords a view of beautiful trees and is light. Surprisingly, none, or very few, of the residents come here. I am pleased about this as it allows for some quiet privacy. I can play my music reasonably loud. It seems to be accepted that this is "my" space. On a couple of occasions however, I have shared it with a private physio who does her "session" with a 103 year old lady who lives here. Prue is very good with her and massages her bent neck and humped back. The lady moans with pleasure and repeats, when being shown exercises to do, "Be severe Prue. Be severe." This old lady is deaf and pretty well blind but she comes down here somedays on her zimmer frame, carefully positions a chair to face the window, and sits. She is watching the trees she says, because she likes them.
All this has made me think about old age and how, watching the "inmates" here, it seems to rob us of a "robustness." Everyone here seems "meek." Accepting of routine and repetition - childlike. I wonder whether fear of death makes shadows of us all in the end. I wonder whether I have become "meeker" being here. When I put this to my daughter, Lou, she disagrees and uses my "firm" instructions to the nurse as an example that I have not. Sometimes I am not so sure.
The nights are the worst. Perhaps it has to do with the sounds and cries or the fact that a different type of nurse does night duty. Often the odd people. Decidedly odd. I found this was more so in the hospital, however. Here there are some gems who treat me well. There are more night traumas here though. One old woman screams loudly over and over. When I ask about it I am told the sad story. Up until about 6 weeks ago, she had been operating quite independently. Then a fall. A spell in hospital. A change in the mind. Unable to go home, she now relives that fall almost every night. She clutches the bed and cries, believing she is falling. The other women congrgate outside my door and discuss how awful it is that she cries out. They see her as just "not coping" and this seems to annoy them. Part of the survival here is to become almost bland. This woman, in her primal unleashing of emotions, is not bland. A few nights ago there was another scream. It was so loud, it woke me up. When I asked what it was the nurse explained that a husband, in the married couple units, had "hit" his wife. She herself, was upset by it too and said they had often found this man "playing tricks" on his wife. Raising and lowering her bed as a joke. The nurse said that when they reported this "bullying" it had been ignored. This morning I asked her what the result of this incident had been and she reported that they had given him a thorough talking to and he had apologised to the nurse too. It had been made very clear to him that this sort of behaviour was unacceptable. But it made me wonder. What if underlying tensions in a marriage eventually "blossom" into domestic violence when one partner becomes very much the less able one? He said he'd done it out of frustration.
I will write more another day.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Hiplady's first blog
Daughter no 1 has just shown me how to start a Blog. So, it begins. I shall write while this hip heals.
Another day has slipped by. Already the sun is in the west. It started in the east of this room where I sit. All day. Every day. The evening meal is finished. It's 10 past 5 in the afternoon.
The elderly ladies again wander the corridors asking- "is this my room?" Every night it's the same. Minds lucid at times then fading at the edges. Like my game of scrabble several days ago where I had to re-affirm whose turn it was every time.
The cars racing home outside contrast with the stillness of life in here. Sometimes like one long silent scream. Munch. Life as a soft cream bun. Soft experiences. No edges. Bland.
I shall watch Judy Dench eat oranges tonight in 'Cranford'!
Another day has slipped by. Already the sun is in the west. It started in the east of this room where I sit. All day. Every day. The evening meal is finished. It's 10 past 5 in the afternoon.
The elderly ladies again wander the corridors asking- "is this my room?" Every night it's the same. Minds lucid at times then fading at the edges. Like my game of scrabble several days ago where I had to re-affirm whose turn it was every time.
The cars racing home outside contrast with the stillness of life in here. Sometimes like one long silent scream. Munch. Life as a soft cream bun. Soft experiences. No edges. Bland.
I shall watch Judy Dench eat oranges tonight in 'Cranford'!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)