Spending Time

Click hiss – time for the perfume to be automatically dispensed. It is right above my head, and as it settles down I can almost feel the sweet, undistinguished fragrance as it gently surrounds me. I wonder what it is hiding? However, the result of this dispenser, another in each room and in the halls, and the other steps they take keep the smell of death and excrement out of our sensitive nostrils.
For the past couple of days, I have been wasting away in a nursing home, make that an extended care facility in “newspeak.” Fortunately I’m a visitor, waiting for my wife whose father is entombed here. So I get to leave, get to eat elsewhere, and get to sit and observe what is happening.
Why are so many of the “care givers” so fat? Is it that the work they do is so repetitive and boring? Is the work low in energy consumption? Do they control the patients to such an extent that they have no need or concern with controlling or caring for themselves? Do they use food to compensate for their lack of stimulation? Are they consummate actors in their dealings with patients, and can therefore delude themselves about their own unhealthy habits? How can they not see then impact of obesity on vitality and physical wellbeing in the lives of their patients? Few of the patients are obese – the obese have weeded themselves out of this population by dying. Is it the norm? Do they see so many other fat nurses around that it gives them permission to be like the others? It is mostly the older ones who have become slovenly, it takes some time to acquire the distorted bodies that are covered by the tight uniforms. For the older patients the concept of a rumple seat emerges from the distant past. The younger ones wouldn’t know the term. Another one just waddled down the hall, short legs moving slowly, pushing the meds cart, really leaning on the cart and letting it carry her bulk along minimizing the burning rate of her extreme caloric intake.
Nurses in other settings seem to have made considerable improvements lately. For a number of years they were rapidly degrading into a team or gang or tribe of distended bodies, fat, slow moving, ponderous in their actions and seemingly thinking – paranoid and defensive in their attitude, but lately, in part because of some incentive programs, the nursing community seems (based on limited observation) to have become more healthy. I hope that is true.
This is a highly rated facility, it is clean and the air is fresh. The staff seems to be competent and caring – or at least not overtly hostile. They are the custodians of what is essentially a storage warehouse for aging bodies. It is hard to see where the pleasure of living comes from. Getting out of bed every morning is a chore that requires a firm and controlling person to achieve. It would be easier to stay in bed, it is warm, and soft, and no muscles need to be made to work. The pain of the joints and tendons is less in bed. Gravity is minimized - the constant need to fight against the pull, the stretching of the skin, the weight of the body, the pressure of fabric on tender and sensitive skin. Let me out of here!
The realization is there, a cure isn’t going to happen. There is no magic potion, no doctor who has the answer, not even an improvement. The best that can be hoped for is a lessening of the pain and irritation, a dulling of the boredom, an occasional relief from the tedium. A visit to a doctor is an uncomfortable and exhausting outing, but it is a break from the routine too. But there is nothing new, he will not have any answers not even any new questions.
Sunday is Easter. The entry area is filled with old ladies in wheel chairs. There are seventeen at first, and some more arrive later. There is one man. The leader, I suppose he is a minister, but he could be a lay practitioner, has a strong and loud voice; loud enough to penetrate the deafness that seems to be everywhere. As he sings in his clear and booming voice, familiar songs and hymns, a few thin and quivering voices join in for a word or a phrase. Some of the faces are blank, two of the ladies drift off to sleep and nearly fall slowly from their wheelchairs. They stop when they are horizontal, but they don’t make any noise, sitting up slowly only to repeat the cycle like the toy birds sitting on the edge of a glass dipping into the water and returning to upright that were fascinating to watch. One grows agitated and loudly says “No!” when the lady next to her touches her lightly. The preacher goes on, he needs little response or encouragement to satisfy himself. He knows that the reactions will be muted or nonexistent and he seems to delight in this. His sermon is strong, simple and aimed at his audience. The certainty of death is replaced by the certainty of resurrection. At times he is certainly talking only to himself, gesturing strongly, his theology intact and clear. I think they are listening; those who are awake and alert. At the end he greets each of the ladies individually and wishes them a Happy Easter. Some of them he will never see again, it is hard to tell them apart.
04/07/2010