A Rock with my name on it

A former co-worker from the Amarillo Globe-News contacted me recently after he learned of my experience with my mom in the nursing home. 

I had lost touch with Chris, as I have with many of those AGN colleagues, so I had no idea he now lives in a nursing home and has for about a year. 

Chris said he relates to what I had described about the care in the nursing home, or rather, the system, itself. He recently wrote about it in his blog Life's Journey. 

Chris calls living in a nursing home like living in a resort ... a last resort. Yet, he feels safe there, in spite of the drawbacks. And he has made friends with many of the aides. Chris understands and has learned to accept "the system." The problem, he says and as I noted in my experience, is not with the caregivers, but that nursing homes do not employ enough caregivers. 

"There's usually one nurse and two aides (if you're lucky) for each shift," Chris said in his blog last week. "That means I sometimes have to wait 30 to 45 minutes for the aides to transfer me.  The aides do the best they can, but they're just spread too thin."

Chris' mind obviously works just fine; his body just doesn't cooperate with him. So, he understands his living arrangements, and he understands the limitations. He also made the decision to move to where he is. While he certainly has struggled with these environmental limitations, I think intellectual awareness has allowed him to reach a level of acceptance that some residents are not capable of reaching. 

I believe oftentimes people get the idea nursing home residents are "senile" and don't know what the heck is going on, so it doesn't really matter how they are treated. I think the system operates this way, for sure.



Yes, lots of folks in nursing care suffer from dementia or other brain malfunctions, but that in no way means they don't understand at the very core of their beings how they are treated. Human beings at every level of functioning know discomfort, pain, love, hate, pleasure, enjoyment, happiness and every other emotion. 

While we may have little control over people's physical limitations, we certainly can help alter the emotional and spiritual experiences of others by how we treat them and engage them in the lives they do have. And, might I remind us all, their lives are just as important as ours. 

Every bit. 

I remember after my sister's and my infamous meeting with the three "powers" at my mom's former nursing home, I felt angry and thought, "These residents are not cows!"

So I felt smug and vindicated in my beliefs when Chris wrote: "Someone once told me nursing home care is a lot like herding cattle.  The aides have to rush around to get everyone up and dressed, prod them down to the dining room for breakfast, poke food and meds down everybody, then corral everyone back to their rooms.  The cycle is repeated at lunchtime and again at supper.  It sounds so impersonal, but that's the system."

And I've spoken with some aides at my mom's new residence who have worked in nursing homes and related to the experience I shared. They said they would never go back to that environment if they could help it.  A couple of them expressed that it's all about money and not care, and it's sickening.

Yes, it is sickening. These residents in nursing care have lived long, full lives and should not be treated as if their lives meant nothing; they are not now trash, just waiting to be permanently disposed of. 

And then there are the younger residents, who, due to spinal injuries, brain injuries or illnesses such as cerebral palsy (like Chris), may live a long portion of their lives in nursing care. Is that how it's going to be for them? Is that how their lives are going to play out while the rest of us get to come and go and enjoy as we please? While some of that obviously cannot be helped, what can be helped is the kind of care those who do not have these blessings receive. We need to make the most of every circumstance for every human being, if we can help it.

EVERYONE, no matter how young or old, deserves to live life with love, dignity and respect. And while individual caregivers may give that to the residents (thank God), the system operates to strip that away. I will say it again: The nursing care system is inhumane, unkind and undignified!

I am so grateful and relieved my mother is where she is now. Not only are the caregivers kind and attentive, the home is run in a manner in which the residents receive respect and are treated with dignity. 

That shows me it can be done, no matter what. If one can do it, they all can do it — even in the larger nursing care settings. Reduce the expected and acceptable profit margin (because money is necessary for good care and safe facilities) to make this unfortunate system about humane and enjoyable care, not a cattle-herding business. 

(And, don't get me wrong, just as at fault in this great disaster is healthcare insurance ... that's another twisted system to be addressed in fixing all this.)

Just because my mother isn't faced with that disgusting disgrace of care now doesn't mean I have forgotten the fight.

There's still a rock with my name on it ...