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| Nursing
Homes... A Dying Dinosaur - Pts 1 & 2 By Reigh Parker-Burch |
| Does this title seem too extreme to you readers? Well
trust me, it’s not! I love my husband so very much, that I gave up almost
everything to be by his side after his major stroke, at an unbelievable
nursing home. This work is not an exaggeration. I foolishly thought with
someone doing the laundry, preparing the meals, helping with showers and
the like, that I would be entering a restful environment. I was very mistaken.
Sadly put, what I’m about to tell you is an epidemic of problems that seems
to be raging through nursing home after nursing home. Before very long you find yourself groaning internally when Nurse X or Aide Y is coming on duty. You know instinctively that they are doing the same. The prime reason a nursing home is dying, not unlike the dinosaur has done, is that it is only as good as the aides and nurses who are hired to work there. The atmosphere has been very hospital like, at best. The food is loaded with that dreaded aspartame. The juices and the tempting snacks are always filled with aspartame. The unbelievable mass of drugs, most loaded with additives such as anti-freeze, aspartame and MSG are being given out like candy, and without any warnings about their effects. Most of the “inmates” willingly down their food and drugs without thought about the ingredients. The “jailers” play around a lot with the window of time that the drugs may be dispensed. There should not be a one to two hour window on much needed seizure medication. One of the saddest issues is that dratted item called the call button. It can be horrible. One should never have to wait some of the lengths of time that I and other “inmates” have waited. I have personally suffered with this challenge, with two to four hour waits. When I’ve protested, they seem to take longer. I have quietly pointed out, multiple times, the hazard of a too long call button response with little to no relief in reporting this. I asked them to consider the thought that I personally might have had a heart attack, stroke, or broken a limb. This could, without a doubt, end in an unnecessary death. One is usually given a stupid excuse regarding this including, “We are shorthanded,” or, “So and so is on break.” It’s usually turned against me somehow. They give too many grim looks when you ask for help with the radio or the like (something they feel you should do on your own). At all times you are reminded that there are many others that need their help. What is communicated in all of this is that the “inmates” are a terrible burden. There are so many half-done errands. For example, I have a very sore back from a few too many back injuries and I like to use more natural healing methods such as a hot pack or cold pack, rather than pain medication. If I’m lucky, really lucky, I get my hot/cold pack before it is room temperature. They love to turn off the button before finishing our needs, which would infer that all has been done for the resident but instead it buys time for the aides and nurses to go on their own way. Doing two tasks for you is out of the question, and when you turn on the call button again after they have turned it off, they get very angry. I explain that they haven’t finished what I need and they tell me they’ll send someone to help, leaving more room for a too long of wait. When I ask for an extra snack and I get this aforementioned reply, it usually takes an hour or more. We residents are living in the land of rarely fulfilled promises. The written reports of incidents are some of the greatest versions of fiction I have ever read in my entire life. For some reason or another, doctors, co-workers, and bosses, seem to have trouble discerning fact from fiction. When one such as myself, a bit of a detective at heart, looks into this they get nervous for a bit, and then get angry. I’ve reported my fair share of this to the ombudsman. Baths and showers have been a favorite event for me in my entire life until now. The bath, I would say, is the most dangerous in the nursing home. It reads well to hear them talking about a nice bubbly bath, but in reality getting in and out, when the aides are in a big hurry, usually leaves you with a lot of muscle pains and strains from their rush to get it over with. Water all over the floor is common, and also dangerous, along with much too hot or cold of water. Their rubber gloves don’t seem to distinguish this problem. Sadly put, some people’s very rough handling can be felt twenty minutes after they have left your side. They forget that older skin is more fragile. Their main concern is that they will soon be able to clock out. Even when settling down into your wheelchair or room, they chronically remind you that they have a whole bunch of other people that have to be taken care of and that you’re taking too long. Many of we “inmates” are interrupted loudly while on the phone, visiting, and the like. Another is when I’m served a meal in my room, which on a good day, may be the right temperature and amount, and they come in, back and forth, to see if you are finished eating. I consider this to be rude. This is frequently coupled with asking you about bowel movements and urination in front of company. I sometimes try to see the humor and remember my strange saying, “Who is the zoo keeper and who is the monkey?” Remember, these are nurses and aides that write our blood pressure and temperatures on their hands, and if you’re very lucky, they might report it. A very sad factor for me has been my many allergies being “cared for.” Here’s a humdinger that might have driven me to drink, were I a drinker. That is my nice little refrigerator I thought would be really handy to have for my treats since I am so allergy prone. Over the last few months it has been unplugged or reset multiple times, and even tampered with to the point of all my food freezing. They have the audacity to suggest that I don’t need to buy so much or even that I don’t need a fridge if I just ate their food. I wouldn’t eat their trash even if I wasn’t allergic to most of it. Need I say aspartame and excess salt flash in my mind but I try to ignore it. Is there a solution to this problem? I don’t think so. I would be remiss if I did not tell about a very common situation that has been written about before in a lot of the nursing homes; stealing, a word that they hate hearing. Because my husband had a stroke and can be a little offbeat, they usually give him the credit when something goes missing. I don’t think so. The only way I have been able to survive this confined, negative, stress filled nursing home, is to withdraw from and remain in my room for meals and most of my days. I thought this would end their critical ways, but it didn’t. It still goes on. Writing has definitely proven to be difficult in a stressful environment like this. My prayer is that all of you will find another solution to long term living before even having to consider one of these dying dinosaurs that have low census, bad food, horrible water, noisy nights, less than positive staff, and little to offer other than coffee, bingo, and aspartame filled snacks. Part Two I was fervently wishing that I did not have to add a part two on the failing nursing home saga. I naively thought because I had run four different care homes in California with a good success rate with the state watching over and frankly, bonding with my elderly charges. Because I worked 24-7 sometimes 10 days in a row I thought the nursing homes with 3 shifts would certainly offer some excellent cares. I can assure you this is not what transpired for myself and other residents. I feel that anyone in a nursing home now a days must have friends and or family nearby to stop a lot of the nonsense that goes on. Let me give you some instances. Medications play a huge role in the nursing home regimen. Unfortunately, because of the “helpful” doctors, medications may be changed at a moment’s notice without any communication to the resident or their family about the new drug being given out. More than once, I have seen an alert, fun, person enter a nursing home with very few prescriptions in tow. Within a few months at best, sometimes within weeks, there is a large change in the amounts and types of drugs being administered. Note, Quick suggestion… If you have a loved one in a nursing home be certain to watch out for sudden behavioral changes. When possible get the names and doses of each medication being given. Quickly check with an honest pharmacist or a good PDR might be a good purchase to see what the inactive ingredients and side effects are. Several times in 2 years I have noted my quick thinking, fun pals turn into zombie like residents. Their eating slows down, their sleep becomes very irregular, and they are sedated way beyond a safe amount. This is terribly sad because, while the greedy folks on the staff may know about it, trust me, they will not call you about it. I have seen more than one patient air lifted as a last minute resort to save them and unfortunately they have to endure withdrawals from the unusually high dosages given. There are so many forms of abuse. There is much mishandling of our fragile skin and personal dignity. Dignity is a lost word in nursing homes. They might pull a privacy curtain for effect, but that is all it is, and you may be disrobed in front of several people. Going fast should be their middle name. It begins with a glimmer when they ask “what would you like to wear today” or in the evening when they want you to get into jammies. Then there’s a quick search for bed sores and any other care that can rack up more money for the nursing home. The more the cares, the more the money for the home so everything is hurried and done half way. Every single procedure like putting a mat on the bed is done for making money. They have even stated to me, the more help and equipment needed the more money for them to run the home. With resident after resident, I noted much too much ill-fitting titles, such as telling residents they are a definite choke hazard so they must only eat in front of the nurse. As a nutritionist I am appalled at the many snacks, especially those given to the diabetics thanks to the, “never healed anyone,” diabetic foundation. I will give a personal example in my poor diabetic husband. When we were at our own home, I can testify, that he never needed or had more than one insulin shot a month. I tested him upon rising and if his blood sugar level was low enough I said, ‘Praise the Lord.” And then if I suspected that he was running too high, I waited 2 hours and tested again. Most of the time it was normal. Now the “normal” in the nursing home is to give him insulin before meals just to make sure it doesn’t go too high. The sad fact of the matter is many meals go uneaten or half eaten which might be a blessing since the ingredients of the meal are loaded with poisons. However, then their blood sugar levels drop dangerously low. Aspartame is a huge factor in all the meals and snacks served in the home. I would love to make sure you all know about the abuse that goes on in many nursing homes. But alas, I had a “sudden” incident that is still being investigated. I have to conserve my strength for the getting well process. This writing may be shorter than planned. A brief version of what happened is that I had three solid days of seizing from some hidden aspartame in a simple dessert at the nursing home. Because there was no family around other than my blessed husband who is recovering from a stroke, I was helpless and kept from the ER across the street. This occurred even when a nearby friend begged for my rights to be checked over in the ER, and with my power of attorneys in California calling the staff to get me help. On the third day, I was found in a pool of blood at the entrance of my room. I was unconscious, face down, with seven broken ribs, heavy bruising front and back and my spine was damaged. Sadly put, I had a very large black eye that led to a hematoma and there was a deep cut over the eye as well. I feel as a writer and avid reader that the hematoma upset me the most. Why? Because the angle of the injury was so terribly close to causing paralysis and has damaged my vision, perhaps forever. The portion of my brain that received the most damage was the part that controls colors and defines shape of everything I see. Now every day is different. When I have a lot of rest, it almost clears up and I am so happy, but stress and fatigue makes it worse. For instance, when I look out at green grass it looks like snow. And now looking at a brown door, I see deep mauve with blue and red, and yellow. The walls are a pretty pink with red and blue touches. Most people I see look like they are loaded with freckles and sometimes I see double. The floor is deep mauve with red and other colors too. I think my deepest regret about this incident is that it plays heck with any type of proofing or reading. When I look at a page everything is blocked out so I can’t see the words, where as the red, green, yellow, and blue are more irksome and worsen to a feather design or other strange designs. Now to digress, after being double stitched over my eye, and of course CAT scanned. Note, every CAT scan is equal to 600 chest x-rays. By the time a month had passed, I had been given 6 CAT scans. I had to keep praying through every procedure going on that first month. For instance the many IVs put in my system all had MSG in them and those first four days were almost a blackout due to continued seizures. I was not alert enough to check on the medications being given to me. I knew enough however, to stop one dose of morphine and one or two doses of tramadol. After much grousing about the dangerous toxins including aspartame and MSG, finally, the staff and myself voted on Tylenol only. Which still gives me propylene glycol. I’m usually very brave about pain and my tolerance is very high, however, with seven ribs broken, it was difficult to breathe or move. If a single fall, from one seizure, had landed me face down, why was my left side okay and only my right side injured, and how did I get over furniture to the doorway across the room. Needless to say, with God’s help, I lived and I’m still improving. I also regret that I have a few too many slurred words. The good news is that after 7 tests for my memory I still scored 100% every time and don’t have any signs of Alzheimer’s or dementia. With just a portion of what I’ve experienced and heard in this “boat”, I have seen a great deal of injustice to the elderly. Having successfully ran four boarding care homes for four years, I’m glad to report that my lovely ladies remained safe in a very nice home with good home cooked meals. These guests were free to relax, talk, and literally feel like they were in their own homes. I still recall finishing each client’s cares and making certain their room was picked up before moving on to the next. This nursing home and others, I’m sorry to say, cannot measure up at all. To complete this saga, I have tried to be an activist for those around me, even when the head of the kitchen tells me to stop looking for foods served here that don’t contain aspartame or “artificial sweetener”, high fructose corn syrup, natural and artificial flavors, propylene glycol and all the other preservatives, because “how else could they stay fresh and be tasty.” If the food and medications don’t kill the residents then we know the heavy dirty electricity will. Please folks try to plan ahead if possible and don’t become part of the dying dinosaur. |
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