The Nursing Home

Being a stay-at-home mom pretty much is code to your friends for “always available.”  Now this is totally untrue, as running a household and raising children is probably the hardest job in existence.  But because everyone thinks I’m always available, I feel terrible saying no. Especially to my family. Especially when it’s important.

So this is how I got the wonderful task of finding a nursing home for my grandmother.  Alright that’s a bit of an exaggeration I guess. Let me try this again. This is how I got the wonderful task of helping my mom find a nursing home for my grandmother.  But not any nursing home would do. It had to be a nursing home with a dementia unit, as my grandmother was suffering from a mild/moderate case of the horrible disorder.

On the news they tell you dementia is awful.  They show clips of people suffering from the disease and it’s sad and you might even cry watching it.  But no amount of research on the disease can prepare you for the reality of what I was to face finding a place for my grandmother.  

Grandma repeats herself.  Over and over and over and over until you have to get up and walk away from her, because if you tell her one more time it’s Tuesday, neither of you will live to see Wednesday.  Her short term memory is shot to shit. Of course some days are better than others, the mornings best of all. But regardless of how great a day she’s having, she still will not remember that she turned the stove on to make tea.  Or follow the story line of a half-hour sitcom. Or remember that the dog’s already been fed. At night, she can’t sleep. She wanders around trying to go home. But she’s already home.

But when Grandma had a heart attack, and her body declined into a state that assistance was required 24/7 for both her physical and mental health, it became too much to deal with at home.  And that’s when the family realized it was time she was put into a nursing home where she had care around the clock.

Finding a nursing home is presumably the most depressing favor I have helped someone do.  And this includes helping a random man picking up his dead dog’s intestines off the road.

Option 1:  Winding Gardens.  I’m excited about this one.  It sounds lovely. I have no idea what to expect from a nursing home, but I’m imagining a bunch of happy old ladies with their hair done playing checkers, while old men in wingtips walk around winking at everyone.  My naivety was unsurpassed.

The first “amenity” Winding Gardens provide me with was a lovely aroma of stale piss.  I pretty much spent the first five minutes of our tour dry-heaving. I listened to “Mary” our tour guide go on and on about the superior medical care that the patients received in Winding Gardens and the numerous activities the patients spent their day participating in.  After viewing the TV room, the dining room, and the activity room, Mary brought us into an empty bedroom. While she was showing my mother and I the spacious drawer and closet space, a little old woman walked in. I smiled at her and said hello, as Mary began discussing what changes/decorations were allowed to be brought from home.  

As Mary babbled on, the old woman dropped her blue stretchy-band jeans to the floor, grabbed the wastebasket and took a shit.  “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god” I chanted, unable to take my eyes off of the literal shit-show that was occurring.

Mary wasn’t as shocked.  “Nurse! Come get this patient!”  she screamed into the hallway.

I was too bewildered to move.  I stood open-mouthed watching as the nurse came in.  “Cora! I told you and told you. You can’t do this in the garbage can!”  She turned to us. “I’m sorry. She does this all the time.” She hiked up Cora’s pants, grabbed the trash can, and left the room.  

Mary went on talking as though nothing had happened.  But my mother wasn’t listening and I hadn’t yet been able to close my mouth.  Needless to say, Winding Gardens was out.

Option 2:  Franklin Mills Nursing Home.  After the debacle that was Winding Gardens, I was convinced that we had seen the worst of the worst.  How bad could this place be?

Happily, I wasn’t hit with any awful smells when I walked into Franklin Mills.  “See? This is better already” I whispered to my mom. Jim was taking us for our tour this time.  He was a serious man, very knowledgeable. I think in his past life, he was a college geography professor.  He was that boring. And monotone. Which should have tipped me off for what I was about to experience as we got off the elevator on the dementia unit.

No need to worry about the zombie apocalypse.  It had happened and all the zombies has been contained here. It was horrifying.  They slowly shuffled down the halls babbling to themselves. One woman scratched at an invisible something on the wall.  No one sitting down could keep their tongues in their mouths. Except for two of them. They couldn’t control their lips from pulsating.  Within two minutes of being there, I was surrounded. I had no idea where they came from, or how they were able to surround me so quickly, but three babbling ladies were talking at me from all angles.  One woman was pawing at my shoulder. Another was holding my hand, trying to steal my wedding rings.

“Mom…”  I started.  She was deep in conversation with Jim.  “Mom! Help me!” I said loudly. Trying my best to smile at the woman who was inspecting the hem of my shirt.  

I couldn’t hear what my mom said over the babbling surrounding me.  But what felt like an eternity later, a nurse came over and herded them to the TV room.  I grabbed my mom’s hand and pulled her to the elevator. I called behind me to Jim. “I think we’ve seen enough for today.  Thank you!”

Franklin Mills?  Hell fucking no.