Who is Waiting for You at the End?

Nursing home stories

We are nursed twice in life—once when we come in and once when we check out. As babies, we can’t make much sense of the world, but our mothers, with their breasts filled with warm milk, are all we need. When we are old and all life has passed, and all your friends are dead, the slightest gestures of kindness are all we have left, so you hope you have good nurses caring for us.

Mr. Walker talked his way out of death, but the Reaper wasn’t fooled; he just gave him the next card from the deck of death: the nursing home card. But that is just what happens; if you survive everything and everyone, the nursing home will be your new home.

To which Walker gladly took because, like everybody else, he was not dying today. It’s not that we end up in a nursing home; it’s more like the nursing home comes to us if nothing kills us first, in small increments, but with increasingly frequent visits. Soon, you’re there for good. And the nurses will now care for you as you putter out of life. The nursing home will nurse you into your death.

I love to be around nurses. I feel like I'm part of an order or congregation, something ancient and universal. At first, I didn't get it, but now it’s the most satisfying thing in my life. They speak the language of care, and no matter if we were in the Middle Ages or in the future or in a distant land, it's all the same, like an ever-present spirit. Caring is the most basic and strongest human expression.

As you enter a nursing home, all your past societal norms, the ones you lived by, stay outside. In this new habitat, your life and societal norms are of little value. You might keep trying to exert your independence, but you’ll soon give it all up and let yourself be cared for. Why not.

Few people come into these places because they are the warehouses of old and dysfunctional humans who can no longer care for themselves; they smell bad, and everybody is old and ugly. Their bodies and minds are becoming more and more dysfunctional. It is the last few years of one’s life. The house of the dying. Some come here for a brief treatment and leave thinking they have escaped, but they soon come back for the long haul.

I walk into one of the rooms, and I see a small, broken, old body like a little wilted flower. On the walls, there are pictures of her when she was young, beautiful, and vibrant. We somehow view old people as if they have no connection to us, the normal people - they are a group apart. Where did these people come from? What happened to you? Oh, they are the old people. In our idiotic and protective fearful self, we fail to see that they are us in the future. Get over it, Old age is a disease, and we’ll all got it.

The body aches and is becoming increasingly dysfunctional. The smell of feces is everywhere, reminding us of our humanity and the rawness of our needs. The feces we all have so neatly concealed, making sure no one saw it or smelled it, are now out in the open as the nurses come to change your diaper becasue your body no longer has bowel control. All the societal silliness and shyness are gone. Most get used to it, some never do.

Sometimes a family member comes in for a visit and tells the nurse, “My mother wants to go to the bathroom.” We don’t usually say that “your mother cannot go to the bathroom, she could fall, and even after mobilizing three people to take her to the bathroom, she would not know how to do it anymore if she remembers what she is supposed to do in the bathroom in the first place”. Out of compassion, we do what they want, but after the family is gone, it’s back to the diaper change reality.

I prepare the medicine, but I know it will not cure the old; it will only prolong life. I’m uncertain why we want to prolong life here. Giving medicine is now, in most cases, just a symbol of caring and love. How you give medication has a more therapeutic effect than the chemical stew they are swallowing. This one is for your heart, dear.

The sound of Family Feud and Family Guy is ever-present and floats in the air like a nauseating cultural stew. If there was ever a sound design competition for the most annoying, disturbing, and disruptive background sound, the Family Feud would pass with flying colors. The unexpected bell, the abrupt buzzer, and the voice of Steve Harvey have caused me significant irritation through the years, but I now see it from the resident’s perspective. It is, for them, the last reminder of living among family and a connection to their normal life that is now gone.

For so many years, I used to see them as just patients, old people, numbers in a chart, and I realize I’ve been cheating myself all along. Now, I’ve learned to see them as people just like me. A little touch and a little heart talk go a long way. It’s challenging to reach that soul still tucked in there, but we must try. Dementia suck our souls, but there are small victories.

Not everything is terminal old age in a nursing home, and there are some victories. There are some stories of healing. I remember one patient, Irene. When she was admitted, she seemed like a feral and caged animal. She was screaming at me and the world, throwing things at the nurses, and it was just like that scene of the exorcist when Linda Blair turns her head around 360 degrees.

She was heavily abused by her husband. But I mean abused like burning her with cigarettes and having a gun to her head. Tortured and verbally abused for god knows how many years, until she was mentally gone entirely. She would lie in bed, and for hours, scream and hallucinate, as if her husband were there, torturing her. No one could talk to her, and we didn’t know who she was.

But the nurses cared for her with such love and compassion. After a few years, Irene began to change; her agitation and hallucination bouts lasted less and less time. One day, a miracle happened. She improved so much that we could look into her eyes and see a person in there, and talking to her became possible. I agree the meds helped too.

We discovered that Irene was the sweetest and gentlest person. She became so adored by the staff that people would go out of their way to visit her and bring her ice cream or whatever she asked for. It gives me great satisfaction when I think of this story. Love cures all.

Sometimes we discover that the poorest and most undesirable places are actually the richest. I used to hate my job, and granted, there is a lot there not to like. The long hours, the overtime we sometimes have to do, the frustrating and insane American "health care" system, and so many other annoying things.

But connecting to my patients became the hidden jam I've never known was there. I'm struggling to put into words how I feel, because it took me so long to get here. One thing I can say is that making friends with something we fear and detest and avoid has great healing power.