Took Gramps to the doctor today...and getting old is a bitch. Just a lil' quick background. The Pops is senile. He lives in an assisted living facility ( and I don't recommend it). So I arrive around 10:30 am and he is in the dark laying in bed...fully dressed. I asked for assistance from a woman working at the facility, just to help me get him out of bed, poor guy's zipper is broken and without much notice she drops his pants. While doing this she is telling Gramps that his granddaughter is here to see him. He says, "which of my sons had girls?!!" Well, both his sons had girls... So I stand outside the room until he is dressed and I am so saddened by what I observed.
!- The entire place smelled of shitty diapers and kitty litter.
!!- at either end of the hall were several women sitting in wheelchairs, slumped over, and not looking very much alive.
!!!- One woman who was still capable of walking kept escaping out the front door, but an alarm would sound (as if it were a prison break) and several attendants would chase her and bring her back inside.
!!!!- The one elderly woman at the facility that appeared to be somewhat with it walked up to a potted plant sitting on a table and proceeded to eat dirt from it. Apparently there was a river rock in the pot that she repeatedly dipped into the dirt and then stuck into her mouth. Because no alarm was sounded for this behavior the attendants failed to notice.
!!!!!- When we were ready to leave the same woman who kept escaping came up to my Grandpa and asked, " You leaving?! You getting outside?...You gettin' out... are you going?"
I'm guessing she really wanted to go too. But we had to leave her behind. After Gramps' appointment I dropped him off and he was seated for lunch in the "kitchen". His lunch consisted of a deviled egg, a limp leaf of green lettuce, and what i assume was a deep fried chicken patty (only probably not deep fried but rather microwaved). I never want to reach that stage of inablility. Our society abandons and ignores the elderly. We don't have death or dying around us and when we are we have no idea how to behave, what we should be feeling. Sometimes I think that in "Harold and Maude" Maude had the right idea. No one should have to live like that.
!- The entire place smelled of shitty diapers and kitty litter.
!!- at either end of the hall were several women sitting in wheelchairs, slumped over, and not looking very much alive.
!!!- One woman who was still capable of walking kept escaping out the front door, but an alarm would sound (as if it were a prison break) and several attendants would chase her and bring her back inside.
!!!!- The one elderly woman at the facility that appeared to be somewhat with it walked up to a potted plant sitting on a table and proceeded to eat dirt from it. Apparently there was a river rock in the pot that she repeatedly dipped into the dirt and then stuck into her mouth. Because no alarm was sounded for this behavior the attendants failed to notice.
!!!!!- When we were ready to leave the same woman who kept escaping came up to my Grandpa and asked, " You leaving?! You getting outside?...You gettin' out... are you going?"
I'm guessing she really wanted to go too. But we had to leave her behind. After Gramps' appointment I dropped him off and he was seated for lunch in the "kitchen". His lunch consisted of a deviled egg, a limp leaf of green lettuce, and what i assume was a deep fried chicken patty (only probably not deep fried but rather microwaved). I never want to reach that stage of inablility. Our society abandons and ignores the elderly. We don't have death or dying around us and when we are we have no idea how to behave, what we should be feeling. Sometimes I think that in "Harold and Maude" Maude had the right idea. No one should have to live like that.
Although my ma is a pain in the ass, it's still good to have her at home instead of that gawddamn nursing "institution"...