Beware: explosion of bile forthcoming

My grandmother has dementia. Over the last few years, she has slipped further and further into the obscure land of wherever it is that people with dementia go, and spends less and less time in this reality. She is a stubborn old broad, as stubborn old broads in my family are, and after many episodes of attempted escape, self starvation, and manic hallucinations, my poor grandfather had her evaluated for care at a facility for patients with dementia. A facility that is designed to make sure people who are not in reality do not hurt themselves or others. A facility that has safety at the fore of its priorities, and respects the needs of individuals who can no longer care for themselves.

I do not know what suffering my grandfather has endured over these last few years, but I am certain that it must have reached a point where he felt it was beyond his capacity to care for himself and her at the same time, because the decision to have a loved one cared for by others is not easy. I cannot even imagine what horrors my grandmother experiences when she comes out of the haze and into reality for a moment, and perceives that she is in a care facility, not at home in her house on Charles Drive with her husband and pictures and dishes and roses.

But far worse is the experience that they, and my parents, have endured on this evening. On their way home from Ruston, visiting the little brother for his 18th birthday, the parents decided to stop in and visit Oma at her care facility. She was in a wheelchair, complaining about pain in her leg. Now Oma is a complainer - not one to keep quiet about anything, but for her to truly complain about pain is something else. So my mom pats her on the leg and realizes that it is hugely swollen. My father questions the nurses aides. They claim they know nothing. Oma says that she fell earlier in the day. She is hysterical, begs my parents not to leave her. The useless nurses aides bring her TYLENOL for her pain, after my father asks if they have any medication. He wants to know if they can have her treated or at least examined. They say that they can call 911 or a family member can check her out. So my father scoops up her 82lb body, and whisks her away to Slidell to the hospital where he works. He calls my grandfather, who knows nothing because they did NOT CALL HIM to tell him that his wife, his partner and helpmate of 50+ years was in pain, let alone that she had fallen. And they meet at the hospital, where it is discovered that she has broken her hip.

To a young person, a broken hip is a major injury. It involves serious and painful surgery, followed by a very long and unpleasant recovery. To a person who is in their late 70s and of poor health, a broken hip is tantamount to the death knoll. As I write it, I cannot even believe it is true, because she was meant to be in this facility where they could care for her better than my grandfather. More attention could be paid, people with more training and better capacity for support would be looking after her and making sure she did not injure herself. And somehow, within the span of FOUR DAYS, my grandmother has a broken hip. Even in her semi-lucid state, she begged my mother to not leave her, saying over and over again that "these people" do not care about the patients, they don't care what happens to them.

What would have happened had my parents not stopped in to visit? Would she have gone on, complaining about her pain and continued to be ignored? There was not even a notation in her chart saying that she had complained about pain, let alone any documentation of her falling. I see over and over again my last vision of her little frail body, the last shell of what used to be a mouthy robust woman and all I can do is think of how scared she must be, living inside her head in an alternate reality, feeling pain and only half knowing the people around her. The anger that wells up inside of me is so great that I can't even think clearly and I may have actually said 'fuck' to my father on the phone when offering to write a nasty letter or sixteen to the facility that managed to neglect her so completely in such a short period of time.

Now I'm not one to get out my Bible and beat people with it, but isn't there some little phrase that has to do with loving your neighbor as you love yourself? And aren't we all neighbors in one sense or another? Then how in the name of all that is holy could an entire staff manage to disregard the cries of an hysterical old woman? Perhaps they are made of stone, or styrafoam, or astroturf. Or maybe they have no souls. But I tell you this: if I learn their names, then they will hear from me. Personally. And in technicolor. Because the heartless walking carcasses that did not call 911, that stuck her in a wheelchair and handed her Tylenol, have a seriously rude awakening coming.

In the meantime, say a prayer for my grandmother and go call yours. Someday, I will be an old broad, and I only hope that I will be lucid enough to enjoy it.