Trauma
I can’t express how bad the nursing home was. I still can’t eat mashed potatoes and it’s been over five years. I was the youngest person there and my roommate was a nightmare. I was in a place with people who had Alzheimer’s. One woman was creole and would randomly switch into a different language. She grabbed some papers off of someone’s desk and acted like she was a doctor. There was the guy who would go into peoples rooms. He shared a room with his wife, that also had Alzheimer’s, and they didn’t recognize each other. There was a patient with an air horn and when that guy came into her room she would blow it. He would also eat anything he could get his hands on. It was like the Uber Eats commercial. One time I saw him try to eat a sock!
I couldn’t feed myself and the only meal I could actually eat was breakfast. I would have to wait for an aide to come in to feed me. I would just stare at my food until then. I was supposed to get raised silverware so I could eat/feed myself. The home ordered it for me. After an aide in ear shot was complaining about how I asked for raised silverware that I could actually use, the utensils were put in the dishwasher at the nursing home and they promptly lost them.
I had a feeding tube and it was a real fight to get it removed. I still have a hole, like a second belly button, underneath my left boob. People wanted to watch the feeding tube be removed! I thought it was ridiculous for people to watch, like my struggle was entertainment for others.
I switched rooms because my first roommate, who had two strokes, ate potato chips and drank Diet Coke (which is crazy considering that she had two strokes and wore a diaper that I would smell) was terrible. The nursing home had so many characters. The next room I went to had a fruit fly infestation and the roommate was really nice. My mother put homemade traps out because the nursing home wasn’t going to do anything.
The therapy I received was straight up booty. The physical and occupational therapists were very nice. The speech therapy was nonexistent and a total waste of time. I had like three (4?) different speech therapists during the months I was there. I didn’t have speech therapy even though therapists came. When I tried to get back on solid foods via a swallow test I was given the wrong one. A swallow test is when they give you food and X-ray you swallowing it. I had to go back and get the correct one.
I had a lot of trouble speaking so I had a therapist that turned a Manila Folder into a letter board or a communication board so I could point to letters and spell out words. I brought it with me to the nursing home and an aide took it and showed it to another aide as an example of what she was dealing with. The discontent of the staff definitely had a negative effect on the patients. I had to fight to get out of there. Nursing homes are notoriously hard to get out of. Nursing homes take your social security money.
The nursing home was and is the worst moment of my life. I can’t think of it without tears coming to my eyes.
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