Today at 07:20, as I unlatched the back gate and took a slow look at the water with a sigh, remembering only 3 years ago when I lived in that very neighbourhood, I was hoping quietly that my dear client would be awake. No need to worry. The blinds on the back door were moving. She was up and peeking out at me.
Now as you know, Nurses of all levels do NOT take pets out. Nor do we cook. Nor do we clean. And we certainly do not eat breakfast with our clients. After I brought the dog back inside, I served myself tea and my client pancakes and a poached egg on toast. I was looking over the comments in her book.... the book left for staff to communicate with one another...
and it was a two cup visit.
Her little bag was packed again, and her coat draped over the living room couch.
Yesterdays girls had both notated her confusion and frustration over being in the wrong house. She tells this story when she gets a little *off* and it is really sad. I can see how annoyed she gets and how completely assinine she believes the rest of the world is when clearly she is not in the right home.
It was an issue a few months back, and we thought we had her back on track again.
Sadly no. She has just been biding her time trying to figure it out.
"You know dear, I had a little trouble last night with my nephew. He was acting like he did not know where I lived."
"Oh?"
"All I want to do is go home. You know the other house. The one like this one. In fact it is exactly like this one. But this is not my house."
I know better than to debate it. I went with the "It must be very irritating to you when people do not listen to what you are saying" route. It enlivened her and off she went on the whole story. She is mostly very happy and can remember the long ago to perfection, and the just passed pretty well too, BUT she is profoundly deaf and guesses at things. It makes her seem a tad demented but I do not believe she is. I believe she is grossly over-medicated however I am not her Doctor so it is not my call.
This very bright independant lady has been trying to figure out why all these girls show up in the morning lunch and dinner and yes, even bedtime. She has concluded that we have constructed a house for her to jollify the change. She believes we own that house. We being the entire staff of our District Health Unit, and she is sick and tired of it. It bothers her that we could have moved her precious things, right down to her mothers books and put them exactly where there were in the *other house* and worse yet, somehow got her own family to go along with it. She wants to go home. She really really wants to go home.
She believes we are all lodged in a room upstairs. All of us.
If I was 4 foot 11 and 90 pds, I do not think I could tolerate dosages of her pain meds either.
In fact my father who is a foot taller and one hundred pounds heavier can't.
But: it is none of my business.
Doesn't healthcare stink?
Everyone just is trying to get through the day.
They trust implicitly in certain institutions.
This is not an unusual story.
It is just today's story.
I hope that a bright *manager* clues into the fact that she is NOT demented.
I hope that she can get her pain under control in a way that keeps her cognitive function high.
And in the meantime, bless her heart for solving that mystery.
It does make sense. Completely wrong, but makes sense.
We all take comfort in the rational.
-=-
