Believe me…I understand why you would have avoided looking at this post. It’s a painful topic. Within the past handful of years I’ve witnessed way too many deaths in the family (just attended another funeral this passed Monday) and it’s made me think way too much about my own mortality. I had a somewhat strained relationship with my father, in part because we were two peas in a pod and sometimes went head to head.

The nursing home situation is pretty bad. I’m sure there are some good ones out there but, kind of like finding good schools/good school teachers, it’s not by design that you have good ones (and lord knows we TRY our hardest to reproduce good schools/teachers)…it’s by accident.

As luck would have it, I am right now writing the third chapter of a book about the last few years of my mother’s life, when she came to Oregon to live and die near me. In a nursing home, because she needed round the clock custodial care due to Parkinson’s Disease.

The book is part memoir, part diatribe, part psychological road map for others who may tread the same path I did. Mostly, I hated the job. I wasn’t particularly fond of my mother, and I took her on because the alternative was unthinkable. While her nursing home didn’t kill her, it surely didn’t enliven her in any way at all. The people who worked there were uneven at best. The supervision was negligible, and negligent.

I could go on.

I think of Her every day. She was My best friend. She taught Me every good thing about Myself. Words cannot describe the feelings of joy She gave Me, and the sorrow that has taken it’s place,because of My selfish lack of using the talents She believed I had.

I could have payed more attn. to the quality of Her care,and not depended/trusted on My Aunts/Uncles to be responsible for Her,while I was off to see the world in the Navy.That’s one of the reasons I didn’t re-enlist in 81. Better late than never..is not enough…I was/am too late.

Please believe Me,I know the health care system relies on the people it hires. I can’t. My heart pours with true symphony to all of You in Your loss of people You love.

Scotty.

As you found out…it’s not the quality of facility but the quality of the people that can make all the difference. Whether someone will care about their patients, or not, seems to be unrelated to amount they are paid.

When my mother’s stroke-related dementia meant she could no longer stay with one of her children, her next “home” was a private facility. The buildings were new and the grounds well-landscaped. But there was little to no warmth or caring.

Always the feisty one, my little Italian momma, all 4’9″ of her, managed to make several great escapes. But they always found her and brought her back, much to the admonishment of the facility’s director (“Your mother is obviously a woman used to getting her own way,” said that twerp. I could have smacked him. My mother was in strange surroundings with people doing crazy things, worried about who was taking care of her seven babies. She didn’t remember we were all grown.)

On my visits, I’d have to drive momma around in the car all day (she was too restless to sit comfortably) and then lie with her in her bed at night until she fell asleep. If I left while she was awake, I could not bear to tell her, “No, momma. You can’t come with me. You must stay here.”

On my final visit during one trip home(we lived 2,500 miles away), I just broke down and wept, unable to leave the building. One kindly helper consoled me and told me that she also worked at another facility where momma might be happier and better cared for. (It’s worth noting that the lower-level workers were all black and meagerly paid, and some were taking care of their own aging parents at home, but they were consistently compassionate.)

As it turned out, it was a Catholic-sponsored non-profit home, one that momma and I had frequently when I was a child, to visit older friends and family.

The building was definitely shabbier, and there were no private rooms. But the workers cared about their residents, and that was to be momma’s new home until she died. I’m forever grateful to those people who treated momma as if she were part of their family, and she came to view them as part of hers.

Thank you for sharing that story. I understand, quite well, the depth of your anger. We can hope that, when it is our turn, we get better care than our parents did. At the minimum we will be aware of the danger signs of neglect.

And I extend my condolences to you too. I truly understand and feel your pain.