by Kay Kreisle
strongly recommend a skilled care facility for a couple weeks to continue
your intravenous antibiotics."
Hearing this from my two doctors left me stunned. I knew that
"skilled care facility" meant "NURSING HOME" and we all know what that means -- dirty, smelly, unskilled care, apathetic staff and residents.
It's where you go when no one cares about you anymore. Where you go to die quietly alone, beset by bedsores, unwashed, usually in dirty adult diapers, with little or no actual medical care unless you have family who are there to fight for you. In other words, I was not looking forward to this.
I argued, pleaded, begged and flatly refused to go. My doctors
remained equally firm.
I had been in the hospital for two weeks. If I went home, they said,
I risked the infection gaining new strength, just when we had begun to win the battle.
Well, I'd been fighting the infection for two and a half months and I
sure didn't want to end up back in the hospital. So I agreed, with great
trepidation, to go to a nursing home.
I chose a center that was very close to my home.
My first surprise came immediately when I entered the facility. I had
visited nursing homes many times, and they all had a urine odor that I
considered inevitable. But not here. In fact, there was no odor at all.
Very pleasant surprise. I learned later how they did this in case of
"accidents".
One day, a resident had a diarrhea accident that really smelled up the
hallway. The staff immediately began to clean the patient, the room, and began to open windows and spray air freshener up and down the aisle and into any room where the residents complained. Many of the patients, myself included, all questioned or commented loudly about what had caused the foul odor. I asked one of the nurses if our fellow resident could hear all the comments about the odor. I'll never forget her reply.
"Yes! Oh, the poor lady, I bet she feels horrible. " The nurse
rushed out of my room saying, "I gotta go tell her we still love her even
if she is stinky!"
My second surprise, when I arrived, was the public address system
message: "Welcome call to room 412".
Before I arrived at my room, Fred was there. Fred was the shift
supervisor for the Certified Nurses Aides (CNAs) and he was very helpful
and friendly. He asked my name because everyone knew each other -- the residents weren't just a number here.
I found both the skill level and care to be equal or higher than that
I received in the hospital. Which leads me the third surprise.
My room was spotless and cleaned twice a day. They even buffed daily which was actually an annoyance because the silly machine was noisy! Twice a week I had to fend off Maria who would insist on giving me a shower.
Maria, and practically her entire family, work at Sun Grove and they are
all a blessing to every resident.
Ricardo, Maria's nephew, was always ready to help any resident with
any task. I never met more caring, helpful people. I grew to love them
and many other staff members and residents at Sun Grove. There are far too many to mention since they were all outstanding in there own way. One shared personal knowledge of her cancer experience, and all shared their loving concern.
These are the kinds of things that made my two and a half week stay
enjoyable and also has motivated me to return there as a volunteer by
attempting to set up and run a book mobile for the center's residents.
I hope I will live up to the example of the staff and volunteers that
cared for me. If you question me and ask what it takes to be a member of the team of a nursing home staff, I think that answer was best summed up by that nurse: "They love you even when you're stinky."
-- Kay Kreisle