4 June 2013

Tuesday

12:40 PM

Shower Day!!

One of two per week that I am allowed here at the reservation, just as many as State prisoners, I'm told . All I had to do to earn such treatment was to become ill enough that I could no longer do some of the activities of daily living that I used to do by myself. Unlike the prisoners I wasn't convicted of anything, I just acquired a life sentence of a different source.

The shower procedure here is a laborious affair, including moving from the bed to my wheelchair, rolling down the hall to the shower room, entering the room with a CENA and a mechanical device designed to lift me up bodily so I can be placed in a shower chair and moved into a shower stall. After I effect a shower, needing help only to scrub my lower legs, back and bottom I get toweled off dressed hoisted out of the shower chair and into my wheelchair. All of this usually takes roughly an hour. Nothing like the ten minute quick shower that I used to take at home.

The other concern is that CENA's are scheduled at just the level needed, no more. That would be fiscally imprudent. The work day of the CENA's is packed with lots of things to do, some of which can be planned for, like for example my shower days are Tuesday and Friday, during the first shift, but there may be from time to time when that schedule gets disrupted. A resident feels sick or ornery and their shower is rescheduled or skipped. If it is rescheduled that puts extra pressure on the other CENA's and the residents scheduled for showers at a later time.

It is an event when everything comes together and the shower actually is achieved. The rest of the day has a special sparkle to it. Today was a good day.