25 July 2013

Thursday

You done ea'in'?

Spoken quickly with little enunciation of consonants and run together as if the phrase was to have been spoken as one continuous set of vowel sounds. Yewduneden, with the slight uplift in tone that serves as an indicator of a question being asked, instead of a statement of fact.

U. Duneden. Never heard of it.

You duneden, related to the Brythonic Din Eidyn (meaning fort of Eidyn) which through some linguistic changes of successive languages eventually was usd to describe the place as Edwens burh (meaning the same hill fort only attributed in reverse order) Edwin's fort instead of the other way round “fort that belongs to Eidyn”. Over time and through the endless use without knowing the background, Din Eidyn became synonymous with what is now known as Edinburgh in Scotland. After people migrated they named new places with names familiar to them from their earlier placements. There became Dunedin, New Zealand and Dunedin, Florida …

But why would this woman with an African-American background be thrusting her head into my room to inquire of me about some ancient name for Edenburgh Scotland? Why not a newer , more familiar name from the early age of industrialization like Auld Reekie? And why would she ever think that I might hold some information regarding possible three citys or towns known as Dunedin?

Then I swallowed the chewed masticated entirely pulverized load in my mouth of sausages wrapped in toast, when it hit me, she was inquiring if I was finished eating my breakfast by now (which had been a very short amount of time since I had received it).

Ahhh, she was interested in discovering whether I was finished eating my breakfast as she was ready to reclaim my tray, if I was finished using it, yet. These CENAs have to get a lot done in a short time on their shift.

With a quick zip of my tongue through my mouth with a sweeping, raking motion to clear everything so I would not spray food when I spoke, I replied, “Nope”. I could have responded “Chan eil mi”. But I don't think she would have appreciated the irony of my comment.

24 July 2013

Wednesday

I was mistaken

When I first entered nursing care, I thought the program and the people would be doing their best to care for my needs. I find now that that's partially true. That is to say there is care for my needs - to a point. As long as my needs do not require more costs then has been budgeted by some administrator given too little money to facilitate my care. Basically it is an oxymoron of a situation. It is the best care for the least money, which in effect is not good care at all. The least money trumps every time.

I am constantly running into examples of how limiting this extra force can be. Many of the hands-on people who administer the actual physical care are trained well enough so as to be able to do the job. But often their attitude towards doing this job, working for this administration, and ability to show care and consideration for their residents under their care shows itself to be extremely lacking. Now, this is not an outright condemnation. There are several individuals who shine through the circumstances in which we meet. These people are gems. I wish there was some way that I could encourage them further. If only I was sought after for my opinion about some of the people who have contact with me, I'd put my $.02 in. Sadly, the value of my opinion is so lowly held that it is not sought out, or considered 2¢ worth. This is too bad. Who better than the resident who receives the care are able to rank the quality of said care? Admittedly, I have seen some short-term residents who are here for their recovery from surgeries or other short term care needs. Many of these people are not far removed enough from their previous lives to render an untainted free of past longing, type of evaluation. I have seen more people able to bitch, complain and make life miserable for the CENA help than anybody else. I have heard from these people more fowl language, cursing and swearing, obstinate behavior all directed at the very wrong people who are just trying to help them. This is not appropriate, I realize that these people are not happy and the CENA staff are the 1st to be available for them to vocalize in the extreme. But their unhappiness is aimed at the wrong people.

The first thing to remember is that there are appropriate people to answer for one's concerns.

For example, I happen to have celiac disease. This means I don't eat anything made from wheat or containing gluten. Now I would think that if somebody were making a wage in the kitchen that they might understand what this means, or at least the dietitian who was employed by this facility overseeing the meals being prepared in said kitchen. For the most part the kitchen crew has done well by me regarding this requirement. When they advertise some sort of breaded fish for a meal, I am served something else. In general they do a pretty good job of serving me a meal sans gluten. However, not every trial has been successful. On one occasion the desert was an apple cobbler. I examined the cobbler portion and wasn't too sure exactly what it was made of. Some of those flecks looked suspiciously like oats.

Now, as a long-term celiac (over 45 years now) I have learned how to be suspicious and read and gained a lot of information. If one were to consult books on the matter, oats do not contain any gluten to speak of. However in practical sense it is advised not to eat oats as they are often processed on the same machinery that processes wheat, which has a lot of gluten. There is such a thing called cross-contamination and the oats can carry gluten although it is externally acquired.

Back to the cobbler

I cautiously ate the cobbler. Within 4 to 5 hours I was beginning to experience the intestinal distress for which I am familiar from eating gluten contaminated food. All night long and the next day I had a very rumbly stomach, un-ease to the point of threatening a loose bowel accompanied by great eruptions of noxious gas. Okay, I got fooled. The trust of the professional staff turned to understand them according to the behavior they showed, they failed.

Two days later there was another dessert that was the same Apple cobbler, only this time the crumble topping was much thicker, adhered together much more strongly in my suspicions of a similar batch of the same desert from previously grew too large for me to ignore. It deftly took the spoon and peeled off the crumble topping, which came up in huge tile like sections, leaving cooked apples naked and thus edible.

Count one for my side of the division. This is just one example of how an eye must be kept on these rascals.

There are times when the public menu posted in the hall way of the day's meals never matches up with what I'm served. I assume in many cases this is due to the fact that fish is prepared breaded and is therefore not served to me. But events like yesterday really have me confused.

I am able to eat potatoes if they have not been adulterated with anything, as potatoes are basically a simple starch and contain no gluten. Yesterday for breakfast there were to be served some form of hash brown like potatoes (which I really like). My breakfast tray held nothing that could be mistaken for some form of fried potatoes. The lunch menu also stated that there would be baked potato wedges with spices. What appeared on my lunch tray was the ubiquitous lump of white stuff (most commonly known as instant mashed potatoes). It's not often that I feel gypped or is it the meals here deprive me (that's because they really do) but I really like hash browns and potatoes that had some caramelizing process applied to them. Here were 2 occasions that they publicly said what they were going to do and nothing even close was produced. Are these people not to be trusted on any level?

Today's lunch was some form of breaded fish, according to the CENA who brought my lunch, at least that's what all the other lunch trays that she was delivering had on them. My lunch looked like pieces of fried bread with a small piece of cheese hidden within them. Euphemistically called a grilled cheese sandwich. (Make no doubt the bread products but they serve me here are gluten-free and specifically made for celiac individuals like myself) how can I tell? Since the flour combination that is used for in baking gluten-free bread really misses the activation of gluten to hold the baked ingredients together, it often collapses on itself, much as a fallen soufflé might look.) The CENA thought this not to be right, there wasn't enough protein in this meal. She volunteered to call up the kitchen and ask/order up another grilled cheese sandwich for me. I indicated that if they were going to make another sandwich from scratch, could they slip in the middle along with the cheese a slice of meat and make a grilled ham and cheese sandwich?

They did! Which surprised me.

A couple of days ago one of the former residents here, came back for a visit along with her husband. They brought along a plastic bag with some of the produce from their garden this summer. There were 2 peppers, 3 cucumbers 2 jalapeno peppers and a tomato. I thanked them profusely and set the bag aside. After they had left one of the CENAs asked me what I was going to do with them? I replied wouldn't it be nice if I could send them down to the kitchen and have them make a really nice salad? She said that was a great idea and that she would call the kitchen and speak with the dietitian and asked if it could be done. That was last I ever heard of the project.

Two days later I have received no visit or comment from the kitchen. This morning I took out the vegetables and laid them out on the table that often holds my meals in order to take a photograph of these soon to be in the trash vegetables. Imagine my surprise when everything was there except the ripe, red tomato. Where did it go? How did the exit bag? Did somebody surreptitiously while I was sleeping liberate the tomato? I have been in this room ever since I received those vegetables, and nobody has touched or inquired as to what's in the bag. It's pretty hard to mistake a round, red, ripe tomato amongst all the green things that were in there.

One of the other CENAs mentioned sagely, that the kitchen might not want to have anything from outside, in their kitchen due to cross-contamination. While the argument does have some merit, I only had to laugh because according to the Apple cobbler incident, (mentioned above), the kitchen is more than capable cross contaminating on their own, they don't need any help from me.

The kitchen is run by a third-party company. Contracted by the facility owners to provide their food concerns. We had a meeting with them when they first came to the facility to take over the operations. They told us from here on things would be different. No more mystery meat, the protein product that is ground up so fine that one can ever tell what sort of meat it was to begin with. Then the ground meat product is formed into many different shapes. With this kind of ingredient the kitchen can put numerous products in and around this meat product and call the same meat different end results. For example when formed into “riblet” form it can be served with a tangy barbecue sauce and referred to as ribs, sort of the way Macdonald's does with ribs. When molded into round balls about the size of a quarter's diameter they can be served over noodles with marinara sauce and called spaghetti and meatballs. Or they can be served with a white sauce and various flavorings and referred to as beef stroganoff. Mystery meat is indeed a wondrous food ingredient. My concern, and that of many residents, is, “what is this crap?”

The new food service company indicated that there would be no more mystery meat. From now on we would have slices of real beef, slices of real turkey breast, ham, real (miniature sized) chicken breast and lots more fish. I've heard of tilapia, but I've never had it before, same for skia, but I have now. They're okay, I wouldn't cross town to get one at a restaurant, mind you. And those slices of beef – there are all brown all the way through. No redmeat excapes the kitchen's attention from here on out. Everything is cooked to well done, regaedless of flavor and texture loss – State law we were told.

The food service industry removed all snacks (which really meant crackers, which I couldn't eat) and they did away with the soda pop that we had available, ostensibly as it was not good for us. Well I can kind of agree with this as the soda pop that was available was all artificially sweetened soda, This way  we wouldn't drink so much as to ruin our teeth and incur even greater costs due to dental work. So I suppose from Medicaid's point of view that's a plus. In lieu of the soda pop, we were told with great fanfare that we get of all the water we wanted. Only 2 problems here. 1) the ice machines on both floors are always needing repair, meaning there is not always ice available. 2) the water that's available is city water, long known for its chemical additives and terrible taste. When I lived in Jackson before our house had its own well. The only time I experienced “city water” was when I went to visit my grandmother's house, in town. In the 40+ years that I've been gone from the city of Jackson, they have done nothing to improve the taste of that water. Now it is the only liquid of choice that I am able to utilize.

Of course if I had somebody who would bring in soda pop, fruit juice, iced tea mix, or any other liquid from the outside I would be free to be able to have that. However, I have no one on the outside, including my brother who lives 10 min. away, who would even bother to consider doing such a thing. So in another fact I am the downstream recipient of governmental largess as expressed through this facility, paid for by Medicaid, which insists on making me institutionally poverty-stricken, and provided for by a food preparation company that won the bid by being the cheapest operator available. Yay me! Things could be worse, although I would hate to consider such a possibility.

I try to look on the bright side, but it's awfully thin. When I lived on my own I used to get raw honey straight from the apiarist, excellent gluten-free bread already baked, frozen,and  delivered to my local health food store. I could order grain fed beef for not much more than my local grocery, frozen and shipped right to my door, on a weekly basis. I used to can and freeze all sorts of fruits and vegetables. I made my own ice cream and sherbet and have begun cooking using the sous vide method, I had begun dehydrating food and making fruit leathers. All of that is just memories and history now. Nobody here understands what I'm talking about when i mention these things.  They think they know how to cook. As far as I can tell what they know is blasphemy towards food.

The new food service company says that they will make soup from scratch, rather than open a can. That may be so but the only type of soup that I have seen is tomato, in spite of the publicly posted menu offering vegetable soup on one occasion and green pea soup on several others. Surprisingly, everything comes disguised as tomato soup. What the food does have In a lack of imagination and style of preparation it certainly adds to it in monotony and blandness. Both of which I've seen entirely too much of.

You may have seen in one of my earlier posts some pictures of several my meals, especially showing the ubiquitous hemisphere of white stuff. That, has not ceased. Several of my later pictures also feature the same loathed entrée. This new food service company indicates that we will no longer have over easy eggs, why? Because, we were told, in a condescending tone, that if the yoke is not cooked solid it may contain salmonella. Then the statement was backed up by that comment - state law. Which I find extremely cowardly and fallacious as I have seen restaurant advertisements featuring breakfast 24 hours day picturing lush, shiny over easy eggs whose yoke has not been molested by heat or scrambling, which this food service company delights in doing to eggs every morning. Oh well, at least they've gotten away from the previous company's penchant for serving “scrambled eggs”, which always looked suspiciously similar to dehydrated eggs, and have as much flavor too.

We may come to love each other, but I doubt it. To do so I would have to be reduced even further than I am now so that what they offer will look good to me. Those days may come, you never know, in the meantime I will celebrate in memory of good beef cooked rare or medium rare, chicken from the behind parts bearing dark meat and not everybody's favorite tasteless breast meat, or potatoes that have met with a skillet to dance through the oil wearing a dusting spices, or real whole fruit other than bananas, like oranges, apples, pears and maybe a rare peach or two. Living inside of a can does nothing for perfectly good fruit. Occasionally we get half a cup of fresh fruit usually consisting of 2 or 3 chunks of cantaloupe or honeydew melon occasionally a grape and a couple of sections of an orange that have been deprived of rind and neighboring sections. This is nanny food. I look forward to having some real food.

The usual breakfast under the new food service
(notice the overcooked fried eggs, the new over easy)

Old style Mystery Meatball (naked) along with the ubiquitous white stuff

Scene of the Crime - Topping scraped off the Apple Cobbler

A shot of the "Homemade" soup; Tomato, vegetable and Green pea
(surprisingly they have all looked and tasted like this tasty selection, amazing how they do that)

My fresh vegetable gifts (sans tomato)
I bet they would have tasted wonderful

A grilled cheese (only) on an MSU luncheon plate (spinach and white stuff)

 a 

Another protein laden lunch, beans and one (1) Tube steak

Another high volume lunch. This time the Tube Steak is split down the middle
Makes it look bigger that way. Eat hearty, now!

First Political statement putting glob of white stuff to good use

Although not large by any standard, this is the largest salad yet
Will wonders never cease?

Although the oil reflects the flash making the meal to appear greasy
this is actually one of the better breakfasts served.
Two new fried eggs, two pieces of toast, two fingers of sausage

An edition of the more commonly served salad.
Chunks of lettuce cut from a head of iceberg, half slices of cucumber and  half slices of tomato
and all the 7/16 of an ounce salad dressing that you can never hope to apply to the entire salad.

A Tuna fish salad Sandwich
(which I decided to eat with a spoon, scraping the tuna off the bread and leaving the slices to survive on their own)
There is so much about presentation to making food appealing, for some reason this does not approach that.

Advancing the form of political comment using the ubiquitous white stuff
This one is titled Planting Trees 

Last of the over easy fried eggs
(mourning is ongoing)

A rare delightful lunch featuring a tube steak, fresh frozen peas, and chunks of fried potato

A somewhat decent lunch (with the ever present white stuff overseeing the the steaks dressed
in celebratory regalia)

21 July 2013

Sunday

I haven't written in a while. It shows. Not only here on this blog listing, but also here from behind these eyes where I live. The only way I can type is with my computer on my chest ('cause I spend so much time in bed on my back) to type this way for too long is hard on my wrists. I used to dictate most of my writing as I did with my dissertation, but the other day when I pulled out the headset the computer wouldn't recognize any sounds from the microphone, probably a short, the headphone is of such high quality. It has dropped out sometimes in the past, but often a wiggle would put it back into play. Not last time. So I ordered a bluetooth type headset from Amazon.com. It's due here by Wednesday or Thursday. It's hard being effectively silent, I realize that there is not much that I can do. Not being able to write seems like a basic right is taken from me, Oh wait... it is. I'm so used to living the institutional live that it seemed just like the other things I have learned to do without. I still have a voice, I could scream to the heavens … what? Wait! That would mean that I have completely gone over, nope better to be silent, observe and be patient.

Till Wednesday, or Thursday ...

Dusk on the Waterfront, time to be still

While waiting, contemplate these two photos I found on the Internet
see the face in the door above? 

17 July 2013

Wednesday

10:00 AM

Its the small but obvious invisible little things that bring Life to life

Lying here in bed, which doubles as my study, business office, partial bathroom, dining area, and in general the place where I spend the predominance of my life anymore, I was idly thinking over local events and the similarities to my former life in the vertical world. I recognize that several of the CENA's here actually do like me. I can tell by the extras that can be seen in their communication. Most people don't realize there is more to communication than mere words. In fact those who study such things have found that using words only offers 22% of the activity of personal communication. Yep, less than one quarter of what we put out there is the stuff of dictionaries, our old high school English classes, all of those papers we had to produce, and the dreaded proper punctuation and approved written language formats we were continually cautioned to adhere to. Most of that was situational, driven by people who drew their paycheck by trying to enforce such restrictive styles on us. In many ways, they were successful – situationally.

In real life, that which we could hardly wait for, between classes in the hallway – we could relax talk with our friends, use slang to describe things, crack jokes, spread gossip, in short be real people, which we seemed to do natively without taking an assigned seat, raising one's hand and waiting (forever sometimes) to be acknowledged AND indoctrinated with those lifeless facts. Some people were always known for being able to always be there, bringing themselves more fully into the present and thus swaying others to interact with them. Sometimes this might even occur during class time, which usually didn't make them too very positive in the teacher's eyes.

When I was in college, while working on my Bachelors degree, I took an elective creative writing class. It was not related to any of the other classes as far as a declared major or minor was concerned. I was attracted by the title creative writing that attracted me so much. The first thing the instructor said was that we hadn't ever really learned to write truly as people actually are when they are being themselves, No we had been taught to use proper English as it is literally used, but very few people speak that way, what we had inadvertently learned was Engfish. Engfish, we were told, was a pseudo language that we learned for the purpose of writing papers to influence our teachers that we knew more than we actually did, and thereby get a better grade.

“It's insulting !” he bellowed in mock anger. “To your instructors it smacks of sucking up, much like a preadolescent speaking in the manner and stye of a Nobel Prize Winner while chewing gum and throwing in a few “ya knows' to move his presentation along. It speaks loudly of insincerity he sniffed while mocking disappointment.

The bulk of the intent of the class content was summed up in that demonstration/statement. Actors are better communicators than anyone, because they put everything into it. Tone of voice, pacing, inflection, accent, facial expression, filling the space with the whole of the body, gestures, coordinating all of this to come together in a complete package to deliver the entire message so there is no mistaking the content when it is delivered this way. If we had to continually add what we believed the content should be, or make accommodations for the actors, that minor bit of audience input separates us from losing ourselves to the story being presented.

Even a person delivering facts with none of the extra additions of fully being present comes across wooden and without presence, Al Gore is a good example here. Al seems to be a nice guy and he certainly knows his material, but coming close to the Pied Piper of Hamlin might be a stretch. If you want to convey and convince people there has to be a sense of someone there. Not very many people warm up to an encyclopedia or a text book very well.

Back to the CENA's; last night, just before the end of the second shift, one of the CENA staff who has taken care of me on several occasions, stopped by just before she was due off the floor. Every day as the CENA's come on to work and due to the fluctuating nature of the number of residents they have to work with, they divide the rooms (and thus the residents they will work with) so that the work load is not so lopsided. She had a few moments and every one was under control, so she stopped in to say hello, that she had seen me when I was up in the wheelchair earlier that day but she wasn't working with my part of the hallway so she couldn't stop to visit with me. She was really animated as she talked to me. She was concerned that I didn't feel that she was ignoring me. I assured her that I never considered that at all. At that point I realized that the were several CENA's who also could be standing in the same spot next to my bed saying exactly the same thing. They all exhibit similar characteristics. They bring themselves into the work they do, they make contact and don't give the impression that they are just doing their job. Some of the people here act as if they were afraid to show themselves in nearly every situation. Those are the ones who speak little, make minimal eye contact, seem to look right through you or just past you when they speak at you. These are the ones who take a message that you want some Excedrin for the headache you've got raging and thirty minutes later the nurse still hasn't arrived (the CENA 'forgot to deliver the message).That's when it gets aggravating being here, not able to do for myself what I have grown used to doing.

There are just enough events that impact me that are influenced by factors beyond my control, that can be really aggravating . It doesn't matter what I want or need, or even if I ask nicely or if I am told that the person will convey my my wishes or conduct the task needed in just a few minutes – if they are not fully here and make the commitment to follow through, I end up making excuses for them, accepting what ever reason they may give for not doing the task. Accepting mechanical apologies and being continually greathearted about continual non-accomplishment on the part of others wears at me. Its hard not to view such acts from a personal basis and begin viewing the whole thing as an affront.

It was delightful last night to see someone take the initiative on their own to make the contact with me because she really wanted to do so. I felt worthwhile and appreciated. These days, and around here this is a big deal.

This helps dealing with the institutionalized, dehumanizing conditions that seem to be built into places like this.

14 July 2013

Sunday late afternoon

Another example of how we are all connected:

but we just don't see it

Today is warm and very humid. ( 85 degrees, humidity is at 55%, feels like 90 degrees), yesterday, not so bad. It was still warm but not as humid. The staff decided that we could tolerate a little outside time out of the front door, under the awning that leads to the entrance. We were out of the sun and even though warm, not too many of us chair users were going to work up a sweat. It was nice to get outdoors for a while. The balmy breezes slipping over exposed skin with the light kiss that makes being inside four walls a distant memory.

Suddenly I was remembering early summer decades ago, sailing on a small inland lake, not far from here. A Sunfish wet sailer, low to the waterline, I was reading the wind on the lake ahead, steering out of the wind shadow toward the ruffles on the water. Feeling the breeze slip around me as the boat moved into the stronger wind. The boat picking up speed. Wondering is the wind really pushing the boat or is the act of the sail creating a slight vacuum on the forward part of the sail so the the wind is creating a suction which is really pulling the boat forward gently with a steady drawing motion. For a while I could imagine the wind flowing over the sail, only to curl back and move the boat as if with allure. I could almost hear the breeze beckon to the boat, “Come to the end of the lake, I have much to show you there.”

As the wind shifted slightly, like one would if they were anticipating something new and exciting coming up next, I could feel the boat begin to move forward, as if....

My reverie was interrupted by squabbling, not from the birds at the feeder, rather some of my cohorts clustered under the awning out of the sun. it seems that one person, bored as she is, habitually fills the gaps between the conversation of others with a play by play of everything going on around us. This running commentary has the same tone as the play by play announcers of some sporting event exhibits; blah, blah, blah, insert excited chatter here, blah, blah, Oh my God!!, even more over the top chatter, much as Chicken Little is known for.... blah, blah, blah

Suddenly from a stoic elder lady, who herself is using a wheelchair who erupts with, “Shut up!”

The one with verbal diarrhea cleverly comes back with, “Oh yeah, come make me.”

Oh boy, of all the words to pick, the mouth flapper reaches way down into the second grade school yard repertoire and fwtches up that one.

Oh well, simultaneously another woman who is in her early nineties, is very hard of hearing and mostly spends her entire day in her wheelchair is carrying on a running monologue with someone from years ago, that we will never know. I say monologue because her silent partner is never interacted with. All we get to see is how angry our compatriot is as she hurls invectives at the unseen foe. Complete with bursts of bravado and promises of getting even. Threats spew forth from the diminutive, frail woman bent on revenge.

Someone else assumes the two who first began the verbal aggression were in some way making statements to and about the ninety year old who is now shouting to the heavens, in her thin voice that she will have retribution. This crowd quieter misses the point by explaining the ninety year old doesn't mean anything by all of this, she's nuts! She isn't talking to them anyway.

At this extra input the two would be wheelchair pugilists suddenly join forces and tell the crowd quieter to butt out, its none of her business anyway. 9With all of this shouting, how could it not be?) Yet another resident tries to explain that the crowd quieter was mistaken and she was only trying to help. Soon everyone is in the melee trying to put their version onto why this has erupted. Asi said, squabbling, plain and simple.

Me? I'm pleasantly staying clear of this, wondering if the uproar might calm down once I get back into the building, hopefully to my room? Oh well, for a while, I enjoyed being out of the room all day. A small while. It just couldn't last. Everyone forgot why we were there. I am not too sure how long the effect will last. Maybe next time I will load the iPod with some easy laid back classical music, stash it in my pocket, put the earbuds in my ears and enjoy the outdoors under cover of polite sonic conditions.

I dunno, could work.

No picture today. I had my camera, but I was told the facility's interpretation of HIPPA laws preeclude such actions.

9 July 2013

Tuesday

There is cooking, coupled with the art of presentation,

and then there is calorie loading

Every time a meal is brought forth it is brought on the same pink plastic tray with the same drab gray heavy duty plastic place settings, so utilitarian, so unbreakable. The flatware is metal (oh boy, at least it too is not plastic)of an entirely ugly, stamped by machine manufacture. I suppose the cups are made of this unbreakable substance to prevent breakage. 

  

Forgive the focus, I had to crop extensively in order to delete offensive - distracting  background

Lord knows I have been tempted many times to hurl one of these cups against the wall just on general principles and frustration regarding the food. But the unbreakable nature of these finely crafted heirloom quality cups just leer at me knowing that any such demonstration would only result in a hollow sounding bounce off the wall. Not very expressive and certainly without the satisfying crash that fine bone china or even some ceramic pottery would afford.

I am reminded of those halcyon days when as boys we came across bottles in an old open dump (My, that was a long time ago. Things are much different now). We would take turns throwing objects to break the bottles we found there. Even when going to the municipal recycling center, everyone else genteelly placed their glass in the open doors of the receptacle. That would be so sad. I would wait so no one would be struck by errant flying glass bits. Then draw back my arm and wing one in the opening. Crash! 

Followed by the sound of other glass that was not broken finding a new state of existence. The sound of that breakage carried with it a sense of sudden release. All tensions immediately drain away. No, draining is too slow to convey the sudden absence of that held tension. It is as if whatever was confining that tautly, tightly wound energy was completely removed in an instant. In a flash that energy that had been so constrained made an explosive sigh upon finding itself released. That sound of release carried with it an invitation to let other tightly held energy go.

When I used to do psychotherapy, I kept a large rubber ball in my office. This was 65cm diameter ball, very resilient, and is often used for physiotherapy. I kept it to occasionally roll on between clients to stretch my back from hours of sitting while in session with clients. I also kept a toy plastic ball bat to hit the ball. This was also a tool to help clients release some of the tightly wound tensions that many clients would carry in their bodies. Some people had been holding this tension for so long, they had become quite used to it. They couldn't feel it, they had no idea they had become so blocked up inside.

I would offer them an opportunity whack the ball. That it might help them relieve some tension. I got the ball out from behind the chair, put it in the chair, so it would stay fairly self contained, ready to whack again. Sometimes people were shy and would barely tap the ball, sometimes I would demonstrate how hard one could really hit that ball. The sound of the impact resounding inside that ball was reinforcing that something was really happening, the recoil of the bat from the ball was reassuring that something was indeed happening. Most often, in fact always, after a few tentative hits the next ones were quite explosive. There were a few clients who really got into the process, their frequency of striking the ball would increase, the amount of energy expended rose, a few got so into it that for a moment they temporarily lost track of where they were. They stopped red faced and somewhat chagrinned. When we spoke about it later, during de-breifing they were so surprised that they found that they indeed were not aware of how much pent up rage, tension, upset or other bottled up emotions they had been holding.

I need something like that. Due to the MS there are many physical things that I can no longer do that were good at relieving stress and tension. To throw something(unbreakable, of course). Like pillows, water balloons outside, to even play balloon volleyball with badminton rackets … There are many ways I know to release some frustrations that I know of that can be done even by those who use wheelchairs.

I mention these to the staff here and I am met with incredulousness on their part. Obviously, I am met with, “Well we can't do that here. Its too violent.”

“Right, and letting it fester in people is any better?” After all we know that holding this stuff in raises cholesterol, which has the nasty habit of breaking down organs and tissues over time.

“If you are feeling depressed, we can get you a pill.”

“No, no pharmaceuticals. That is just a chemical straight jacket.”

“What do you mean? Do you want to see a social worker?”

“I know several Social Workers, no denigration intended, but I could teach most social workers, things their programs never considered.”

“Okay, let me know if you ever want to break things,Mr. Whiting ...”

Why is it that I often feel like Gulliver lost in the land of Lilliput? Is it possible to know too much? How do you speak intelligently with those who already believe they know enough already? Or speak with those who believe they heard you before you even speak the words? Is it any wonder that I see so many people who are not exhibiting stroke symptoms but are in facilities like this one for short term rehab before they go home who develop signs of depression? Its kind of like an educated lunacy.

You can't codify human behavior, that always leaves something out. Human behavior must be felt then understood from that premise. Someday those in power of this insanity are going to realize the treating/caring for people is going to mean more than a physical form but also an emotional, psychosocial approach integrated into the daily interaction as well.

I daydream of some of the tea that I made at home. Steam curling up from the surface of the liquid as the tea gently steeped into perfection. Watching the liquid turning darker and darker as the near boiling water caused the flavenoids to leave the tea leaves to lend their unique addition to the body of the tea. Waiting for the appropriate time to steep for the fullness of flavor to develop. Smelling the aroma of the pine smoke issue from the tea along with the aforementioned steam rising from the surface of the gradually developing tea. Smelling that smokey odor knowing that soon the pan fired black tea that can only be Lapsang Souchong, smooth, strong, a favorite of Winston Churchill and Whaling Captains of New England. I love that tea. 

It does no good to get the dries tea itself, the difficulty is being able to secure hot enough water in order to make the tea.

But here in a land where some one else seems to have the need to take care of me, they believe that whatever their understanding is of the world must be mine as well. I am appalled at the things that are done, while here, are thought to be for my best interest, with no input from me whatsoever.

Tea here is made with lukewarm water, barely warmer than body temperature. Well, that isn't going to make tea, it only produces colored water. Remember those flavenoids? They're still stuck in the tea leaves – the water was never hot enough to release those flavenoids and actually cause tea to form. Why is this so? Why, State law, I am told, we don't want you to get burned. Okay here is some really fine tea, take it to the kitchen and have them brew it. Bring it out when it cools enough so even the State won't get burned.

“Oh we can't do that, takes too much time.”

“You mean those kitchen monkeys are so busy preparing the pseudo food we are served to make a decent cup of tea? Are these people incompetent?” Don't answer that, I think I already know the answer. For proof see some of the previous posts showing food serving photos.So here I am, frustrated as I ever have been, with no end in sight. No way to spill the pent up frustrations, no one willing to even explore various methods of known stress relief, judgement flying everywhere about some of the ideas I bring up to alleviate the routine boredom of being confined here. And yet I need the physical help to do some of the Activities of Daily Living. Life in a Nursing home seems to be the only option, and that comes with a big requirement. That I become more communal. That my way of being is not honored or even understood, and that I stoop to living at the lowest common denominator.

Oh, and for this privilege, I get to turn over my entire retirement stipend that I worked for seventeen years before I went for more schooling. Sounds like a deal to me, right?

8 July 2013

Monday

Not all of the craziness is due to adherence to rules:

Following Alice, but watch out! The Red Queen may be just around the corner

As much as I may rail against some of the rules of operation around here, some of the residents are worth watching for adding their own form of insanity. There was a gentleman here (he's not any more – moved to another placement.) who has shown many disruptive and/or highly offputting behaviors. He uses a wheelchair for most of his mobility, although he can get out of the chair and stand or take a few steps without support. I would first see him down stairs in the lobby, travelling as if he was on a mission. He often had a disheveled look to him that lent an air of some urgency to his appearance. He would have an oxygen tank affixed to the back of his chair with the usual fixture of an oxygen airline leading to thefront of his body. The airline had a cannula built in that most often was never sited properly on his face. Many times the whole contraption was just looped around his neck or even properly over his ears but with the outlets missing his nostrils completely. Sometimes he would have it in the right position but with the outlet for the left nostril shifted over and entering the right nostril and the right output airing his cheek. This made him appear particularly zany.

As he became familiar with my presence around the building, he began to try to interact minimally with me. Like asking if I had a cigarette? He really wanted to have a cigarette. On another occasion he asked if he could borrow ten dollars – he really wanted a cigarette. Eventually he would learn my name, then he would state my name before asking for a cigarette. I produced no cigarettes for him. There are none allowed in this building.

He also could often be found in the day room carrying on with one of the female residents. At first the carrying on appeared to be very similar to early high school behavior. They were often huddled at one table in the corner, holding hands, talking among themselves. He seemed to be the initiator, she seemed to enjoy the attention, but appeared to be somewhat reluctantly going along.

After watching this a while it was easy to notice he called her by one name that had the same initial consonant as her own name. He never seemed to get it right, no mater how many times she or the CENA's would correct him.

He began entering my room uninvited and unannounced. The method of operation around her is to first knock if the door you want to enter is closed. Not our boy. Several times he came round while my door was closed, and just barge in. The door would suddenly fly open and Mr.Inapproprate would partially enter and look very surprized. He would ask if I had a refrigerator, then leave. Twice he came insearch of the illusionary refrigerator. Once he asked for somone whose name I could not figure out. When he spoke it sounded as if he had stones in his mouth, so trying to understand what he was trying to say was often difficult.

The last time I saw him he paid me a ten PM visit. The door exploded open, this time he rolled right in and didn't stop coming on. I strongly said that he didn't belong here. By now he was getting quite a reputation for Exploring in many people's rooms, often when they weren't there. The staff had been alerted to keep a watch out for him due to this “exploring” tendency he exhibited. As he grew closer to my bed, he said that he had to use my bathroom. There is a bathroom off my room, but he wasn;t headed for that. He was making for the commode that I have to use. It is like an adult potty stool. It sits right out in the open in my room and has to be emptied and cleaned after each use. Clyde Crashcup is intent on using my facility, which is less than four feet from my head. He stands up in front of my elimination device and whips 'er out and proceeds to urinate into the bucket just feet from my face. I reach for and press the call light, but the CENA arrives as he is making his way down the hall after struggling to exit my room.

At least he closed the door.

I think what I have been seeing is the results of some kind of brain damage, possibly hippocampus. That's the way the clues point.

Its a special community here, in Bedlam... and to think, I can't just leave whenever I want. The only way I can get the solitude that serves my introvert needs is to close my eyes and“hideout”under my headphones, while trying not to worry as to the next crazy intruder.

Have fun, its a laugh riot here.