I Was Terrified of Alzheimer’s – One Nurse’s Journey Back to Compassion – Part 2

MIDWAY – 2007

I slowed down, grew up, and lived the next 20 years in the big city. I happily gained nursing experience in mental health, home care, and physical rehab.

I had effectively turned my back on all those “poor people” with Alzheimer’s. If I couldn’t see them, they weren’t there. Right? Wrong. Not exactly a “grown-up” thought.

When I found myself pregnant, the nesting instinct flew me across the country to a prairie town. Money (or lack of) brought me to the doors of a nursing home (aka residential long-term care).

For a nurse, this was the only game in town. Part of the deal, of course, was to work in their Alzheimer’s unit.

A part of me wanted to throw my stethoscope in a ditch and walk.

Not an option. I had a family to support.

Day 1 – 

I stepped through the doors of the very locked unit. The smell of this place was just like the last. Even the tomato soup. I swear it was following me.

Everything felt the same. Yet it was not. Not quite.

Gone was the primal, desperate screaming. It was replaced by occasional yelling and swearing at no one in particular but to everyone in general. Frank Sinatra’s crooning filled the space in between.

The sterile walls had morphed into soft blue and captured happy horse and dog paintings (safely out of reach, of course).

People in baggy, shaggy clothes walked aimlessly up and down the one and only hallway, their eyes bleary and downcast, muttering to a person unseen.

Staring at them, it dawned on me that these shuffling people were the actual “residents” (and not “patients”).

I suddenly became that 21-year-old nurse again – frozen and silent. The guilt grabbed me hard. I was sure that these souls would look up and see me. Really see me. And probably punch me. In the face. Hard. For being such a cowardly nurse.

My heart pounded. I felt petrified.

“Good morning! You must be the new gal in town. I’m Molly, your tour guide,” said a cheerful voice from behind. She was tiny, but her smile was crazy big. With a rush of relief, I snapped out of then and back to now.

Nurse Molly gave the welcome aboard tour. She was the boss, captain, and BFF to these beleaguered souls. We walked the hallway, looking into the rooms for residents.

Not a single person was tied to their bed…some to their wheelchairs, but not to their bed. Wow.

She introduced each resident by name, touching them as a good friend would, sharing with me a special slice of their life, a smile never far from her mouth.

“Lily here wrote a book on women’s rights, a real “badass” in her time.

This old fox (John) won top awards for ballroom dancing; hey, twinkle toes?

Marty here was a pilot in WW2 and is an absolute whiz in math – he was a university professor. What a smarty pants!”

I honestly don’t know if Lily, John, or Marty understood a word, but they all returned Molly’s smile. Their brain might have been on a slippery slope downward, but it looked like their heart was fully intact.

This blew my mind. My heart slowed, and my breath returned.

The dedicated, exhausted staff came forward, smiled, and shook my hand. I liked them – pretty much instantly.

When I finally walked out for the day, careful to look behind me (lest Lily, the badass, made a run for it) – I felt the darkness lifting ever so slightly. Could I navigate my way to that island of smiling people?

Month 1 

The first few weeks were brutal. Molly, my beacon, left me. She had rotated onto another unit.

Residents often could not or did not cooperate with my best intentions.

My primary duties seemed simple enough- to give medication and to change dressings as needed.

Giving medications was anything but simple. It was downright daunting.

I struggled to remember names. Asking residents who they were was like a crap shoot, with the odds stacked against me. Frequently, I was met with stares, glares, or both. They did not know me. Name bands were torn off or worn off. Looking for names displayed outside of bedrooms was also a shaky affair.

Many simply slept in the wrong bed.

When I stood at my medication cart, I was repeatedly swarmed. Residents leaned in, surrounding my cart. They came seeking directions to their house, to ask if the bar was open, to ask for sanitary napkins, or to tell me about their mother. Or to simply steal my paper cups.

 

 

Anxiety was a close companion these first few weeks.

I often struggled to focus and to think straight. My head commonly swam without a lifejacket.

I became terrified of delivering the wrong drugs into the wrong mouth.

“As horrible as it was, at least when patients were tied to their beds, I knew who they were and where they were, ” I would desperately think, my guts twisting.

Despite being a certified “grown-up” and having loads of nursing experience, I felt I had zero control.

It did not matter how many times I corrected these residents: that this was their new home, there was no bar, that they stopped menstruating 45 years ago, that their mother was dead, or that the cups were mine – it had no effect.

I could see I only made things worse. These people I was trying so hard to help – became angry and agitated with me.

I could not see my way out. I had once again slipped into bad nurse mode.

Molly and Humble Pie

During a coffee break, when Molly asked how it was going, I told her the truth.

That it was going horribly, that I was embarrassed, and that maybe I should be a hairdresser instead. I could give her a haircut. For free.

Molly smiled at me, compassion plain to see.

She offered help, and I accepted.