Not the grey rapture everyone is reading but the other one where all us saints ascend into the great but glorious "Above".
I must be going there because I've been to hell. It's full of little old ladies with a multitude of personalities that take turns. Sweet one minute, Chucky the next. Speaking of Chucky that doll I'm dressing is turning into Bride of Chucky. While I was updoing the hair this afternoon, its arm fell off and I spent the next hour sewing it back into the rubbish stuffing of the upper bit and ended up glueing the damn thing in.
Little old ladies, you've heard the tales of Annie Joyce and Eva, henceforth to be known as Butch and Sundance. Mother is not well, she's in pain in the spine, goddess knows why, she's taking enough painkiller to knock out Black Caviar so I go down dragging sundries she needs.
Quiet afternoon until Butch and Sundance decide to make a break for it. There are three doors to get through and one has to be unlocked by a code.
'Can you reach the handle?'
'No.'
'If we could just reach the handle I could help you across the road'
'But I'm not going across the road, I'm going to the bus stop'
'But you have to cross the road for that unless you're going the other way'
'You don't have to look out for me, you've got further to go'
'No I haven't'
'You don't know where I'm going so how do you know you haven't got further'
(let me interrupt and tell you why they can't reach the handle. Both of them have their walkers in front of them, between the door and the handle)
'Are you sure you can't reach the handle?'
'No.'
'If we could just get the door open, we'd be on our way home'
'Well we can't reach the handle'
'If we go round the corner where the window is (nurses' station) we can go down the stairs (concrete floor) and come up the other side and we wouldn't need the handle'.
Butch and Sundance turn their walkers in synch like cheer leaders at a football match and make for the stairs.
Half way there, Sundance comes to a dead stop, 'where's my bag?'
Butch denies having seen it.
They both agree it must be down the stairs on the other side of the door.
Slightly further on.
'I could do with a cuppa'
'Is it tea time?'
'We could go and find out if we don't go down the stairs'
'The tearoom is better on this floor'
'Oh well, if you say it is, I wouldn't know about the tearoom downstairs'.
My mother can't hear a word of this and can't understand why I'm sprawled across the table trying not to laugh out loud. I wouldn't dare laugh anywhere near them, they'd have me run down in a minute flat or ten.
Don't bother leaving comments about how unkind I am, it's the only laugh these two have given me since they arrived.
12 comments:
I"m with you all the way. I work at a residence for Alzheimer's. One old man spends hours in front of the mirror talking to his 'brother'. Another old lady approaches the nursing station like it's the reception desk at a five star hotel. She needs to know what time the next bus to the airport will be. Yes, we laugh on the other side of our hands. Dotson.
I don't think you are at all unkind. You take your laughs where you can get them. I tend to think that if someone is laughing at me, at least they're leaving someone else alone.
Unkind? Not at all. Aware of the absurdity of life - which is probably the only thing which keeps you out of the funny farm some days. Well it is for me.
My friend's father who died recently was in a nursing home. While he was having lunch, they moved all his things from his low care room to a high care room on a different floor. He did not even notice. Kind of sounds like a nice state of mind to be in.
Unkind? No way. They're being cared for, they're safe and with zimmer frames, the world (of the home) is pretty much their oyster.
Hi. Having a bet for you: Ethiopia. As a boy I was sent to place bets with an SP. It was a little terrace house, front veranda, curtained window up a few inches, I put the money and note through the gap and a minute later a hand appeared with the betting slip. I never saw him, the bookie. Oh my goodness, the old days.
-Robert.
It finished last, dead last.
That's the punt for you.
Racehorse one day, pet food the next.
-Robert.
(50 cents down the drain)
fabulous post dear Coppy.
re pain. and morphia.:
a person in tremendous pain CANNOT form a mental 'need' for anything. a person stoked to the eyeballs on dope CANNOT form a mental 'need' for anything.
think it through.
People on the way out do not need to play cut-outs and make their unwell child endure travel to deliver the furnishings.
just sayin.
O' Mother high
Mother a steeple
Strife confined
To other people.
-Rochester.
Really these are the lucky ones, they've crossed over to NeverNever land. It's the poor dears who still remember a little bit and try to hold on to everything.
River, Sundance grabbed one of our 94 year old volunteers the other days and wouldn't let go. She said she'd stolen her trolley and she made bruises.
EC, Wasn't it Shakespeare who said, 'And if I laugh tis that I may not cry' and he's so right.
Andrew, there's a line that gets crossed and all is sweet. My very much younger cousin has alzheimer's and it's progressed so rapidly she barely knows what eating is.
Kath, they can be vicious with those damn walkers, your feet are fair game and to see two of them walker to walker and neither giving an inch is better than a Clint Eastwood standoff.
RH, I was lookout for my Dad when he set up in the loungeroom, which wasn't often. He got done for SP for the one time he actually was innocent. He was greatly offended when the Magistrate said he was the worst liar he'd seen all day.
I didn't even look at the field and being witchy and halloween I would have gone for Green Moon, but that's life.
Stacks, I'd agree with you but I had to see for myself and she had some fun looking at the cards, kept one or two and I've bought the rest home. She won't be needing them.
And so sayeth Rochester.
In the last couple of months I've done the High Care Home Visit thing and now I understand your posts better! Unfortunately Dad didn't live very long once at the home but that was because my mum was so good at keeping him at home until the Nth hour.
Helen, so sorry to hear that. My mum's flourished at this little place but I haven't. Annie Joyce was trying the door again today and saying she sees people coming in but not going out so the place must be bursting at the seams so if she went, there'd be more room. I was on the phone and calling a cab before she started on me stealing her bed.
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