Total Perspective Vortex
What really happened to Trillian? Theories abound, but you can see what she's really been up to on this blog. If you're looking for white mice, depressed robots, or the occasional Pan Galactic Gargleblaster you might be better served here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/guide/.
Don't just sit there angry and ranting, do something constructive.
In the words of Patti Smith (all hail Sister Patti): People have the power.
Contact your elected officials.
Don't be passive = get involved = make a difference.
Words are cool.
The English language is complex, stupid, illogical, confounding, brilliant, beautiful, and fascinating.
Every now and then a word presents itself that typifies all the maddeningly gorgeousness of language. They're the words that give you pause for thought. "Who came up with that word? That's an interesting string of letters." Their beauty doesn't lie in their definition (although that can play a role). It's also not in their onomatopoeia, though that, too, can play a role. Their beauty is in the way their letters combine - the visual poetry of words - and/or the way they sound when spoken. We talk a lot about music we like to hear and art we like to see, so let's all hail the unsung heroes of communication, poetry and life: Words.
Here are some I like. (Not because of their definition.)
Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Smart Girls
(A Trillian de-composition, to the tune of Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys)
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Smart girls ain’t easy to love and they’re above playing games
And they’d rather read a book than subvert themselves
Kafka, Beethoven and foreign movies
And each night alone with her cat
And they won’t understand her and she won’t die young
She’ll probably just wither away
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
A smart girl loves creaky old libraries and lively debates
Exploring the world and art and witty reparteé
Men who don’t know her won’t like her and those who do
Sometimes won’t know how to take her
She’s rarely wrong but in desperation will play dumb
Because men hate that she’s always right
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Life(?) of Trillian
Single/Zero
Thursday, July 24, 2008
My dad is in a nursing home. Which sucks. If you have experienced nursing homes I know I don’t need to explain anything. I know you know. If you haven’t experienced nursing homes consider yourself lucky and strive to remain blissfully ignorant. My dad’s been in two different nursing homes thus far. The current one sucks slightly less than the first. But that’s not saying much. And, for the record, both of these nursing homes have the reputation of being “good.” There are long waiting lists for both places because of their “good” reputation. My dad was bumped up on the list for the second nursing home because of the elite status of his team of doctors and their personal involvement and insistence with the “nursing home community.” My dad is lucky. He has great doctors who truly want him to have the best care and most comfortable environment possible. My dad has advocates within the system. He’s a lucky, lucky man. So I shouldn’t complain. But I will. Because in spite of all his luck and all the help from great doctors, the fact remains: Nursing homes suck. We, as a society and as individuals, should be ashamed that we allow these places to exist.
Is my dad getting the care he needs? Well. Yes. And no. If family and friends aren’t there to “supervise” the situation there is a sudden and scary decline in his care. I believe the term is: Neglect. To the point that in the first nursing home he wasn’t given all of his medications, was not given the specific diet prescribed by his doctors, and, even though he was prescribed and scheduled to have speech therapy five days a week, three minimum, he never had speech therapy. When I badgered the doctor “in charge” about it he simply shrugged and said, “The therapist we use is on vacation.” Reminder: This is a “good” nursing home. I called his doctors, told them my dad wasn’t getting his medications, proper diet or speech therapy, they intervened and got him moved to the head of the list at the other “good” facility. I asked the doctors how the first nursing home can get away with such gross disregard for their patients’ needs. I didn’t get an answer.
Days passed and my dad declined further. My mother and I knew something was very wrong, even more wrong, with my dad. He was swollen like a puffer fish and was sleeping in a near comatose state for prolonged periods of time. We begged the staff, the nurse, the doctor, everyone at the nursing home to look at him because something was obviously very wrong. They sent a social worker who patted my arm and said, “Honey, it’s difficult to accept our loved ones’ decline, but you’re not doing him any favors. You need to accept and let him go.”
I let him go, all right, I let him go in an ambulance to an emergency room to get proper health care. Turns out he was doped up on Ambien. No, my father was not prescribed Ambien. No, my father does not have sleeping problems. No, my father is not in need of sedation.
After a detour through another hospital emergency room and another week-long stay in another hospital, my dad landed in nursing home B. Which is better, but still sucky.
Could we bring legal action to nursing home A? Probably. But we’ve learned, via my parents’ family friend and lawyer, that cases against nursing homes are so common and so rarely reach any kind of settlement that it’s not worth it to pursue any charges. When patients are so ill they need to be admitted to a nursing home it's kind of difficult to argue that more or better care would have really helped.
Drugging patients with heavy sleep medication is apparently very common in nursing homes. And yes, I understand, many patients have run out of medical options other than just trying to keep them comfortable. I get that. I understand. None of us would choose a state of near constant zombie-fied drooling sedation in a smelly, horrible chamber of death. But, when the medical community runs out of viable options and yet the body won’t give up, there’s a valid case to be made for “keeping them comfortable.” And I realize, sadly, there are many, many people in this situation. To wit: The pages long waiting list for the two “good” nursing homes, and scarily, the waiting lists at the less reputable nursing homes.
But there are patients who haven't reached the “just keep them comfortable” stage, yet. My dad is too “unwell” to go home, but too well to be sedated and neglected. He’s in a sort of healthcare no man’s land. And what I’ve learned is that a lot of people find themselves in that situation. And the solution is: A nursing home. Or, rather, a wing of a nursing home which is designated “rehab.”
While both nursing homes we’ve experienced apply the optimistic term “rehab” to a wing (read: a sign stating "rehab" in an otherwise identical hallway), the fact is that it’s the same staff, same doctors and same care mentality as the rest of the “normal” nursing home. The only difference is that physical, speech and occupational therapists make visits to the rehab wing.
Some people make it out of the special hallway, but during my dad’s stay in both facilities (a term I absolutely hate. Facility. blaaghch) I’ve witnessed more people “progress” to the "last" hallway than out the front door to their homes.
On the rare occasions someone does make it out alive it’s cause for great celebration among their family and much longing and depression in the patients left behind. But they’re held up like Olympic champions in the rehab hallway. “Mable did it! She got out! I knew with that hip replacement she’d be out of here in no time.” “I didn’t give old Harry much chance of making it out, he had a bad fall last week, but by golly he got out yesterday!” “Hey, there goes Bob, boy look at him go! Hey, McBreezy, put on a longer gown, would ya?! Har har, he’ll be out of here in a week, I bet.”
Unfortunately the humbling specter of a patient being wheeled in their gurney bed to a normal or "last" wing is far more common than the triumphant victory lap down the hallway and out the front door.
Throughout this ordeal I’ve met a lot of people. Made a lot of phone calls. And still ended up: Nowhere. When I talk to people, ask for advice, beg for help (mercy), or point out obvious failures, everyone, from doctors to friends and neighbors all respond with the exact same response. They close their eyes in painful despair, sigh, put their hand on my shoulder, give me a sympathetic look of understanding and say, “I know. I went through this with my own mother/father/spouse/whomever. I’m so sorry. It’s so unfair. No one deserves this, especially not your dad and your family. I’m so sorry.” By then there are tears streaming down their face and I get a hug and a squeeze of my hand followed by, “I’m praying for you.”
There’s nothing else to do or say. To the religious faithful there’s nothing to do but pray and put it in God’s hands. Which to me translates to: You’re fucked. When Gods are being called upon it’s time to admit defeat.
Don’t worry, I keep that sentiment to myself. And I have vowed to remain optimistic until the bitter end. I cling to slivers of hope. Yes, I know. Where there’s unrealistic hope there’s faith. I know. And you know what? If God wants to chooseth this opportunity to maketh Himself knowneth unto me and mine eyes, fine by me. I’ll happily accept and embraceth any and all divine miracles. I’m open. I’m willing. I want to believe. It would make things sooooo much easier. Just letting go and letting God is such an easy way to coast through life. Got a problem? Can’t come up with a solution? Don’t bother with learning or creativity, just shrug, say a prayer and say, “It’s in God’s hands.” Sad and lonely? Har, har, not if you’re in with God. You’re never alone! God and/or Jesus and depending on your religion, perhaps an entire cast of saints or other Gods are always with you! Always!
I know. I should mocketh not. I know. The more I mocketh, the less likelyeth a divine visiteth will occur.
My parents are among the faithful followers. And I respect them for that. And I feel bad that I can’t embrace religion the way they do. (Though let’s be realistic here, my parents are good, decent human beings and if anyone deserves to sit at a hand of Christ or even God it’s them. But. They’re not stupid. And they have senses of humor. And unless my mother had a visit from a messenger from Hell before I was born and hasn’t mentioned it to anyone, I have their DNA and went to their churches and their schools and live by their ethics and morals, so...you know. I’m just saying. It’s not entirely my fault that I question the existence of a supreme creator.) But, I respect their beliefs and their faith. In fact my dad is getting a lot of comfort and inspiration from a Bible on CD series I found for him. He has a mini boom box which plays the CDs.
The comical problem is that he can’t quite handle the buttons which let him forward through the tracks, so he ends up listening to the same books of the Bible, in order, every day. He’s becoming quite a Matthew and Mark scholar. It was comical when he was covering the Old Testament - all that begetting and commanding and Hellstorming being read in a Reverend Lovejoy voice over cheap tinny micro boom box speakers had a certain End of Days feel to it.
If a visitor stops in my dad attempts to turn off the boom box. But more often that not he hits the volume button. So the scripture blares even louder and more tinny from his itty bitty boom box, while the guest tries to make small talk with him. “Oh say, I ran into Bill Carson the other day, he just got back from visiting his daughter in Arizona.’In the place where they kill the burnt offering shall they kill the trespass offering: and the blood thereof shall he sprinkle round about upon the altar.’ Do you know she and her new husband have six children between them and now she’s pregnant?! 'And the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them, which is by the flanks, and the caul that is above the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away:’ Bill said he couldn’t handle all the commotion. She wants him to visit again after the baby’s born but he said he’s not sure he’s up to it. ‘Every male among the priests shall eat thereof: it shall be eaten in the holy place: it is most holy.’ They stopped construction on that new subdivision behind the lake. ‘And if thou sell ought unto thy neighbor, or buyest ought of thy neighbor hand, ye shall not oppress one another’Can’t give away a house these days, no one’s buying. ‘According to the multitude of years thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of years thou shalt diminish the price of it: for according to the number of the years of the fruits doth he sell unto thee.’We’re thankful we downsized last year, Hazel wanted to wait but boy is she glad we sold when we did.’And the land shall yield her fruit, and he shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety.’ Well, keep up the good work, I gotta pick up the groceries and get home before Hazel calls out a search party for me. Bye now, take care!”
I can’t wait until he reaches Revelation. That’ll be fun. Although after one day in a nursing home it feels like it’s the end of days.
What’s appalling is that it’s apparently universally known that nursing homes suck, universally acknowledged that there are several daily healthcare infractions, violations of laws and trust, and yet nothing changes.
Way back when I was a little girl my gran broke her hip. Those were in the days when breaking a hip was effectively The End. Broken hips were terminal. My parents tried to take care of her in our home, but it got to be too much, too difficult for my gran. It became obvious she needed more care than my parents (and us kids) could give her. So, after agonizing over the decision, she spent a month in a nursing home. I was a kid, a little kid, but even I knew my parents were struggling with The Decision. My gran wanted it, she tried to absolve them of guilt, but, there’s no way to not feel horrible about having a loved one in a nursing home. Fortunately, testimony to my gran’s determination, she survived the broken hip, the nursing home and eventually returned to her own home.
But. Those weeks in the nursing home were nightmarish. I kept begging my mother to take me to visit her. My mother didn’t want to subject me to the nursing home and kept telling me that my gran was resting and that a bunch of kids at school were sick and I shouldn’t be around my gran because she might catch a cold from me. So I sent daily artwork to her via my parents. Then I got smart. Or so I thought. I made my gran a card, folded it up and put it in a sealed envelope so my parents couldn’t see it. The front of the card featured an illustration of my gran and I having a slumber party. The inside of the card featured me with a big tear on my face and in little kid handwriting, “I miss you. Mum says I’ll make you sick.”
My mother picked me up from school the next day and drove directly to the nursing home. She didn’t say a word. Not one word. Nothing. Now, as an adult, I’m sure she was thinking something along the lines of, “Okay, okay, that’s how you’re going to play? You want to manipulate emotions? Fine. Fine. I’ll take you to the nursing home. Oh yes, I’ll take you there. But don’t come crying to me when you have nightmares haunting you the rest of your life. You think you’re old enough to use emotional blackmail? Fine. Then you’re old enough to suffer the consequences.” (Then again, she had to know something was up when I asked her how to spell out "I'll make you sick.")
It was awful. Just awful. I do have nightmares haunting me still. Except they aren’t nightmares. They’re actual memories and they’re in smell-o-vision. Oooo ooo that smell, that smell of death surrounds you. That lovely vomit-urine-Pine Sol-Ben Gay smell. Back then they let visitors smoke in the hallways of nursing homes. (Guess they figured most of the patients there had bigger worries than second-hand-smoke-related diseases. Never mind the oxygen in use in some of the rooms. Apparently that wasn’t a concern.) So there was a stale nicotine aroma mixed in with the vomit-urine-Pine Sol-Ben Gay. I have not served in a war zone and I hope I never do. But I’ve smelled death. And it smells like stale nicotine, vomit, urine, Pine Sol and Ben Gay.
As my mother and I walked hand-in-hand through the entry and down the first hallway staff workers looked at me and gave me those over enthusiastic smiles, then shot my mother “my God, woman, are you out of your mind?! She’s just a child!” looks. My mother held my hand more tightly. I clutched the day’s illustration for my gran harder.
And then, the gauntlet.
Nothing in my life, up to then, or since, could have prepared me for the gauntlet.
My gran’s room was at the end of a very long corridor. To get to her we had to walk down the long corridor. Past all the patient rooms. Some of the patients were slumped in wheel chairs in their doorways or attempting to walk or stand in the hall. My mother’s pace hastened, she was wearing heels and I distinctly remember the click-click click-click increasing in speed. She was nearly running and I was struggling to keep up with her. The patients would grunt and moan as we passed them, some would grin toothless smiles at me. I was a little kid so my eye level was even with the patients slumped in wheelchairs. I saw things no child should ever see. At least not a child hoping for a well adjusted adulthood.
Up to that point in my life I’d never been, you know, scared. Shy, yes. Sick to my stomach with apprehension due to that shyness, yes. But. I’d never feared for my life. Especially not with my mum’s hand firmly grasping mine. To a six year old kid Mother = Safe. Heck, to a 30 year old kid Mother = Safe. So this fear, this staring death, literally, in the face, was unsettling to say the least.
I had asked for this. And I did want to see my gran, but, I was now horrified as to what we’d find when we got to her room. I thought she would look like all the people slumped in wheelchairs with matted hair and toothless smiles and bony hands.
Oh. The bony hands. When news spread down the corridor that there was a child in the corridor the patients started to anticipate me parading by them. So they walked their wheelchairs closer to their doors and slumped forward and craned their stiff necks to see me. As we walked by them they’d reach out for me, those bony, misshapen, wrinkled, bruised and age spotted hands reaching out for me, like an illustration of the sinners going to Hell reaching to the Holy for a chance at salvation. The patients who could speak would say hello to me, or call me cutie or sweetie or would say to my mother, “Such a lovely child...” as they reached out to me.
Thanks to an older brother I was already a ‘50s B horror movie afficionado. I thought they were zombies trying to grab some of my life, some of my youth. Hey. I was six-years-old, had an overactive imagination and a teenaged older brother okay? I wasn't insensitive I was just a scared kid.
My mother would politely smile and say thank you and pull me more tightly to her. “She might be germy, a lot of kids in her class have been ill," she quietly explain to the patients who might actually understand her.
And then it happened. One of the men who was attempting to navigate the hallway with a walker smiled and grunted at my mother and then chuckled at me. Then attempted to pat my head. He didn't actually touch me, but he got too close for my comfort. I got scared and dropped my drawing. My mother kept race walking and holding my hand. “Mum wait...” the guy attempted to reach down to pick up my drawing for me. And started to fall. I was still close enough to him that I could reach him.
The Golden Rule already woven into my psyche kicked in and I broke free from my mother’s hand and tried to “catch” the guy before he toppled over. I was six. This was a ridiculous idea. But at that point I was running on pure Sunday School adrenaline. You help people less fortunate than you. Period. No matter what.
Fortunately my mother and one of the care workers were on the scene before the guy hit the floor, but, in the process I got tangled in his walker. As he attempted to regain his balance he picked up his walker and set it down very quickly and one foot of the walker landed on top of my foot. Which hurt. A lot. And worse, it got hung up in the strap of my Mary Jane school shoe. I was ensnared by the walker. It was at this moment that the Golden Rule and Always Do Good Sunday School rush vanished and the Oh Crap I’m Trapped, Tethered to a Scary Man I Don’t Know and I’m Probably Supposed to Say Something and I Don’t Know What to Say and My Foot Hurts But if I Cry My Mother Will Take Me Home and I Won’t Get to See Gran and Is This Hell rush kicked in and...I wet my pants.
Okay? Happy? Yes. Trillian, at the age of six, peed herself. But hey, at least I did it in a place where everyone else wets their pants, too. So. You know. One could argue I was just trying to fit in.
It could have been worse. I guess. I was wearing one of those smock-type little girl dresses which billow several feet around the kid and miraculously everyone’s garments remained relatively pee-free.
Unfortunately my drawing bore the brunt of the puddle. A janitor was on the scene within seconds and my drawing was gone. Little did I know I was years ahead of Mapplethorpe with the urine as art idea.
One of the care workers gave my mother a bunch of paper towels, soap, a plastic bag and freaky enormous paper underwear. Hey, like I said, if you’re going to pee your pants you wanna do it in a place equipped to handle it. My mother took me into a bathroom and cleaned me up. Not a word was exchanged between us.
Not. One. Single. Word.
My mother nearly ran, pulling me behind her, to my gran’s room. Instead of reaching out to me, some of the bony fingers along the corridor were now pointing at me. With one peeing of pants I went from desired innocent little cherub to mock-worthy troublemaker. That's life for ya.
Mercifully, when we arrived at her room my gran looked like my gran. And she smelled like my gran. A soft hint of lavender and whisper of dusting powder. She was an oasis in the killing field. My mother told my gran what happened. I didn’t say anything but I lifted up my dress and showed her the silly paper underwear my mother had fashioned to fit me. My gran cracked up. And then my mother started laughing. And then we went home and I had a bath. And the next day I begged my mother to take me back to see my gran again.
This time, I reasoned, I would know what to expect. I very grown-uppedly said that once you get past all the people it’s not so bad.
My dad and brother were going to visit on Saturday, so my mother said I could go with them. My brother teased me for two days. “Make sure to put on Trillian’s diaper before we leave...” “I’m not going with her, what if she has another accident!” And worse, when out of range of my parents he’d make a scary clutching hand and grab at me and say, “I want you little girl, I’m gonna get you and...aaaagh, peee!” and then he’d recoil like Dracula recoiling from a crucifix. Ya know, I think a lot of my adult psychoses can be traced directly to my brother.
The second visit went better mainly because I knew once we got to my gran’s room everything would be okay. It was just getting there that was Hellish. I was allowed subsequent visits but I was incredibly relieved and happy when she was released and went home. But those memories, those poor old people, that horrible smell, the death and decay and loneliness have stayed with me. Always. I hear the words nursing home and I instantly think about a hallway full of old people slumped in wheelchairs grabbing for one little second of youth and the hope it represents.
Shudder.
During that saga I vowed I would never, ever “let” my parents go to a nursing home. I knew there were valid reasons why my gran was there, but I also thought that if somehow things were just a little different, if we had a different kind of house and were rich enough to hire full time nurses and paid doctors to make house calls that she wouldn’t have had to endure that (and I wouldn’t be plagued by a lifetime of nightmares). I vowed that when I grew up I’d have the perfect house and I'd be rich enough to take care of my parents so none of us would ever have to go anywhere near a nursing home.
Well. Yeah. Things haven’t quite worked out that way. I need a little more time to get rich and procure the perfect house for taking care of invalid parents. This wasn’t supposed to happen yet. I’m not ready to take care of my parents. I don’t have enough money or a house or even a job which allows me enough vacation days to take time off work to be with them. I can’t even take care of myself, yet. How am I supposed to take care of them?
(Please excuse the interruption while we have an emotional breakdown.)
So yeah.
Nursing homes suck. Big time. And I’ve gone over and over all possibilities and yes, it’s the only viable solution. The ironies make me angry. All the money and time my parents have given me so that I might have a successful life, and yet now, when they need time and money, I’m so unsuccessful I can’t give them either.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Um, okay. Ya know. This is just too good to keep to myself.
Drum roll, please. I think we’ve got the clinical research report quote of the year:
“The search for a Viagra equivalent for women has been disheartening. A testosterone patch was sent back for more safety study by the Food and Drug Administration. A handheld vacuum device that increases blood flow to the clitoris does have FDA approval, and BioSante Pharmaceuticals Inc. is testing a testosterone gel called LibiGel.”
A handheld vacuum device.
Seriously? Men get years of research funding and enormous clinical support resulting in the blue pill. And us gals get an FDA approved “handheld vacuum device?”
I cannot even imagine the uproar it would have caused if a "handheld vacuum device" had been suggested for men to use to um, increase blood flow.
Oh wait.
Never mind.
What do you want to bet they simply retooled the "handheld vacuum device" they were hoping to market as an FDA approved in-home abortion kit? They couldn't get approval and, stuck with loads of pink "handheld vacuum devices" in their garage, found another in-home use for the ladies that the FDA would approve? Can you even imagine the testing/focus groups on that one? Yessir, our FDA government spending dollars at work.
Sure, it's laughable, but someone was paid research grant money to research and write that report. This is real. Once again I plea to the Universe: How do I get one of those ridiculous research study jobs?
I wonder if Dyson is in on this one. Perhaps even funding the research? Their motto is, after all, "Making everyday products work better."
Have you had the pleasure of using an Airblade? Those things are amazing. Though a bit tricky to straddle...
4:04 PM
