Nursing Home Blues

Did I mention that my new house is just accross a parking lot from a nursing home complex? It is. Last night Trisha and Carter spent the night (much to my delight), while they were treating their house for fleas. This morning we said our goodbyes and I closed the door behind Trish as she left.

Just then I heard this strange sound. At first I thought it was the wail of some animal, but then I barely made out words midst the wailing, "Waaaaaaaait! Haaalp Meeeeeee! Paaleeease!" I quickly opened the door back up to see who was making the noise. I looked around for some screaming kid, but then realized the voice sounded more mature. Hmmm...I shaded my eyes from the son, and peered through the chain link fence that runs between my road and the nursing home parking lot. There, in an archway that must lead to a courtyard, I saw the figure of an old man stooped over in a wheelchair. I realized that he was the source of the wailing, and that he was trying to attract the attention of Trisha and I as we stood in my driveway.

As our ears adjusted to his warbled voice, we realized that instead of yelling "Puhlease!" over and over again, he was yelling, "Pooooliice!"

"Call the police, their killin' me!" he hollered. "Police, get the police! I need the police!"

Trisha and I looked at each other quizzically. "Should we call the police?" I asked, "Just in case there is something going on?"

"Nah," decided my social-worker sister turned therapist, "I'll just go talk to him." So I sat down in her backseat next to where Carter was buckled in while she proceeded to walk around the fence and across the parking lot to the man who screamed all the more when he saw her approaching.

"Please, Lady!" he shouted,"Don't come here if you want to live, just call the police! I need the police!" By now, there were two women wearing scrubs on his side of the fence that appeared to be trying to subdue him. I couldn't hear them or Trisha from my seat in her car, but I could still hear the man yelling. Trisha must have asked him his name because I shouted, "Don Walters!!" and then, "Nice to meet you Trisha, but call the police!" At some point he yelled, "IT HURTS!!! They gave me my medicine already but it still hurts! I need the police!" Trisha was squatting down so she could be eye level with the man through the gate, but he didn't like whatever she was saying to him. "Don't you have a brain?!" he berated her, "You need to get a brain!" About that point, the two women who worked there, began to wheel him away from the courtyard and Trisha returned, on the way assuring concerned neighbors that everything was okay.

According to Trish the building closest to my road Psych Ward and this guy had only been there a couple days and was having a hard time adjusting. "He told me they were beating him," she said, "and he kept pointing to his dressed wounds. It looked to me like he may have fallen on the ground from his wheelchair or from a bed or something."

"How did the people who worked there treat him while you were there?" I asked.

"They seemed nice, but then I was right there." We stood there for a minute.

"It's hard," I finally said, "There are places that don't treat people well, but how do you know whether or not to believe someone who is behaving erratically and crazy? But then again, everyone who works there could be really nice except one mean person who really did do something to hurt the guy. That wouldn't be too hard to believe..."

I decided to keep my eyes and ears open. and I've been hoping to go visit with some of residents at some point, so maybe I can ask them how well they like the place and see what they say. All I know for sure is that I'm really glad that starting tomorrow my Grandma will be here with me.

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I hope I didn't give the impression that my grandmother's current place is abusive. They have been kind to her, I just think I can offer her an even better quality of life, here living with someone who loves her.