Barry

In my last post I described my seven hours in A&E with Chester and Barry. Chester came home to us after two days, diagnosis constipation. We kept expecting Barry 'home' for the last couple of days but when I got to work Friday Nadine called me into her office, sat me down and told me that Barry had died. She told me that Barry's brother, Maurice, had asked her to tell me on my own because he knew Barry and I were close.

I'm devastated, and disbelieving....

I can't understand how someone who can be well enough to be able to be discharged can suddenly just die. Barry was a great big bear of a man; a really good appetite (and these are two things that are very rare in care home residents); a good sense of humour; patient; very expressive, despite being unable to speak. Fair enough, this stroke he'd had previously comes with a fairly short life expectancy but he was just so...healthy and full of life. It's a tough time for all of us  - we all loved Barry. His brother and sister-in-law are ultra-supportive and this will destroy Maurice because he's lost his big brother. I'm going to offer to help them clear Barry's room, though it will be sad but I see it as doing him one last service.
Barry was 82 (which is no great age nowadays) and never married. He worked out in the open as a bricklayer for years then when the cold weather got to be too much for him he worked for the NHS here in Southampton, as a delivery man. His passions were ham radio, female singers of the 50s (Jo Stafford was a particular favourite) and old films. He was left unable to speak following his stroke and also couldn't move his right arm or leg. He could say 'yes' and this was his usual answer to any question, though his facial expression usually gave lie to that! It makes me happy to remember that Barry did actual speak, clearly and appropriately to me - once when I came back from two weeks holiday I went into his room to say hello and his face lit up. He said 'hello, how are you?'. I told Maurice about this (he would have LOVED Barry to speak to him one more time) but I was never 100% sure I hadn't imagined it. However the last time the vicar visited I took him along to Barry's room and Barry said, quite clearly, 'how are you?' so I guess he could do it after all.
Barry had a small fridge in his room where he kept his tins of cider (he liked a tipple at night) and he had a constant supply of sweets and chocolates. Because of this his teeth had almost all fallen out or gone bad and twice this year I accompanied him to the hospital to have extractions. Due to his size he needed the maximum amount of anaesthetic but he was so brave....I was the one secretly worrying - my nails left big marks in his hand where I'd been holding it so tight!When I think of Barry I think of Boxer, the brave, strong but ultimately doomed workhorse from Animal Farm.....don't know why. Sometimes I can't help but identify people I meet with characters from books or films. Is that crazy?

I'm glad that the last time I saw Barry, last Saturday at the hospital, I'd given him his dinner, held his hand, kissed him (yes, we do kiss our residents) and as he was being taken to the ward he was smiling and gave me the salute he always gave, in lieu of saying goodbye. Miss you already Barry xx

I'm not sure I can do this job.....

The Name's Pikey.....Mrs Pikey....

In this post last year I may have implied that I am too proud, and not in enough need to root through the possessions of strangers. In fact that is not strictly true. Only two days ago I was to be found scrutinising my neighbour's leavings and after a short conversation in pidgin English (him) and pidgin Polish (me) with a builder whose attention I got by throwing a large piece of wood through the window where he was working (accidentally!!! I could never do it again in a million years. And anyway, he should've answered the doorbell...) I was richer by two Pyrex casserole dishes; one matching lid; a large mirror etched with a picture of a galleon; and the piece de resistance, a blue plastic vegetable trolley. I am a great believer in life presenting you with what it is you need if you only wait. I wanted a vegetable trolley....hey presto, one presents itself right next door within, oh...three days? After I had a blitz in my kitchen (that exciting post is for another day - you'll be impressed!), part of which entailed scraping up yet another repulsively decomposed eggplant from the bottom of the vegetable cupboard, I decided that what I needed was some place to keep the veggies IN THE OPEN! That way they would be a) visible and less liable to be overlooked, and b) able to have fresh air circulating round them and hopefully not end up rotten, like about 60% of all green stuff that I buy does. I tried to look on the Argos website but that was messing about so I thought I'd look in the catalogue later (ie when I remember a fortnight later). But I didn't have to because the god of plastic storage smiled down on me and threw just what I wanted in my path. I like to think of it as karma for giving old ladies manicures every day.

The Pyrex of course is always handy - pity there was only one lid but beggars can't be choosers I suppose. The mirror is another story. After a quick look on eBay I can see no market whatsoever for it. I could hang onto it until my next car boot sale but the fact is my house is full of such things so I think my only option is to wait until tomorrow night and then sneak it back, under cover of darkness, to my neighbour's front way. I noticed today that quite a lot of stuff had gone from the box and the heap that had been thrown outside (my neighbour doesn't live there, in case you're wondering why the need for all the subterfuge - the property is an unused B&B. Actually, there's no need for any subterfuge, I'm just devious by nature) so I'm not the only one making off with his junk....just the closest one.

Ill-gotten gains!

And now, your comments on this situation, if you please. Sid, a resident where I work died last week. He was very old and he'd just had enough. He was very much cherished and all of his extended family were around him at the end....he had what you might call 'a good death'. We had all grown to like his daughters very much and they appreciated what we'd done for their dad. When they cleared his room the family left Sid's clothes behind for us to use as we see fit - sometimes a resident comes to us from hospital wearing just their pyjamas, with no other clothes at all (hard to believe I know, but true) so we can provide something to wear from our stock. My colleague had sorted Sid's old clothes into 'keep' and 'charity shop' and being both nosey and an eBayer I had a look through the charity shop stuff. Inside were two pure wool sports jackets, from maybe the 60s, very good quality and eminently sellable. Not for my benefit, I hasten to add, but for the Residents' Fund (fundraising is part of my job). I could have taken them out, brought them home and listed them but the fear of being found out and sacked is too mortifying so I didn't. I told Nadine, the matron, my idea and she said we need to ask Sid's family but she was sure they'd be okay with it. My question is, do you think my idea is objectionable, and would you just have gone ahead and done it without asking? The fear of exposure as a thief, even with the most altruistic of motives, and the shame of being in the local paper ('Local Mother of Three Steals Dead Pensioner's Clothing!!!'....the horror, the total horror!) is what stops people like me, and probably you guys too, from stepping out of line. But is taking my neighbour's destined-for-the-tip trash any different from selling Sid's clothes without permission? I probably won't ask Sid's family about the jackets now - Big Man thinks Nadine should have just made the decision herself since Sid's family gave us the clothes to do with as we wished - but....I dunno.....we'll see. What do you think?

PS This clip from The Royle Family is not only heartbreaking (and Sinead O'Connor's singing is heavenly) but it makes me think of the way Sid's family all came to his bedside in his last couple of days. If you haven't ever seen the Royle Family, maybe you're in the US, try to watch it - it is brilliant!





Minnie's Funeral

Today was a gloomy, rainy day, the kind that TV directors traditionally use to show that everyone is unhappy and things are going badly. I went to the funeral of one of our residents, Minnie. She was 85 when she died, very suddenly, a couple of days after Christmas - it truly was what she wanted.

Minnie only came to us about August last year. At first she could stand up, with the help of two carers but within a very short time her legs couldn't hold her up any more and this, coupled with her fear of falling, resulted in her being confined to her chair. A widow with no children and precious few visitors, she was extremely private and I guess had been raised not to cause any trouble or fuss. This characteristic made her seem at times ungrateful, and she certainly was rather ungracious. On Christmas Day she turned down the lovely dinner and asked for sausages. One of my colleagues told me later that Minnie had told her that she 'wished we hadn't bothered getting her any Christmas presents', even though every resident got just a small gift, a gesture really, from the staff and management. I popped into her room every morning when I arrived at work to see how she was, and every few days she would ask me to do her nails for her - her way of asking for some company. I kept trying to get her to take part in activities that were going on but she refused point blank to come out of her room until one day a week before she died.
I kept saying to her that I was determined to get her into the lounge, even if only once in 2011 so she could watch some entertainment. She, in return, kept telling me that she wanted to die and that she hated being stuck in her room, unable to do anything. In exasperation I said 'don't tell me any more that you wish you could do something, Min! Everything I suggest to you gets turned down, so don't tell me any more' and flounced off. And yes, I do feel bad, FYI. Ten minutes later a colleague came to say that Minnie wanted me - she'd decided to come out and watch a school choir that were singing carols to the residents that morning. She didn't speak to any of the others there; got herself put sitting right beside the door (in case anybody tried to speak to her); and insisted on returning to her room almost before the last note had been warbled. And that was the only time Minnie left her room.

We were all surprised when Minnie died. She'd felt a bit ill on the Monday and seemed to be leaning to one side in her chair, but was still with it - still talking in her normal querulous fashion. Then by 5.30 the next morning she was gone.
Ten days ago I went into her room to ask her family - a not-very-close female relative who I had seen visiting only once before, with her husband - if everything was okay. They had cases with them and were going through the room like a pair of locusts. They had taken down a silly little ornament I'd bought her - for something to say I said 'I bought that for her, for a bit of fun'. Well, they took that; all her old lady clothes that I would say were worthless; even half-eaten boxes of chocs. But afterwards, when they'd gone, I discovered they hadn't bothered to take two items that Minnie had taken the time to bring from home, just knick-knacks; and they had left behind photos of her as a young woman and with her husband. Is it just me or does anyone else see something wrong in that? I know that Minnie had a house that'll need to be sold and I'm trying not to be judgmental, but... Heck, who am I trying to kid, I'm the most judgmental person I know. I think they're stinkers.

The funeral was as grim as I expected. About 20 people turned up, including me and Minnie's social worker. There was no priest in attendance; rather a smarmy-looking man who clearly had never met Minnie, in fact he said that he had been told about her by her family - I knew more about her just from filing her nails every week! Most of the time he was talking in general terms about death, and he read two poems about death. The hymns were piped over the tannoy and were the most innocuous you could imagine (and my three most hated hymns, unfortunately). There was nothing of the real person in the funeral and that made me upset.

Can there be anything sadder than a funeral that lasts 25 minutes, led by a stranger whose lines have been fed to him, attended by just a handful of people? It's almost as if Minnie came and went, and left no mark on the world at all.....

Sally and Joe

Earlier this year an old lady moved into the home where I work for five days respite. Normally she was cared for at home by her husband Joe but he had to go into hospital for something very minor so Sally came to us.
She spent most of the time crying, and begging to be allowed to go home to 'my Joe'. It was really quite pitiful and I'm ashamed to say that my severely limited supply of compassion quickly depleted. Sally never knew this of course; nor did my colleagues - I am such an accomplished actress that even my most despised enemies go around believing I am their bosom buddy. But don't hate me for it - I get by how I can :(
Sally left after five days but she appeared again on December 17.... Joe had broken his ankle and was in hospital. Whilst he was there the doctors discovered he was riddled with cancer and had just a matter of days to live. Sally understood that Joe was very ill and that he didn't only have a broken ankle. And although it's not a hospice where I work Mac, our manager and Nadine, the matron pulled out all the stops to get Joe admitted to our place for his final few days. When the paramedics brought Joe into the room we'd prepared, next to Sally's, I couldn't believe that this wizened little old man had been caring for anybody all on his own, let alone Sally. She's not big, just a regular-sized pensioner but he seemed more dead than alive. Sally was in the lounge when Joe arrived last Wednesday afternoon, watching a special showing I'd laid on of 'White Christmas' so she didn't realise that he was there and I, in my wisdom, decided to let her watch the end of the movie, even though I knew I was going home before it ended.

You think you know what I'm going to say next, don't you?
You'd be wrong.

Joe survived until 7.30 the next morning. He and Sally had their reunion and she told me afterwards that he gave the biggest smile when he saw her face 'and he was my old Joe again'. Even though we hardly know Sally and we didn't know Joe at all we were all gutted for them...but happy too, in a melancholy way. Sally and Joe met when they were eight years old in the church choir. They liked each other then and always went back to each other. He was a joiner who provided for Sally and although they had no children of their own they were much-loved aunt and uncle to lots of nephews and nieces. Sally is sad but she knows he isn't in any more pain and she is thankful for all the years they had together. When she cries she says 'I'm so sorry, I know I shouldn't be doing this'. She is dignified in her distress because she says that 'Joe wouldn't want me to carry on like this. He'd say "Buck up Sally"'. I tell her that Joe hung on so he could see the face that was so precious to him one more time, and then he was able to go.

How lucky is Sally, that she's had that kind of love in her life? And how brave?



PS Because I detest New Year's Eve so much I have nobly volunteered to work a night shift tomorrow. If you go out please be careful! Love and luck to you all in 2012!