This, I Do for a Living?

This is my least favorite part of my job.  The day shift, which I always work, gets saddled with two of the three meals every day.  A great many of these most agreeable Dr. Jekylls turn into Mr. Hydes in the dining room.  The patience required to smile pleasantly, remain gracious and hold back what you really feel like saying to some of these folks at all times is very difficult to maintain.

After the meal, we move in reverse.  One at a time, the wheelchair people are pushed and those who need escorting are taken back to their apartments, each one positive that they are always the last to be taken back.  They are all in such a rush to return to their rooms and for what?  Nothing more than to nap some more, stare into space, nod in front of a blaring television or just sit and assume the classic posture of the eternal boredom of old people in any kind of facility; elbow resting in lap, palm of hand help up, cupped, to hold the side of their face.  Behold the expression of rejection, dejection, despair and depression.  Throughout each day there are lots of different activities offered but a pitiful few and always the same few take advantage and enjoy them.

For the rest of the day not devoted to mealtime, I make beds, tidy apartments, empty trash, assist with showers, toileting and am, along with three other caregivers during the day, at the beck and call of about 73 residents.  This is a mere inkling of the environment in which I submerge myself every day.  I make it sound like a dreadful place to work which, of course, it isn't. 

One big difference between working at a convalesent hospital and an assisted living facility is the stark fact that the convalescent folks, for the most part, are past the ability to express themselves.  The people living where I work are cognitive enough to fully understand what their lives have been reduced to and what lies ahead.  It is not encouraging.  Oh yes, people are living longer but to what purpose?  There's no longer any place for them in the world, there's not enough money to pay for insurance for many and once one outlives their savings or the money received from the house they sold, they can no longer affort to live in a facility to which they were moved to in the first place.  When life becomes little more than a continuous cycle of eating and a fixation on elimination, where's the quality of life in that?  There are many residents who are not quite reduced to this level yet but enough are to make me wonder.  I see what's in store for me every working day and know that, in time, I will be one of them.  I sometimes laughingly joke that my motto is "hope I die before I get old"!  Funny thing is, I don't think I'm joking one hundred percent!

And why do I work at such a job for a living?  It's mostly because these seniors are not unlike a national treasure, an archive of sorts to learn so much from years long past.  Also, I may well be living in these circumstances one day and hope there will be someone with my patience, kindness and skill to care for me.  What goes around comes around.