She was spinning the final laugh to remember you by.
I was telling the tales of your days with mine.
Somewhere in the ether you're smiling now.
Somewhere in the open you're free to see, to laugh, to dance.
The music still plays on while you move beyond.
See me bow to celebrate my time with you.
I am wishing out the days till your voice again meets mine.
I am wishing out the time.
Dancing the final dance is never alone for one such as you.
Singing for you, you let me in on your final thoughts and needs.
Somewhere in those final places, I fit.
Eyes closed, heart wide open, you said, "You're welcome," and I was grateful for it.
Dancing in the great wide open now, you're free to see, to laugh,
loving this new day.
Somewhere the music still plays, while you lift and drift away.
Scattering light like far away stars too distant for my sight.
I am wishing out the days till your voice again meets mine.
Wishing out the days till your morning meets my night.
For now, your smile is in my dream time.
Loved ones consider your absence with such tender longing.
Hand to hand we wish for your peace.
All over town, dogs play in celebration of your release.
Days go on as these moments go by.
I have noticed that your smile is in my dream time.
For now, there go I.
For now, there go I.
Nancy McEldowney
February 2, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Elder Abuse And What Power We May Have.
Usually when I submit stories here, I am simply reflecting for you to see another experience to consider.
Today is a different day and what we will consider here is still the result of real life experience for me. It is just not the experience I prefer to share with you so please, take from this blog any useful information you can find for unseen future challenges.
It was in 2008 that I was introduced to these two good people.
They are friends of other clients of mine.
Daisy had bragged about me.
Of course that meant Elaine just had to have me after that.
Elaine is in her eighties and she had had a fall. Now that she was home, it was still a painful challenge to meet each day. She said she was in need of bi-weekly help to accomplish a clean home. After the first time I worked with her, I could see that she was in need of time with someone other than her husband and the endless medical staff.
We found we had a lot in common and soon it was nice when her Wed. morning rolled around again.
It didn't take long for me to understand the places I could best help. Always asking for instruction gave her a place she could control when so many other places in her life required she allow others to have control.
As I remember, she told me that her husband had required she leave her rehab situation to come home, too soon. Without the facility to help her it had been a hard road. When I asked why she would give him that power she only laughed and said,"Oh, don't worry about me. I made him pay for that!"
Politics between married people don't allow for outsiders.
I just did the best I could for her and slowly she started to get stronger.
She still had bad days more often than good. She had shut down a little, out of frustration.
When she finally took my suggestion to simply give the "next" medical staff a chance to succeed, well, she saw improvement.
She found herself renewed in the effort to regain her ability to enjoy her life.
I had found myself hopeful for her.
In truth, I truly enjoyed what little interaction I had with her husband.
Bill is a charming guy.
Tall and still handsome in his eighties. Golfs or walks every day.
Very smart with the stocks according to Elaine. They are comfortable according to Bill.
I once spent two hours trying to help him understand his new cell phone.
Another day he snagged my attention for an hour to teach him how to clear his e-mail box of spam and how to turn on his spam filters. Very nice guy and able to learn tech stuff rather quickly. I liked that.
All in all, these people fit perfectly in my schedule and were open to compromise if another client needed emergency help or temporary schedule changes.
My schedule seemed to work well with theirs.
I didn't have a key to their home and though they are my only clients who prefer not to give me a key, well, I just did the best I could for them and thought little of it.
Fast forward to Christmas of 2010.
Evidently, Elaine took quite a fall. Family came into town to help her get around while she was introduced to another Emergency Room staff. Bill did what Bill does.
He does not seem to relinquish control of Elaine without a fight.
He kept her home when clearly she was in need of medical staff,
and appropriate handicap tools to work with.
It's not that I was included in her experience.
I arrived for our next scheduled day and found Elaine suffering, with Bill and his daughter in attendance.
She told me that she had broken her shoulder in three places. The Emergency room staff told her about it and her doctor had prescribed pain meds.
While I was working on the over used areas of the house, Bill brought Elaine and his daughter through to the garage to take Elaine for some imaging to be done.
It was the Wednesday after Christmas. She had not had a cat-scan and it was four days after the fall.
Though she was walking, I ached for the shell of Elaine that tried to make her way by me. Talking, walking, breathing, nothing was easy for her right now.
That night I got a call that she had been admitted because they found that she had also broken the ball of the hip on that side of her body.
We can re-visit the times when I have gotten on my soap box about the stone tiles people choose for their bathrooms. We can re-consider the uses throw rugs really have when our feet no longer listen to our brains and simply won't step the way we tell them to. Just doesn't change anything to rant.
So, I went for a visit.
Her sense of humor was still intact so we had as good a visit as we could.
She was surprised to see me.
I was there because if you are one of my clients I pay attention and visit you when you are able to have visitors. Standard procedure.
When she felt the fatigue set in, we all left. Bill's daughter needed a ride to get lunch so I took her and she bought me lunch with a chat included.
I didn't realize that she was giving me a warning.
She said that her dad would be getting me fired soon. He had done that two years ago, with the last in-home care Elaine had used. Evidently the in-home care had not agreed with his removing her so soon so she was let go.
Remember I had been hired because she had been taken from her rehab facility too soon?
It did take Bill the two weeks she had predicted but I was amazed by his covert approach. This guy has practiced.
I arrived for my next scheduled day but the door was locked. I went to the facility thinking they just wouldn't need me that day.
Unexpected cancellations do happen so I was open.
I visited with Elaine while she seemed to be waiting for a bed change. Then she started talking. She had not been able to get an attendant to get her out of bed to relieve herself. She said they just never answered her repeated buzzer.
She was so embarrassed to tell me she had not been able to get out herself and was forced to wet herself and her bed.
They had not gotten her to the shower and they still had not changed her bed so she could get out of the chair. Hip surgery a week before?
I asked her how long she had been in the chair.
She cried that it had been over an hour.
This woman was having one hard morning. It was only 8:30.
I told her that I would pitch in and wheeled her back up the ramp to her room. We found a nurse helping someone else toilet so we waited for her to finish.
Then I asked for the bed clothes, that I would get the change accomplished.
She told us simply that, "They" would. I said, "They" aren't.
She popped in and we changed the bed together. Getting Elaine flat again really changed her tone. Now if they would just get her pain med. to her, she could try to get strong enough for a shower. The nurse promised the other nurse would be coming back from break soon.
They took breaks with a post hip replacement stuck in a chair, no bed and no pain meds. I was grateful that I had come to see her. We were just getting a smile going when Bill came in almost shouting at her through his odd smile.
I was stunned at what I watched.
He stood at the end of her bed berating her for her laziness.
He was shouting that twenty years ago this had happened to him and he had recovered by now.
She laid there with her face in her hands just sobbing. Then she shouted that no one cares if this happened to him before.
He shouted back that she shouldn't be crying, she should be walking and has she even been out of her bed yet today?
Oh my goodness, I didn't know what to think. I said she had been up but that we were waiting for her pain meds and......
He just kept telling her she was worthless and then left us both in tears to go flirt up the nurse, distracting her from getting those pain meds. counted out, with all Elaine's other meds.
He didn't think twice about acting this way in my presence.
Legally and morally I had to pay attention and manage this situation as productively for this woman, as I could.
I also had to protect myself.
I had reported this behavior to the nurse after my warning but she denied any understanding or interest.
As in-home care I have very few options for my married clients.
You see, we are in one of the states that maintains husbands and wives have the final say, legally. "Without a victim there is no crime", is the way the Police Dept. has to honor it.
I have been hired in similar situations but it was only because the family was no longer invited to see their mom. This was different.
Family seems to know he does this.
They do not speak about it because they understand that she will stay.
Back to that morning, Bill and Elaine did agree I should get the house prepared for her eventual return. I did not consider how soon it would be.
Bill came back to the house three times to shout in that charming, tired tone he has always had. This time he was hurtful and almost mean but it came out so soft I wasn't sure what was happening to me till he left. Then he would return with some odd intention but would walk by me to get to the car and say something else that was insulting or hurtful but with a smile.
The third time I did lose my patience and I did shout to him that this was only about her and could not be about him or me. I have never shouted at any client before.
Even when a woman came at my throat shouting at me.
No,this was his effort to stir the pot.
I finished the house and removed the rugs, stacking them where he had told me to.
I moved chairs and opened areas for the supposed equipment he had told me he was going for. Everything looked positive when I left. The place was ready for EMT's to move around freely if she needed that level of help in her future rehab. Walkways were cleared if she could actually heal enough to walk in her home.
After I returned from an afternoon client, a message on my machine told me this,
"Hello, I am taking complete control of Elaine and I am in complete control of running the house. You are no longer needed. Do not come back."
The daughter predicted, the father played it through, the care-giver fell for it.
I was so disappointed in myself for not seeing what was happening to me.
I decided to get to the facility and act as if I had not been home yet.
When I got there it was around six.
The nurse was quietly at her desk reading. The dinner attendants were helping people at the tables as they finished and looked up to see the face walking by.
I always have a smile and I search for the ones who smile back.
I knocked because I could see that she was not dressed but sitting in her wheelchair.
She said come in anyway and with her top completely exposed, I could tell she was drugged.
She would never had shown me under her bra like that.
She did have pants on and someone was behind the wall. I assumed it was a nurse dressing her.
It was Bill and he just grunted and spoke a few words to Elaine before he left her there and walked out with a bundle of clothes in his hands. Yes, he left her without her shirt on. He could not or would not look me in the eye. He whispered to her and acted so hurt. She was in protect mode, I could tell.
I offered to help but she was so mad, I just grabbed her coat and put it over her so she could try to cover up. She shouted that I was fired. Bill says you tore up our house and that you are in my business. I don't need a friend, I need someone who will come clean my house and then just leave.
I pretended to be confused and made her repeat what Bill had told her so I could tell her how it had really happened.
She was confused when I told her that her husband had instructed all that I did. I admitted that he had returned three times to yell at me and that I had cried for a long time over his aggression with me.
I did not tell her that he had frightened me that last time.
This brought her to her senses for a minute but she said he was taking her home that night.
I could see this was a client I had to walk away from.
Married politics isolate people in the eyes of the community that exists as witness to the day to day.
I remembered what the daughter had said.
When Elaine said that I should go and not upset her, I did.
I reported the incident to the nurse one more time, as best I could and apologized if my earlier concerns had offended.
She smiled at my handling her but was uninterested in Elaine's well-being.
Or perhaps simply aware of her lack of control or ability to help.
Exhausting.
The next day, I received a letter that I kept on file.
Basically Bill honored me with a legal document that verifies I have been removed from the situation. Therefore, if this escalates, I will be able to testify but not be held responsible for not reporting what I had observed.
I started at the local Senior Center. The Director has been referring me for ten years and she is always open to help me help our community.
She did not know how to move on this as it is still a man and wife issue.
We agreed the first place to go was our County's Senior Advocacy Group. It took some phone navigation to get to the right jurisdiction but when I reached the right person, it went well. I gave my statement of observation and experience. Then I requested the case be opened and unannounced visits should begin.
As in many states in our country, we only have Social Services to work with because they have the right to enter the home if suspicious circumstances occur. I have been told that this agency moves slowly on these situations and will tell me they are understaffed but I had to report it.
They have it on file to schedule soon.
From there I was told to got to the local Police Dept.
Because of my concerns and the record of suspicious circumstances at the address in the past 10 years, they have the right to go to the door and request a wellness check of the woman reported to be at risk.
The officer and I went through the records and decided it was a probability that she really did fall and not by his hand. Because they found no closure for calls before, they had the legal ability to pay attention and request access to her. The law only allows the request and their ability to make their presence known.
A husband or wife can say no to the request and the Police Dept. can only report to Social Services that entry was denied. Nothing more.
Good people there will be no ending here that satisfies.
I had to walk away.
In this situation,
I have been assured that I have done all that I am legally able to do.
It does not ease my concerns but I know I have to walk away.
You will, too, someday and this will be upsetting for you, too.
Stand strong good people, stand strong.
Do what you can.
Share this post when you find it useful.
Be present in this life you choose.
Forgive the places you re-think and re-work to find a better ending.
Care-givers are in service in peoples homes.
Those people we care for are the Kings and Queens, of their homes.
We are in service because we choose to be.
They pay for our company because of who we are.
They are not who we are.
Be well.
Nancy McEldowney
Today is a different day and what we will consider here is still the result of real life experience for me. It is just not the experience I prefer to share with you so please, take from this blog any useful information you can find for unseen future challenges.
It was in 2008 that I was introduced to these two good people.
They are friends of other clients of mine.
Daisy had bragged about me.
Of course that meant Elaine just had to have me after that.
Elaine is in her eighties and she had had a fall. Now that she was home, it was still a painful challenge to meet each day. She said she was in need of bi-weekly help to accomplish a clean home. After the first time I worked with her, I could see that she was in need of time with someone other than her husband and the endless medical staff.
We found we had a lot in common and soon it was nice when her Wed. morning rolled around again.
It didn't take long for me to understand the places I could best help. Always asking for instruction gave her a place she could control when so many other places in her life required she allow others to have control.
As I remember, she told me that her husband had required she leave her rehab situation to come home, too soon. Without the facility to help her it had been a hard road. When I asked why she would give him that power she only laughed and said,"Oh, don't worry about me. I made him pay for that!"
Politics between married people don't allow for outsiders.
I just did the best I could for her and slowly she started to get stronger.
She still had bad days more often than good. She had shut down a little, out of frustration.
When she finally took my suggestion to simply give the "next" medical staff a chance to succeed, well, she saw improvement.
She found herself renewed in the effort to regain her ability to enjoy her life.
I had found myself hopeful for her.
In truth, I truly enjoyed what little interaction I had with her husband.
Bill is a charming guy.
Tall and still handsome in his eighties. Golfs or walks every day.
Very smart with the stocks according to Elaine. They are comfortable according to Bill.
I once spent two hours trying to help him understand his new cell phone.
Another day he snagged my attention for an hour to teach him how to clear his e-mail box of spam and how to turn on his spam filters. Very nice guy and able to learn tech stuff rather quickly. I liked that.
All in all, these people fit perfectly in my schedule and were open to compromise if another client needed emergency help or temporary schedule changes.
My schedule seemed to work well with theirs.
I didn't have a key to their home and though they are my only clients who prefer not to give me a key, well, I just did the best I could for them and thought little of it.
Fast forward to Christmas of 2010.
Evidently, Elaine took quite a fall. Family came into town to help her get around while she was introduced to another Emergency Room staff. Bill did what Bill does.
He does not seem to relinquish control of Elaine without a fight.
He kept her home when clearly she was in need of medical staff,
and appropriate handicap tools to work with.
It's not that I was included in her experience.
I arrived for our next scheduled day and found Elaine suffering, with Bill and his daughter in attendance.
She told me that she had broken her shoulder in three places. The Emergency room staff told her about it and her doctor had prescribed pain meds.
While I was working on the over used areas of the house, Bill brought Elaine and his daughter through to the garage to take Elaine for some imaging to be done.
It was the Wednesday after Christmas. She had not had a cat-scan and it was four days after the fall.
Though she was walking, I ached for the shell of Elaine that tried to make her way by me. Talking, walking, breathing, nothing was easy for her right now.
That night I got a call that she had been admitted because they found that she had also broken the ball of the hip on that side of her body.
We can re-visit the times when I have gotten on my soap box about the stone tiles people choose for their bathrooms. We can re-consider the uses throw rugs really have when our feet no longer listen to our brains and simply won't step the way we tell them to. Just doesn't change anything to rant.
So, I went for a visit.
Her sense of humor was still intact so we had as good a visit as we could.
She was surprised to see me.
I was there because if you are one of my clients I pay attention and visit you when you are able to have visitors. Standard procedure.
When she felt the fatigue set in, we all left. Bill's daughter needed a ride to get lunch so I took her and she bought me lunch with a chat included.
I didn't realize that she was giving me a warning.
She said that her dad would be getting me fired soon. He had done that two years ago, with the last in-home care Elaine had used. Evidently the in-home care had not agreed with his removing her so soon so she was let go.
Remember I had been hired because she had been taken from her rehab facility too soon?
It did take Bill the two weeks she had predicted but I was amazed by his covert approach. This guy has practiced.
I arrived for my next scheduled day but the door was locked. I went to the facility thinking they just wouldn't need me that day.
Unexpected cancellations do happen so I was open.
I visited with Elaine while she seemed to be waiting for a bed change. Then she started talking. She had not been able to get an attendant to get her out of bed to relieve herself. She said they just never answered her repeated buzzer.
She was so embarrassed to tell me she had not been able to get out herself and was forced to wet herself and her bed.
They had not gotten her to the shower and they still had not changed her bed so she could get out of the chair. Hip surgery a week before?
I asked her how long she had been in the chair.
She cried that it had been over an hour.
This woman was having one hard morning. It was only 8:30.
I told her that I would pitch in and wheeled her back up the ramp to her room. We found a nurse helping someone else toilet so we waited for her to finish.
Then I asked for the bed clothes, that I would get the change accomplished.
She told us simply that, "They" would. I said, "They" aren't.
She popped in and we changed the bed together. Getting Elaine flat again really changed her tone. Now if they would just get her pain med. to her, she could try to get strong enough for a shower. The nurse promised the other nurse would be coming back from break soon.
They took breaks with a post hip replacement stuck in a chair, no bed and no pain meds. I was grateful that I had come to see her. We were just getting a smile going when Bill came in almost shouting at her through his odd smile.
I was stunned at what I watched.
He stood at the end of her bed berating her for her laziness.
He was shouting that twenty years ago this had happened to him and he had recovered by now.
She laid there with her face in her hands just sobbing. Then she shouted that no one cares if this happened to him before.
He shouted back that she shouldn't be crying, she should be walking and has she even been out of her bed yet today?
Oh my goodness, I didn't know what to think. I said she had been up but that we were waiting for her pain meds and......
He just kept telling her she was worthless and then left us both in tears to go flirt up the nurse, distracting her from getting those pain meds. counted out, with all Elaine's other meds.
He didn't think twice about acting this way in my presence.
Legally and morally I had to pay attention and manage this situation as productively for this woman, as I could.
I also had to protect myself.
I had reported this behavior to the nurse after my warning but she denied any understanding or interest.
As in-home care I have very few options for my married clients.
You see, we are in one of the states that maintains husbands and wives have the final say, legally. "Without a victim there is no crime", is the way the Police Dept. has to honor it.
I have been hired in similar situations but it was only because the family was no longer invited to see their mom. This was different.
Family seems to know he does this.
They do not speak about it because they understand that she will stay.
Back to that morning, Bill and Elaine did agree I should get the house prepared for her eventual return. I did not consider how soon it would be.
Bill came back to the house three times to shout in that charming, tired tone he has always had. This time he was hurtful and almost mean but it came out so soft I wasn't sure what was happening to me till he left. Then he would return with some odd intention but would walk by me to get to the car and say something else that was insulting or hurtful but with a smile.
The third time I did lose my patience and I did shout to him that this was only about her and could not be about him or me. I have never shouted at any client before.
Even when a woman came at my throat shouting at me.
No,this was his effort to stir the pot.
I finished the house and removed the rugs, stacking them where he had told me to.
I moved chairs and opened areas for the supposed equipment he had told me he was going for. Everything looked positive when I left. The place was ready for EMT's to move around freely if she needed that level of help in her future rehab. Walkways were cleared if she could actually heal enough to walk in her home.
After I returned from an afternoon client, a message on my machine told me this,
"Hello, I am taking complete control of Elaine and I am in complete control of running the house. You are no longer needed. Do not come back."
The daughter predicted, the father played it through, the care-giver fell for it.
I was so disappointed in myself for not seeing what was happening to me.
I decided to get to the facility and act as if I had not been home yet.
When I got there it was around six.
The nurse was quietly at her desk reading. The dinner attendants were helping people at the tables as they finished and looked up to see the face walking by.
I always have a smile and I search for the ones who smile back.
I knocked because I could see that she was not dressed but sitting in her wheelchair.
She said come in anyway and with her top completely exposed, I could tell she was drugged.
She would never had shown me under her bra like that.
She did have pants on and someone was behind the wall. I assumed it was a nurse dressing her.
It was Bill and he just grunted and spoke a few words to Elaine before he left her there and walked out with a bundle of clothes in his hands. Yes, he left her without her shirt on. He could not or would not look me in the eye. He whispered to her and acted so hurt. She was in protect mode, I could tell.
I offered to help but she was so mad, I just grabbed her coat and put it over her so she could try to cover up. She shouted that I was fired. Bill says you tore up our house and that you are in my business. I don't need a friend, I need someone who will come clean my house and then just leave.
I pretended to be confused and made her repeat what Bill had told her so I could tell her how it had really happened.
She was confused when I told her that her husband had instructed all that I did. I admitted that he had returned three times to yell at me and that I had cried for a long time over his aggression with me.
I did not tell her that he had frightened me that last time.
This brought her to her senses for a minute but she said he was taking her home that night.
I could see this was a client I had to walk away from.
Married politics isolate people in the eyes of the community that exists as witness to the day to day.
I remembered what the daughter had said.
When Elaine said that I should go and not upset her, I did.
I reported the incident to the nurse one more time, as best I could and apologized if my earlier concerns had offended.
She smiled at my handling her but was uninterested in Elaine's well-being.
Or perhaps simply aware of her lack of control or ability to help.
Exhausting.
The next day, I received a letter that I kept on file.
Basically Bill honored me with a legal document that verifies I have been removed from the situation. Therefore, if this escalates, I will be able to testify but not be held responsible for not reporting what I had observed.
I started at the local Senior Center. The Director has been referring me for ten years and she is always open to help me help our community.
She did not know how to move on this as it is still a man and wife issue.
We agreed the first place to go was our County's Senior Advocacy Group. It took some phone navigation to get to the right jurisdiction but when I reached the right person, it went well. I gave my statement of observation and experience. Then I requested the case be opened and unannounced visits should begin.
As in many states in our country, we only have Social Services to work with because they have the right to enter the home if suspicious circumstances occur. I have been told that this agency moves slowly on these situations and will tell me they are understaffed but I had to report it.
They have it on file to schedule soon.
From there I was told to got to the local Police Dept.
Because of my concerns and the record of suspicious circumstances at the address in the past 10 years, they have the right to go to the door and request a wellness check of the woman reported to be at risk.
The officer and I went through the records and decided it was a probability that she really did fall and not by his hand. Because they found no closure for calls before, they had the legal ability to pay attention and request access to her. The law only allows the request and their ability to make their presence known.
A husband or wife can say no to the request and the Police Dept. can only report to Social Services that entry was denied. Nothing more.
Good people there will be no ending here that satisfies.
I had to walk away.
In this situation,
I have been assured that I have done all that I am legally able to do.
It does not ease my concerns but I know I have to walk away.
You will, too, someday and this will be upsetting for you, too.
Stand strong good people, stand strong.
Do what you can.
Share this post when you find it useful.
Be present in this life you choose.
Forgive the places you re-think and re-work to find a better ending.
Care-givers are in service in peoples homes.
Those people we care for are the Kings and Queens, of their homes.
We are in service because we choose to be.
They pay for our company because of who we are.
They are not who we are.
Be well.
Nancy McEldowney
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