Commentary
Helping Each Other with Personal Care
By Kimberly R. White and Lois Brock.
We are two of the most uncommon friends. I am the
caregiver, a licensed registered nurse diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. My
client is a retired correctional officer who is legally blind. She is also hard
of hearing and uses a walker to get around. I was asked by the client’s
daughter to stay with her mother until a permanent caregiver could be found. It
was supposed to be temporary, but I didn’t count on making the feisty
woman, Louise, my friend.
Her granddaughters began calling her “Gangster
Granny” because she had worked as a correctional officer in Indiana in
1968. As it turns out, working with felons was a lot easier than enduring a
recent visit to the hospital this month.
With hazel eyes and a quick smile, she has endured many of
life’s high and low points. She was around when Franklin Roosevelt was
president and saw five brothers go to World War II and return. But today, she
faces more obstacles. I visited her during a recent trip to the hospital for a
surgical procedure in which she required nourishment and fluids. It was during
her hospitalization that I became acquainted with the difficulties confronting
individuals who are both deaf and visually impaired.
For one thing, she couldn’t tell if her call light
was answered. Because of her visual impairment, she didn’t know where the
food was on the plates served at meal time. She didn’t know where her
eating utensils were. No one on the staff took the time to describe and assist
her, even though her impairments were known. She said she prayed for a nice
roommate who could answer her calls and speak to the nurses over the intercom
when they answered the call light.
Louise couldn’t see, couldn’t hear and was
unable to get to her walker. She asked me to visit, to assist and to talk to
her nurse over the intercom during visiting hours. But at night, Louise was
terrified by the thought of being left alone in a strange hospital. After I
received special permission to stay with her after visiting hours were over,
she was finally able to doze off to sleep.
Gangster Granny made me and many of the staff and nursing
personnel aware of how a trip to the hospital can be a terror-filled
experience. It can be a real nightmare to our most vulnerable citizens.
Louise has since recovered and returned to live with her
son Allan. Her daughter Wynetta and Allan make sure all of her needs are met at
home. Another son, Daniel, is always willing to travel the long distance to
visit when work and time permit. It is a rare occurrence when Louise’s
vulnerability is exposed. With both her son with the flu and her daughter
needing emergency surgery, Louise was left to depend on me as a friend and the
staff at a nearby hospital for care.
What a brave woman she is. I can only tip my hat to
Gangster Granny and others like her. They make the difficult seem easy and give
new meaning to the word “challenging.”
Kimberly R. White is a registered nurse and frequent
contributor to Independence Today.
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