In the early afternoon I sat in the lobby area finishing up a daily note after seeing a patient off for a doctor's appointment. As I finished I looked out the window and saw a family dressed in suits and ties and dresses. A couple of them were carrying flowers and one was pushing their mother in a wheelchair. They were bringing her back after attending their father's funeral. She had been one of my patients several months ago. Her dementia makes it difficult to have a conversation with her but she is always pleasant and has a smile for me. I can't help but wonder if she will remember why her husband no longer comes to visit.
I shut my computer and headed around the corner in time to see another family leaving the room where their mother's body now lay as an empty shell. There were tears streaming down their cheeks. It hurts, even though she was elderly and her body was worn out. She too had been one of my patients. The things she said cracked me up sometimes. Upon return from the hospital she commented several times, "I can't believe they kept me at the hospital all that time without feeding me except through my arm. And they just let me lay in bed and didn't get me up. Now I just don't have any energy." Every time a resident dies, part of the personality of the place dies as well.
Later in the afternoon I walked by the office as one of the administrators explained to another resident and his wife that we were going to have to stop therapy with him. I was glad I wasn't responsible to have that conversation. It is hard to see someone stop progressing and even regress, especially someone who works so hard in therapy. He never complained though he would sometimes express frustration when his legs didn't cooperate. He wanted to go home and, even though the doctor had told him it wasn't safe, he and his wife still held out hope that he'd get better. Having the therapists tell him we couldn't continue must have felt like the final blow. We want to help people get back home and it's hard when that doesn't happen.
