About the Aged

 Working as a CNA at a nursing home requires so much more energy than I expected. You have to be on your toes. You have to expand your imagination to follow the bumpy thought process of someone affected by dementia. You have to be a nutrition therapist and sometimes a referee. The struggle is for real.

I love the strangers I’ve come to adopt and likewise. Every single one of them has their own weird, interesting story. From the 91-year-old twins, Alva & Alda, who used to participate in ménage a trois with each other, to the man whose wife is a kleptomaniac and steals hygienic items from the supply closet. 

     Sometimes Veda asks me for a loaded gun so she can end her "useless" life. That's when my psychiatrist side emerges and I have to explain why life is so precious. I suppose it would be easier for someone who believed in Jesus and an afterlife. But for me, I believe we only have one time around and we need to make the absolute best of it.

When I leaned down to serve a resident, she commented: "What lovely tan skin you have!"

"Thank you!" I blushed. "My mom is White and my dad is Black."

"Do you like that?" she asked in a condescending-like tone. I laughed.

"Yes, I do."

"I wouldn't like that...." I didn't get offended, though. If someone who was born in the late 20th century and early 21st made a remark like so, I would be heated and defend my ethnicities whole-heartedly. However, I acknowledge that it was a different time when she was growing up. She was born in 1922.

My first adventure in the shower room was a trip. My assignment at hand: shower Miss Susan. Easy enough. She's this tiny Alzheimer's resident who is pretty independent for the most part. All she does is sleep in her wheelchair or take strolls down memory lane, burying her nose in an excellent photo album she has compiled over the years. I find it an impressive collection for the 1950's. She's from a small town where she lived on a farm her entire life. I can relate to that.

Every day. Every single day, Miss Susan asks me: "And who are you?"

"I'm Janessa. I'm your nurse aid."

"Janessa? Well that's an unusual name, but it sure is pretty!"

"Thank you, Miss Susan."

"Where am I?"

"You're at Riverview Acres."

"In Colorado?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well you sure are a kind lady."

"Thank you, Miss Susan."

And that's basically our conversation every time I see her, even if it's multiple times in one day. This was not the case on Shower Day. I went into her room and asked, "Miss Susan, are you ready to take a shower?"

"No!" she screamed at me. So I walked out of her room. I watched a video at orientation about how the law used to require residents to shower 3 times a week. Now, they only have to be showered one day a week and they choose what day that is. I went up to my coworker and relayed, "Susan doesn't want a shower today."

"No, she needs to. She's going to refuse it every time if you let her." So I went back into Susan's room and repeated, "Miss Susan, are you ready to take a shower?" This is where a small, innocent woman morphed into a fierce fire-breathing dragon.

"No! I don't need a shower." I grabbed her wheelchair handles and started maneuvering us towards the shower room. She complained the entire time I undressed her. The minute that warm stream of water touched her delicate skin, I heard nothing but obscenities for 15 minutes solid.

"HEEEEELP!!!" Susan screams at the top of her lungs.

"Miss Susan, stop that!" I said through my laughter.

"SONS OF BITCHES! I lived on a farm my whole life and there were no sons of bitches there!"

"Oh yeah?" I asked sarcastically.

"Ya old bitch! Ya old bitch! YA OLD BITCH!" Susan chanted.

"You got water in my eeeear! I'm gonna get an earache now!! My mother washed my hair all my life and never ONCE did she get water in my ears!"

"Where am I?"

Riverview.

"HELL HOTEL!"

"If I ever get out of here, that's the last you will see of me!!" Susan threatened. She's in her 90's. She's not going anywhere. "You used to be such a kind lady!"

After I'm finished, I turn the shower lever all the way to the right until the last drop of water ceases. I wrapped a towel around her shoulders and laid another across her lap. Two minutes later I hear, "Thank you for saving me from that..." Disregard the fact that I'm the one that put her there.

"You're welcome, Miss Susan."

"I know you don't want to do that to me," Susan reassures me. "It's the sons of bitches making you." My ribs were aching so badly from all the laughing that took place in that shower. I find this experience the most ironic because I love nothing more than a nice shower. It's my time of reflection, fake-argument conversations, and finding myself. (LOL) You would have thought I forced her into acid rain.

I finally wheeled her to her room, wrapped a blanket around her shivering body, and asked if there was anything I could do for her.

"No... I don't think so..." she says. And after a few moments of silence she asked. "Who are you?"

"I'm Janessa. I'm an aid here."

"Janessa? Well that's an unusual name… but it sure is pretty…"