I wanted to write something clever. Work has been increasingly stressful lately,
and I had an idea to illustrate my frustrations by juxtaposing what I’ve been
going through with a scene from a war movie that resonates within me. But after reviewing that particular scene, a
scene I’ve watched so many times…after witnessing the horror, the terror, and
inhumanity of what happened on that beach in Normandy, the hell that those men
went through…well, let’s just say that my stresses paled with the comparison, and
I found my perspective…
The scene takes place in the midst of the opening sequence
of “Saving Private Ryan.” Soldiers…brave
and terrified young men are being slaughtered on the sand, in the water, and
even before they have a chance to get off the landing craft. Carnage, explosions, bullets pinging off the metal
beach obstacles like hail on a tin roof.
For we, the viewers, that opening sequence is the most uber intense
twenty or so minutes in film history.
When I originally viewed it, when I see it again, each and every time,
my body tenses with the terror and horror of it all; I have to remind myself to
breathe at times, unaware that I’ve been holding it. I cannot even imagine how it must have been
for the real soldiers on those beaches, slogging through the blood and the mix
of broken bodies and equipment…
The scene I was remembering is, in the midst of all this
chaos, a young medic works feverishly to save the life of a wounded soldier, kneeling
in the sand over him, even pulling the body of another soldier close, to shield
the dying one, only to see his efforts ultimately fail when a bullet strikes
the wounded soldier in the head, killing him instantly. The medic cries out his frustration to the
German guns mowing down the men around him, as he fulminates a foaming mouthed
string of obscenities directed at the German soldiers behind those guns: "Just give us a fucking chance you
son of a bitch, you son of a fucking cocksucker!" That was the scene that resonated with me,
the utter frustration of being laden with more burden than it was possible to
carry, that’s what I wanted to convey...
At first, I
figured I would offer the caveat, homage to those soldiers, to all combat
veterans, that in no way would I mean to compare what they go through, with the
threat of imminent and horrific death all around them...to my experience
rendering care to elderly folk in a nursing home...but after reviewing that
scene, I felt chagrined at even conceiving
a parallel...
Yes, I am more
familiar with death than I ever wanted to be; I’ve held dying people in my
arms, watched them suffer, sometimes for only a short time, other times, for
far, far too long. I’ve hugged and tried
to comfort the scared ones, the abandoned ones, held their hands, stroked their
foreheads, hugged and kissed them and tried to assuage their fears, and tears. I’ve hugged the loved ones who come to
witness their dying moments, tried to offer words of profundity to soothe their
loss, knowing that there are no such
words. I’ve watched the slow decline,
the withering, the loss of color to flesh, the dimming light in eyes. I’ve been surprised how some linger, unable
to achieve their death, suffering all the while. I’ve been surprised as well at the
unexpected, sudden deaths. Those we send
out to the hospital for a seemingly minor illness, only to never come back to
us. The “younger” ones who suddenly “arrest.”
The man who aspirated on his own vomit.
The woman who was breathing as I rolled her one way in bed, but who’d ceased
breathing when I rolled her back. The
ones where you go into their room, only to discover that they’re “gone.” Just gone.
Then there are the countless souls who never recover after suffering a
fall. I’ve watched them sent out with a
broken hip, to have some surgeon “practice” their technique, fixing the broken
joint with rods and screws, before shipping them back to us to “recover,” only
to witness their rapid decline until they die a few months or weeks later. People on the outside don’t realize how
critical a simple fall can be to the elderly; people on the inside know this
all too well.
It’s not only the
death though. There are the poor “jumpers”
who climb repeatedly out of bed and wheelchairs, setting off beeping alarms to
alert us so we can safely guide them back down before they fall, and maybe
break a hip. There are the “wanderers”
who shuffle their feet along the floor, propelling their wheelchairs all over
the building, sometimes intruding into the rooms of other residents who are not
too happy to have them visit. Wandering
the halls, wailing out their dementia, crying out the names of their loved
ones, the only connection their addled minds have to any semblance of reality. There are of course also, the sufferers. Half blind, half deaf people, sitting in their
rooms with only dark silence until maybe one of us aides or nurses takes the
time to lean in close and offer our muffled voice into their ears, touch their
shoulders, hold their hands, hug them.
There are the “behaviorals” too, those who are not as physically bad off
as the others but who through loneliness and depression and childlike “neediness,” are compelled to incessantly
ring their call bells, or seek us out, or follow us around to the rooms of
other residents, or scream our names
from the other end of our unit, demanding attention for all manner of silly assistance. “Can you fix my TV?” they might ask, and for
the umpteenth time you push the same single button on their remote to affect
that “fix.” “Can you open that
window? Just a crack, no, that’s not
enough, no, that’s too much, no...” Then five minutes later you’re answering
their light again: “Can you pull that curtain a little? No, that’s too much, no
that’s not enough, no a little more, no...”
And all the
while, you’re juggling similar requests from three other residents, (this one
wants water, that one wants the head of her bed raised, the other wants...well,
he just wants...) along with the man who’s a fall risk sitting forever on the
toilet whom you’re not supposed to leave but the bitchy nurse you have to work
with that shift just demanded you go get that other resident up for supper so
you gamble and leave the toilet sitting one to go make the nurse happy and
meanwhile one of the more sentient residents is screaming at a “wanderer” to “get
the hell outta my room or I’ll break your nose with my fist!”
What compelled me
to ruminate, and then write about all this is because more and more it seems,
the long-term care unit where I work is being laden with an endless stream of “hard
cases.” I’m reminded of that inscription
at the base of the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, Your
huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming
shore...” We seem to take in the ones
that no other facilities want to handle.
Our own rehab unit purges their beds of the difficult cases and ships
them down to our end of the facility, the long-term care unit, last stop on the
train ride to nowhere...
So more and more
my nights, my shifts seem to be overrun with chaos and insanity; screaming,
crying, angry, combative residents who require far more care than we can
provide with our limited staff.
Everything happens at once on these nights. Residents falling, residents trying to beat
on each other, or us, residents demanding our attention, despite the emergency
situation happening down the hallway...all at the same damn time! I sometimes want
to fulminate my own foamy mouthed frustration and scream, “Give us a fucking
chance!”
But then I
remember, there are no bullets flying overhead.
I am not witnessing limbs blown off with explosions. I’m not awash in blood and viscera and my people,
and myself, are not in peril of imminent
death...
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