After visiting Thelma in the nursing home, my husband and I have been having a lot of talks lately about our health, aging, and where we could find ourselves, you know, at the end. It has changed how we treat each other while we’re still continent.
I never thought a nursing home would be all that bad until I visited one. I used to fantasize about sharing my own little room with my pet, and meals prepared for me. Tennis in the afternoon with people who can still get around. Water aerobics in the morning. I was picturing the Four Seasons with a bunch of Jack LaLannes.
It never entered my mind that I could wind up in a holding tank for people who have lost control of their bodily functions and their minds. Hey! I am sometimes very forgetful and I have been known to wet my pants a little when I laugh too hard!
I escorted Thelma to the bathroom and stood with her while she used the john because we had broken a rule that was very clearly explained to me. Only family and hospital staff can move Thelma out of her chair. If she gets up from her wheelchair an alarm will sound and staff will come running.
I tried to make the noise stop with the weight of my coat and a Kleenex box, the only things within reach, while I supported Thelma with my other arm. Once she steadied herself on the toilet, I ran out to the chair to find the switch to turn off the alarm to no avail.
I helped Thelma pull up her adult diaper while making a mental note to begin doing kegels every day. I asked if she wanted me to change it. She said it was fine. It didn’t look fine. Ten repetitions of one hundred kegels. Starting tomorrow.
The alarm in her wheelchair buzzed continuously while she was in the bathroom. I tried to hurry her so we wouldn’t get in trouble but it was too late. If she hadn’t insisted on washing her hands I could have returned her to her chair without her daughter-in-law barging in and scolding us. Later, when I wheeled her down the hallway for something to do, all the aides shook their heads at me. Bad, Amy! Bad!
Shiny waxed linoleum floors that echo. Nagging fluorescent lights. People in wheelchairs, asleep in the hallway. The horrible beeping and buzzing sound of alarms meant to protect everyone’s ass. This is not how I plan to live out my life.
My friend, Nancy, is an emergency room nurse at a busy hospital on Long Island. She told me the story of having to juggle three patients. First, she had to put an IV in an 85-year old woman’s arm. Then she had to check on a bleeding patient’s stitches in the next room. Third, she had to cast a broken leg.
She finally found a vein in the 85-year old, and ran to help the other two patients. When she returned to transfer the 85-year old to a floor, she found that the old woman had pulled out her IV.
“What did you do that for?!!” Nancy scolded her.
“If you were 85 you’d pull it out, too,” she said in a rusty, tired voice.
“That’s just it! I’m not going to be 85!” Nancy spat back, exacerbated.
The old woman pointed a crooked, wrinkled hand at Nancy and croaked, “Sometiiiiimes….you don’t have a choice.”
I realize that. I realize I don’t get to choose how I’m going to age or die. But I like to make plans to make me feel better.
“When the time comes, Skye, I’m going to rent a hang glider and purposely crash it.”
“What if it doesn’t kill you and you only break your neck?”
“Hadn’t thought of that. What’s more dangerous than hang gliding?”
“Skydiving. You’re guaranteed to hit the ground a little harder. But that’s scary.”
“Eh. I could do it, compared to the alternative. I’d probably have a heart attack on the way down.”
“You’d rather go that way? They have lethal injection in Oregon now.”
I don’t know how he knows these things but the thought of lethal injection sounds so freaky. I back off that idea and rethink my plan.
“Do you think they’d put us in the same room? Are there co-ed rooms at nursing homes?” I ask this, aware of the fact that this is the first time I’ve ever imagined us together that long. I know it sounds harsh, but I always figured he’d go before me, with how fast he rides his motorcycle, and how far he drives to work everyday. A crosswind blows precipitation across Route 33, the road he takes to work every day, making it one, long bumper-to-bumper strip of black ice in the winter months.
Before we got married, when all Skye’s motorcycle purchases were bought from sad grooms and relieved brides, I decided I would not be one of those wives who says, “Hey, that thing you love that makes you feel so good? Get rid of it. It’s not going to work with my long-term plan to have an intact family til the day I die.”
However, I’m not a freedom extremist. I’m definitely not going to say, “That job you go to everyday that gives us this lifestyle? Quit it. It’s sucking your soul and that commute is a plank walk.” I have selfishly grown accustomed to a roof over my head and the house to myself all day while he’s out there earning a living.
I told Skye, “There is nothing like peering into each patient’s room at a nursing home to make you realize, ‘Holy, mutha! That could be my future!’”
It was a wake-up call. “We better start that bucket list now, Skye. We better start living!”
In the morning when I woke up and I’d had more time to think about our retirement – that suddenly went from motorcycle rides up Highway 1 and trips to countries we haven’t seen, to the harsh reality of living out our last years in a hospital bed, unable to go to the bathroom independently – I had a new plan for living.
“We need to go on more motorcycle rides this summer,” I announced to Skye when he woke up.
“Okay. Why is that?”
“Because we love them.”
I was up before Skye, made coffee for myself while he slept in. When he awoke, I jumped up to make coffee for him, even though he was on his way to make it himself.
“You take your delicate system over there and I’ll make you some coffee while I still can. I’m going to spoil you without worrying about how you’re going to turn out.”
“Too late. I’m already bad. And I’m all grown up so there’s no fixing it,” he said. And then he felt me up.
There is definitely no sex going on at the nursing home. I’m pretty sure we won’t wind up there. What was I thinking?
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