A lot to think about : Wandering through a Care Home

The deputy manager seemed to play the mostmost powerful role. Then there were the nurses. the carers,the third the cleaners were last. Sothe nurse became a very powerful figure. Asfor the doctor the general practitioner they see far above anybody. I think all this had a bad effect on the carers and the residents. hierarchies of power are not productive of loving kindness

I have been going over in my mind my experience of being with someone with advanced dementia and getting to know her and getting to be a friend. The best analogy I can think of to be how you would be meeting a smallish wild animal.You approach cautiously but not fearfully.It will be important to be in good contact with your body.It's not only because a fear but it's a good way to be with people to be feelingly inside your body. After that you can speak to them it seems but there is no hurry at all. I also said to this particular lady that if she kept screaming for more than five minutes. and I would tell her that I will not stay in her room and then I would go and I would say I will come back tomorrow or soon anyway the next day I never made a time because how she was varied. And I could say the same of myself. it was very slow progress which I heard her talking to herself. she was saying that I the writer am a very special person. I am one of a kind so I have become part o

Although living in a care home can be extremely lonely, i it's possible to get very close to somebody. I got a very close to a lady of 100 who had dementia but it took time. the start with qu she the she was aggressive because I could not do what she wanted, but gradually got to trust me. after about 8 months she said to me one day that she knew it was me who was putting her blanket around because she said you are so gentle. then she said I love you. when she had been asking me to kill her ;that was quite a big advance. despite the fact that I had to leave the Home I don't think it's the wastr of time spending it with her. I think the fact that she felt she loved me which I think was genuine is good experience for her. despite the horrible boredom and frustration of her illness she was still able to make contact with another person and to be grateful for what she was receiving and I think even that small amount of care would give her spirit some comfort. Coming back i

I miss the love that Merry gave me when she came in early so she could help me to shower. She touched my body gently as if I were her mother. She wept when she knew I was leaving. I thought sometimes that for the minimum wage you couldn't expect people to give of themselves butI was wrong. Leah was also a warm loving humorous woman.L I think they like me because I talked to them and made conversation. it takes a long time in a place like that when you're sent there in severe pain and you are frightened because you have no family near& you don't know what to expect. and I would say that several things that happened to me caused me serious trauma. After one of them I rang the Samaritans. That will give you an idea. but also some funny things, humorous happened Was it a number of the staff thought that I was very beautiful and my white hair was actually thought blonde so they're like to and they like my night dress that had no sleeves and one young Muslim lady said

I have been writing mainly about the bad side of nursing homes. but the love was probably greater than the unkindness and the cruelty.Of course most people don't think the way that I do Some of the individual carers and nurses were exceptionally good. Not just what they did but the manner in which they did it. We should all help by visiting our relatives or becoming a visitor to those who have no relatives because we need to keep the old frail people in our minds and hearts an really in our communities

Normally if someone pays for a service they are treated well but in the place that I was in you would not have felt so. really. in the NHS we don't expect to be treated we were private patients what's in the nursing home some of us might I think it's because we are not seeing them as having any power of choice or power to decide to move to a different home. I was unhappy very unhappy atll but I've got to know some of the staff and I thought starting again will be very difficult. there are some very very good ones. Human nature being what it is could it be improved by me moving I don't think so. in fact the resident may not have really wished to go there. but their family couldn't look after them so they had no choice.

The joy we may be lucky enough to experience when were return to our homes and gardens after being in hospital or nursing homes does not seem to last for very long because we take these wonderful parts of life for granted. I am thinking of sitting in a garden or a park near the rose display sitting near a tree watching squirrel or just watching the leaves of the up and down in the wind all these little things can be so beautiful when you've been incarcerated especially for two years or longer. I would compare it with a reading of books slowly and savouring it. Some of us rush through a book to get to the end and then we start another one. the day after I came home the doorbell run and it was a very nice looking young man delivering the parcel from Amazon I didn't seemed just amazing to see a person with a smile on their face looking at me when I have been in my room most of the time in theand never saw anyone. when it was warm I sat on my front step and just looked at my gar

Very few people leave a care home alive. I have done so but it's not easy because when we stop doing the things like planning our own meals or paying bills or even using the washing machine to my horror I have discovered one becomes afraid of them. so I have had to endure a lot of anxiety. sometimes I feel as if I am on the top of a mountain surrounded by mist. I am completely alone I don't know which way to go as I do each thing my anxiety gets less. I have managed to find a very good electrician.I am diffident with the neighbours because I don't want to be seen as a burden. but I am a really lovely person. I am very kind I'm gentle. I am also extremely intelligent but I hope this is not seen in the negative way. what can I have found the most wonderful things about being in an ordinary house is the light coming through the windows and being able to read a book in my hands and I can see it properly because my room in the care home was so dark I could only read thing