HOME CARE VERSES NURSING HOMES

Old Trunks has talked about structures for the elderly before. The last blog about it had to do with the Valley Christian Home Society purchasing land behind the Oakland Park Sanatorium. We know it never came to be.

In articles published in the Thief River Falls Times in early 1957, it talks about another meeting where architects, fund raising, and society membership was encouraged.

The idea was to get a new and larger home to replace the building in use at Fourth and Horace. It would be a few years before the home was actually ready for occupancy. We know this because when Mrs. Bloom had her stroke, she was first taken to the multiple story building on Horace Avenue. It was a grim place; poorly lit and by all of today's standard's, unlivable. Nina would move to the new Valley Home; she deceased in the fall of 1963.

We know the threshold of a nursing home is the last place we, as healthy people, want to cross. Even today's strict standards, set by the government, we know it is an institutional setting. We know the food comes in frozen or in large cans and dished up and warmed up. We know our loved ones with share half a room and the thousands of trinkets, gadgets, and personal items will not be around our loved one as they had been in their home where we remember having meals and lunch and where the coffee pot was always on. We also know that the worst of the worst where the folks that lived there because no one could take care of them at home.

But Valarie's mother did and Grandma Mae did. What was the difference is my gnawing question. Perhaps the biggest answer is simple: There was no therapy to get people back to what they could do for themselves and dementia was something accepted and nothing could be done to recharge the brain.

I remember Mrs. Nelson whom I never saw out of her bed. As a person who has worked in the nursing home environment, I now wonder about bed sores and getting her up, just for the sake of change of body position. Where subtle changes noted? Did they need to be noted?

Was Grandpa Phil better off in his house, in bed, looking out the window to the north and to the east than in a nursing home? Was it Grandma Mae who taught him to communicate effectively after his stroke that left him without normal speech? What sense of purpose did he have? Did he think about it? Was he challenged in his world?

The couple we had lunch with on Sunday talked about a friend who was 86. He just had three things fixed on his heart. He had no family and was at the time we talked was on a respirator. Arne stated that doctors were just trying to keep people alive. His wife, a nurse for many years, wondered when enough was enough.

I marketed to nursing homes part of the time I lived and worked in Kansas. I met some great people. The staff cared about their residents. A nursing home becomes a community. People buddy up if they are well enough and mindful enough. Staff members have favorites. If you are a little lady with silver hair and manners, you will get the best of treatment.
If you are a male with former clout and bark a lot, you will not. It is the rule of the jungle called health care. The beauty of it is, there is always staff that gets along with the 'difficult' people so they always have a friend or a person that will care for them in a special way.

Families help themselves past feeling guilty by saying, "They will get good care." They will. The biggest difference I see in home care and nursing homes is simple. People who stay at home are lonely. The people in nursing homes have the staff and other residents bumping into their minds numerous times a day. That is part of the community. It may seem odd to you that lining 20 men up on the first Saturday of the month for hair cut is nursing home community. You might find it appalling or degrading to 'line them up' but it is perfectly normal in this community setting.

I am thinking about someone named George. He made the decision to be part of the institution. He had polio as a youngster and now had a stroke. He was not able to walk despite hours of therapy. He greeted every new resident offering a welcome. He made friends and he was liked for the most part by residents and staff alike. George's body was shot but his brain was not. Georges body was frail; he played bingo in the evening and died during the night.

Unlike Mrs. Nelson, he was able to get around on his motorized chair. The Mrs. Nelson's of the home were preened and hugged by staff. Little Gracie, for example was loved by all as was Elizabeth who couldn't think the word fingernail polish but the community that surrounded her knew she meant it when she said, Jell-O.

I am thinking about Ella Steinhauer and the kind of resident she was during her stay in the nursing home. She was that sort of grand lady I am talking about that everyone liked and admired. She was the dietitian's nightmare because she wasn't hungry. The nursing staff cared about her needs and knew her personally. She had visitors on a daily basis to bring in information from the outside. And, like some, she graciously excepted her position in life knowing it would be her last earthly home.

For some of us reading this blog, we won't make the decision as to what to do with our parents, they have died. What about the younger generations? Are you equipped emotionally and physically to care for a parent 24/7? What do we base the decision on?

Perhaps you won't have to make the decision at all. Perhaps they will, like my grandfather, sell his house and his belongings and make the statement that he is moving to the nursing home. Perhaps he made that decision based on his loving 24/7 care of his wife the last six months and how exhausting it was at 87 to take on such a mission.

Think about it.

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