Right off the bat, I apologize if the title of this essay is a little too cutesy for you. I like a clever turn of phrase, and I could not resist playing off the popular pregnancy book. The population I am discussing is about as far away from pregnancy as you can get. This essay is to help prepare a person, or the relatives of a person, who is about to enter a care facility.
I was lucky (?) enough to begin this journey in my late 50s, when I was still of very sound mind although not body. I had lived on my own for years, but the combination of my lack of mobility and the shortage of available helpers made living on my own impossible. I said goodbye to my cat, my diet, and my privacy and headed into the care facility.
The first thing I had to get used to was the noise. Unless you are lucky enough to have your own room, you will have at least one other person in your room. Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA) and nurses come in and out of your room at all hours, and when they talk to each other, it is at the same volume whether it is 3 PM or 3 AM. So the first thing I did, in order to be able to sleep and not be interrupted, was to get a really good pair of noise-canceling headphones.
If you can't do that, get some decent quality earplugs. There is also always lights on somewhere, so a good pair of eyes shades will insure it will be dark when you need it to be. If you’ve never worn eye shades to fall asleep, it might take a week or so to get used to, but once you do, it will be difficult to fall asleep without them.
Getting used to the environment is another matter. Depending on how hard you are fighting against entering the facility will determine how long it takes to settle in. Don't get me wrong, it can be a seriously depressing change. Unfortunately, at times it may be a necessary one. The simple cost of rent, food and caregivers sometimes makes Medicaid your only viable choice.
If you still possess all your mental faculties, I beg you, stifle your hatred for everything around you and be as friendly as possible! It is not the staff‘s fault you are here, so try not to unload on them. I can tell you from experience, the more you make friends with everyone around you, the easier life will be.
If you are in the unenviable position of having to move a loved one into a facility and they have lost the ability to function on their own, please keep in mind that they will act very differently around strangers then they do around you. As painful as it is to release them into someone else's care, it can be worse and do more harm to you and to them to pretend that you are still able to keep them safe when they are acting irrationally.
You can visit your relative as often as you like. Make friends with the staff and show them as much appreciation as you can. If the staff likes you, that can only rub off favorably when they treat your relative. Realize that the staff is almost always overworked, and unless they give you a reason not to trust them, believe what they say.
Think of it like they were going off to sleepover camp. It’s important to name every piece of clothing and most items so that they can be easily returned if they ever get misplaced. There are three shifts of people every day, and every person has a different idea about where something should he placed. I can't tell you how many times someone has been looking for something, can't find it, and concludes it isn't here. No, I think, you just haven't found it yet. That's why I hassle people to tell me where they put something. If I know where it is, I can tell somewhere else where to get it.
Depending on how much air conditioning your care facility has and the size of the person living there, that will determine how many extra blankets you may need. Your blanket should have a distinctive pattern, bright color, or something to distinguish it from the facility’s bedding. It will also be nice for the resident to take ownership of it or perhaps recognize it as their own. You may need a few different blankets of varying thicknesses to accommodate different evening temperatures.
The food at a care facility is one of the most common complaints there is. They should be able to accommodate whatever diet requirements you have. In reality, sometimes you get what you get. Whenever you can, an outside meal will provide a welcome change of pace. Even just a side dish or new salad dressing will change things up.
In the end, no matter how much you fight it, your life will eventually fall into a regular routine. You will find ways to keep yourself occupied that are even, dare I say, enjoyable. You will always look back enviably at the time before you came, but know that if you are here, that time before had an expiration date on it. It's up to you where you go from here.
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