Who To Trust

It’s getting to the place that I have few I can trust. You are thinking gee, what happened to her?

It is just no matter who I talk to anymore whether it is about car tire pressure, or car lots selling cars or even professionals their words are not quite the same as the next persons.

I trust each of my friends here at WP. I trust my very best friend. I trust God.

Are you thinking,what has brought this up? Probably and I will answer.

I called the nursing home and asked how Al had been doing this morning. The nurse said good, no complaints from him. So I had her ask him if he would like me to bring lunch from the DQ and the answer came back yes.

I get there and he is laying on his bed. There is blood spots all over the floor. His bed is wet. He has a bloody rag in his hands and his mustache is filled with blood. I asked,”What happened?”

He starts crying and I do figure out from the pieces I hear him saying that he has had another nose bleed. This is like I don’t even know anymore how many, too many. I go to find out more information from the nurse.

Part of me is upset because there is a dirty pad in his chair filled with blood and left-overs of some type of food. The floor is as I said blood spotted. He is crying. What am I supposed to think.

I couldn’t find the nurse as usual. I go back in to Al and he sees the lunch I brought. He fights with all his power to sit up and the nose goes into more of a run now with the blood. He struggles to get in his wheel chair but does it. He has to use the bathroom so he puts his call light on. We wait a few but no one comes so I go on the hunt again for the aide and the nurse.

I do find the nurse and get the picture of what has been happening. Another nose bleed she says. She says,” I think Al is picking his nose and making it bleed. I stuck a flash light towards the opening of his nostril and I saw a scab.”

Ok I am thinking. So we turn to go check out Al and he is gone. I hear the stool flush so I now know where he is. The nurse calls me a way from the door and whispers, “Watch in the mirror here in the hall.”

I am thinking what? but I watch. Soon Al walks without his walker back to his wheelchair. I am amazed that he did it better than I thought. He stumbled a little but caught himself on whatever was close for him.

She and I walk in and she says, ” He can do more than he is letting on. He just wants your pity.” I said, ” What about the times when I am not here? Does he want my pity then too?” She just looked at me. Al heard all of this. He is so extra sensitive with his feelings. According to the neurologist this is a part of the Parkinson’s.

The nurse tells him,” You are just pulling your sister’s leg.” This really set his emotions off. He started crying. His nose started bleeding more. The  nurse told him,”If you don’t stop the crying I am going to have to send you to the ER to get your nose packed.”

Al tried to quit but the tears just got faster. The tremors went in quad speed. The blizzard he was holding was spilling all over his clothes. His nose was running blood. It was a mess.

The nurse left and an aide came in. Between her and I we went through three wash cloths of blood and a clean outfit. He cried the whole time I was there. So he never ate his lunch and he spilled half of his drink.

This is my opinion. Al has been belittled by his Dad all his life. He has always been very sensitive. Now that the PD is in full swing his sensitivity is so strong that every little word that is attacking him he burst in to tears. The nurse’s words upset him.

I think Al is very very emotional. He gets his feelings hurt pretty easy. Just seeing what had just transpired proved me more right than wrong. I went out in the hall while the aide changed his clothes.

The nurse was waiting outside the door as if she was listening to the inside conversation. She said,” See he is just crying for your pity.”

When he was all cleaned up and it was him and I again I asked him how he could walk to the bathroom without help or the wheelchair. His explanation was this. ” I put on the call light but I can’t always hold it long enough until help gets here. I pee my pants. So I have quit putting the call light on. I can’t make the wheel chair go in the direction I need it to in this small room so I just walk to the bathroom and back to my seat.”

Part of me understood what he was saying but I told him I didn’t like him walking without someone being there with him, but he said, “Sis, I have to go pee and it won’t wait.”

Then he got all confused and told me he couldn’t walk down to the dining room. I told him that he was right. So the conversation and confusion about what to use when to use was all lost.

Getting Al to understand what I am saying is really difficult the more he has PD. I helped him lie down and told him to rest or take a nap. I took his food to the nurse and asked her to label it as he may want it later. I asked her to chart that he ate very little and she asked why. I just walked back to Al’s room without answering.

I know that was rude. I am sorry. I was frustrated. I didn’t know what to believe or who to believe. The nurse came back in to check on his bleeding and told me, ” You have to use tough love.”

I felt one tear from one eye and then one from the other.I didn’t want to show my tears.  I told Al I loved him and that I hoped he would feel better. I said I would be back Tuesday. His room was filled with bloody rags and still spots all over  the floor. The room smelled like stale pee. I turned to walk out and saw the nurse smiling at me. I walked on by.

Who do I trust? Me, the nurse, Al, God, who? My heart may be too involved with Al, I don’t know. All I do know is what I observed today. A mixed up PD guy who didn’t eat, was a bloody mess, and had never stopped crying. Am I too soft on  him? Or does he just have good days and bad? Am I guilty in some way of him being in that wheelchair? Should I have practiced tough love and maybe he would still be walking?

I don’t have the answers. I do wish the nurse would have called me and let me know what was happening. I wasted the time and money on the food that he didn’t eat, and I left just as sad as Al was.

Related articles

• An Odd Sunday Shift (thenurseintraining.wordpress.com)
• Nursing staff testimony differs with earlier statements on death of patient (jsonline.com)
• When all hell broke lose… (4flewin.wordpress.com)
• EXTREME NOSE BLEED!! Ended up at the ER three times last night!! (lunaticoutpost.com)
• Nurses [jay] (theocult.com)
• Care home death: Nurse refuses to do CPR on 87-year-old who died at California home (standard.co.uk)
• Developmentally Disabled, Nursing Homes Can Be Dangerous Mix (pattidudek.typepad.com)
• Former nursing home aide faces criminal charges (newsday.com)
• Inflammatory News Headline Misrepresents Nursing Home Injury (chicagonursinghomelawyerblawg.com)
• More Broken Bones After Neglect At Taylorville (chicagonursinghomelawyerblawg.com)