A kopje can conceal anything--- Leopard lounging after a kill cheetah checking for hidden hyena lions digesting dinner Tourists, having mid-morning tea, search for elephant, giraffe, zebra, and buffalo. Scout for dik-dik and Topi antelope and gazelles. Survey the grasses, for warthogs and wildebeest. Study the water for hippos and crocs. Scan the African bush for respite and renewal. Seek in the alien acacias a salve to sooth shattered souls. Weary revenants recognizing the hills of home.

The Unrest Home

When I was finally discharged from the hospital after my total left knee replacement (they had kept me for two days, which is not customary, but was appreciated), the surgeons wanted me to go home with a 24/7 caregiver.  I’m happily single, and although my friends were more than willing to drive me to and fro and provide an occasional visit and meal, none of them felt comfortable with the role of 24/7 caregiver.  I certainly didn’t blame them.  I wouldn’t have wanted that job either.

So, knowing I would need watching for the first post-surgery week, (and also knowing anywhere I stayed would be paid for out of my own funds because, apparently everyone is supposed to have someone at home to help them) I visited several assisted living facilities, looking for a place to land after the hospital.  The first was a cute place that had been a former elementary school, but it didn’t offer the kind of care I would need.  The next place was a more serious rehab place for people with much worse conditions than I would have.  The third, among other things, didn’t pass the nursing home urine-feces-industrial-strength-cleaner smell test.  But the last place I went seemed a good place.  It was bright, clean, the staff friendly, with no old folks’ home smell.  They also could do my first week’s rehab, and they had a program that would allow my insurance to pick up most of the tab for my stay there.  Win win.

So, when the day of my hospital discharge came, my friend Kathleen picked me up and off we went to “The Home.”

The first snafu was that they hadn’t quite expected me, which was strange because the hospital knew I was going there post-surgery and had been in contact with them.  But that was a small problem as they had an empty room I could use.  So, into the wheelchair I went and down the long hall to the very end and my home away from home for seven days.  

The room was nothing fancy---a hospital bed, a chair, a padded bench to put your suitcase on, a handicapped accessible bathroom.  It was clean, had a nice, bright window, and was close to an exit door.  And being at the end of the hall, there shouldn’t be much traffic outside my door.  So, good.

Upon my arrival to the room, I took off my shoes and socks and hoisted myself (with help yet, of course) into bed.  Kathleen put my socks and suitcase on the bench and settled herself into the chair.   We were happily talking when the first unrestful incident occurred.  That’s when we met Ginger.

A white-haired lady in a wheel chair, pulling herself down the hall using her feet, came into view in my doorway.  When she stopped and looked in, we greeted her, being friendly with my temporary neighbors.  The woman never said a thing, but dragged herself into my room and made a beeline for my socks, which had little cat faces on them. She maneuvered herself around to face the bench where we had put my socks, picked them up, pressed them out flat on her lap, circled her wheelchair around, and proceeded to head for the door. Kathleen and I looked at each other, and I imagine the look of incredulity on Kathleen’s face was mirrored by my own. Before the sock thief got very far, however, one of the staff appeared. “Ginger, what are you doing here?”  She whipped the socks out of Ginger’s hands, put them back on the bench, and then wheeled Ginger out the door and back to Memory Care clear across the building.  I later learned that Ginger loved cats, but how she saw those socks in my room lying on that bench I still haven’t figured out.

The next day, Sunday, actually followed the Lord’s dictates and was a day of rest.  No small or large crises ensued.

Monday morning the next small problem occurred.  I awoke at 6:30 AM having, of course, to go to the bathroom.  I pushed my call button for help.  By 7:00 AM things were getting desperate.  I groaned and moaned and said a few bad words, but got myself up and to the bathroom, not exactly a safe thing to do yet after my surgery, but, geez, I really had to go.  Got myself back to bed and went back to sleep.  

When I woke again at 9:00 and no one had yet come to help me, I used my 21st century technology cell phone and called the front desk.  Well, that got people’s attention.  I heard the young desk manager outside my door talking to the nurse, who kept saying, “Why didn’t she use her buzzer?”  I think they a were a little surprised when they came into the room and I answered, “I did use my buzzer.”  I suspect they aren’t used to their guests having all their faculties, especially hearing.  Come to find out, my buzzer was broken. Soon after, I got to meet the facilities engineer, a very nice man who, indeed, fixed my buzzer. 

Later that day, I had my first OT session, which went well, although it is always surprising how much stamina you lose after just a few prone days.  Fortunately, as tired as I was after my “busy” day, the night was quiet, except for the small argument I had to have with the night nurse who kept trying to “help” me by giving me a pain medicine to which I am allergic.  But I explained to him how things were going to be, and he reluctantly accepted the fact that I was more stubborn than he.

Tuesday began with my first PT session.  We walked down the hall about 150 feet before they put me in my wheelchair and rolled me the rest of the way to the gym.  They had me work on the NuStep machine, which is kind of like walking, only you’re sitting down.  Eight minutes and I was exhausted.  I was wheeled back to the room only to discover that my buzzer wasn’t working---again.  So, I had another visit from my friend the engineer, who swore to me that this time the dingus was fixed.  “That’s what you said last time,” I countered.  “Well,” he said, “I only tested it 25 times before.  This time, I tested it fifty.”  And fifty must have been the charm because there was no more trouble with the buzzer.  At least, in my room.

However, the buzzer system was a mystery to my new neighbor across the hall.

John showed up late afternoon, and immediately gave the staff fits by leaving his room to go walkabout.  That night, they had to wheel him around the facility to tire him out so he would stay put.  Well, I’m pretty sure he didn’t leave his room after his initial stroll because, no matter the time, if he needed assistance, instead of pushing the buzzer, he would stand in his doorway and yell, “Help!  I need help…. Help!  I need help” until finally someone came.  

John finally settled down, but I still had a lousy night.  I had miserable pain and leg cramps.  Finally got to sleep around 2:30 AM.  The residence doctor pointed out that my potassium was low, which definitely can cause leg cramps.  He prescribed potassium pills, which taste like pure salt.  Awful!

PT and OT showed up after lunch, and wheeled me down to the stairwell leading to the independent living apartments so I could practice going up and down stairs.  I did a lot better than I thought I would, but again, just a little work took all the tuck out of me.  And, I was in pain. 

 I saw the nurse on my wheel-chair ride back to my room.  

 “Chip,” I whimpered.

 “What can I do for you?”  he asked. 

 “An amputation,” I suggested.  

“How about a pain pill instead?”  

Well, okay, but I was only half-joking about the amputation.  So, pain pill swallowed, I crawled into bed and slept the sleep of the drugged until…the fire alarm went off!  Really? 

I was a public-school teacher so am well trained; when the fire alarm goes off, you vacate the premises.  However, medicated, tired, and crippled me lay in bed awhile hoping the damn thing would shut off.  But, no, it just kept blaring away. So, very reluctantly, I got myself up and to the door, where I finally laid eyes on John, who was also standing in his doorway.  My friend the engineer was there fiddling with the fire alarm, the nice young desk manager showed up, fire extinguisher in hand, and one of the nurses soon joined us.  We were about five steps from an outside door, so if we saw smoke or flames billowing down the hall, we could exit pretty quickly.  Blessedly, the alarm finally went off.  I heard the staff surmising that someone had probably burned some popcorn in the microwave again.  Regardless of the reason, I figured that little upset had to be the one for the day and it was going to be clear sailing from here until tomorrow.  Well, I was sort of right.  It was very early Thursday morning when the next upheaval occurred. 

I had ascertained that I was perfectly capable of getting myself to the bathroom, so I hadn’t even thought about ringing my buzzer when I got up around 2:00 AM to use the facilities.  I had just nicely “winched” myself back into bed when I heard a mighty crash outside my door.  Whoever had just fallen in hall was nowhere near a buzzer, so I pressed mine to get some assistance.  

There is never enough help in a nursing facility, and nights are even worse.  We patients are supposed to be asleep, after all.  So, it was quite awhile before I heard someone coming down the hall, saying, “Margaret.  What are you doing there?”

Margaret (not her name, but I can’t remember what her name was) had had an epileptic seizure.  Her condition warranted a call to 911. Soon, the EMTs showed up, and there was much deep-male-voice talking and heavy-footed milling around in the hall.  Finally, it was decided to take her to the hospital, which involved getting the gurney and more talking and milling about.  When all the hubbub quieted down, the night person finally answered my buzzer.  I explained I had only pushed it to call for help for whoever was in trouble in the hall.  He then got a new ice pack for my knee (ice, my new best friend) and left me to try to salvage a night’s sleep. 

I found out the next day that Margaret was part of the night staff.  Good Lord.  This was who was supposed to be watching me 24/7?  I was beginning to lose faith in the system.

But that was the last major crisis I had to endure during my stay at “The Home.”  Of course, that was not the end of the issues; there were other small problems before I left.  I had finally allowed them to do my laundry, only to have it disappear.  I got to meet the head laundress, a very nice lady who, when she finally found all my clean clothing, became my hero.  I had a couple of rough mornings when my left leg swelled up like a Christmas ham. There was more exhausting and painful PT.  The hospital bed had started to get extremely, enormously, excruciatingly uncomfortable and I was considering sleeping in the chair.  John still hadn’t figured out the buzzer system.  But the big events were now in the past.  When my week’s stay was up and it was time to go home, I was more than ready for some true peace and quiet.

And to sleep in my own bed, or, as it turned out, my Lazy Boy. 

Next: the story of the in-home health care workers---the good, the bad, and the WTF.

Cerise Fuhrman is a long-time member of Peninsula Writers, a non-profit incorporated in1984 as a support group for writers. She is a retired English teacher, ending her secondary teaching career in 2010 at Northview High School in Grand Rapids before going to her retirement gig at Grand Rapids Community College, retiring for good in 2016. She travels extensively and has been to every continent but Antarctica. (She quite fell in love with Africa and still misses elephants.) When not travelling, Cerise lives in Grand Rapids with her feline roommates who allow her to serve them. An iteration of her poem POND Part 1 was published in 2023 in My Secret Lansing.  She has also been published in The Freeman Magazine and in other small publications. She is the current editor of the PW News, the Peninsula Writers newsletter.  She also serves as the organization’s vice president.