A Germ-a-phobic’s Nightmare

An excerpt from the book

“Transitions”

By Encore’s Director of Environmental Services

 Robert Milstid

A Germ-a-phobic’s Nightmare

I thought my first day would be a quiet one. Most first days tend to be that way; you don’t know what you’re doing and you don’t know where anything is. Mrs. Whitfield told me to ease into the day and get to know the building. She most likely knew that this being a memory care center would take some getting used to.  I thought that I would be able to adjust to the atmosphere and I knew to expect to be slightly out of my comfort zone on the first day. Today will be ok I said to myself, no worries.

Well no, it wasn’t ok. It was a bizarre day; the things I saw would take some getting used to for sure. I appreciated where I was and the fact that at least now I actually had a steady job, but the whole experience of seeing the people in their various conditions seemed a bit surreal. I am empathetic by nature, I always have been but there was no denying the fact that I had yet to be exposed to groups of people suffering from dementia. I watched the residents moving all around the building, there were some that were completely mobile with seemingly good conversational skills and then there were those that camped out in large recliners in the TV rooms. They were the ones that I expected to see and were probably the most comfortable with. My meager understanding of all of this led me to believe they were the content ones; I did not yet understand that they had only advanced in their dementia and would be up and about if they could.

Then there were those with walkers. I guess breakfast was getting ready to be served in the dining room because it was like morning rush hour traffic trying to navigate the hallways. I thought to myself, thank God they did not have horns installed on their walkers or it would have sounded like New York City in Times Square. Soon they all had their walkers parked and lined up all along the wall that faced the dining room. I was impressed that they were lining up so well. I looked at the wall and envisioned a wooden pole mounted with reins tethering the walkers like cowboys stopping in the local saloon for refreshment. I passed the dining room where the residents were having breakfast and was instantly the focus of about a hundred eyeballs.

I heard one of the ladies say to her table, “That’s my cousin, he’s staying here now.”

I smiled and waved at her. The whole table waved back at me and told me they were glad I was here. Someone from another table said to the ladies that I did not live here I was because I was a schoolteacher here to teach her how to fix her car.

An older man called over to me, “Hey, come over here.”

“Hello Sir, how are you?” I said.

“Son you know me I’m sure, but I just wanted you to know that I got here some time ago. I’ve pretty much lived in every place in here. I’m the master of the…” He appeared to have completely lost his train of thought so I helped him out and suggested that he was pretty much in charge of things. He seemed very relieved and said, “I’m the master of this city; I built this damn place with my bare hands, most of it that is.”  I told him that it must have taken him quite a while to get it all built, and that he did a really good job. I could see a calm self-satisfaction come across his face.

Feeling like I was ahead in the conversation, moving on seemed like a good move. I walked over to another table and said hello to a lady who was looking down at her food in what seemed to be a trance. Although I had yet to learn how to speak with our residents or even how to behave around them, I decided to relax and be natural. I was feeling a strange kindred spirit almost immediately with the residents; for most of my life I have felt like I was just a bit south of what people expected me to be. I kneeled down on one knee and said good morning to the woman. She did not respond to me, she just stared at her plate. I took a second to see what she was having and it actually looked pretty good.

I said to her, “You’ve got bacon, scrambled eggs and a biscuit. My favorite thing to do with a biscuit is to push my finger into the middle of it to make a small space in it, and then I like to fill it with syrup. Have you ever tried that?”

She continued to stare at her plate and did not respond to me at all.   I gave her a minute more then started to get up from what I assumed was a non-conversation. I could see her trying to say something very quietly as I was getting up.  I got back down again where she would know that I was still paying attention to her.  She was saying something in a whisper that I could not quite decipher; I asked her if she could repeat what she was saying to me.

After about a minute she turned her head towards me, looked me right in the eyes and said very quietly, “When I was a young girl, I would do that with my biscuit.” Her eyes opened fully and I could see real enthusiasm in her face as she continued, “I enjoyed bacon more than anything in the whole world.”

I was blown away by her response.   She had understood exactly what I was saying.  I don’t know why, but I wasn’t expecting that.  That was awesome. I looked at her and told her that I agreed with her and thought bacon was one of the best things in the world as well.

“You and I are a lot alike,” I said.

She responded in a low voice to me, “Is that what you think?”

I wasn’t sure how to respond, I started to say something else to her but I wasn’t sure where else to go with our conversation, so I told her that I would see her around and looked forward to speaking with her again.

“I hope so, you’re a nice young man,” she said, and then very slowly returned to the fixed gaze she had prior to our conversation. She continued to stare at her plate as I walked off.

Transitions is available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle!