July 28, 2013 A memory from a nurse.

     Good morning. Everyone is asleep here, which is good for me. Mom told me at least a hundred times yesterday that she wanted to go home. Um she is home. This has been her house for about 50 years. Trying to reorient her does not work most of the time. So I asked her where she lived and she named the road that she use to live up when she was a teen. Anyway I think that was where she lived then. This is very frustrating to me because I never wanted her to go to a nursing home, at nursing homes you always hear little old ladies say "I want to go home." It is heart breaking when they want to go home or at least see there family and no one ever comes.
     I use to be a nurse and I have worked in a couple nursing homes. I can tell you that I had never seen any kind or type of abuse by any of the staff. I never would have stood for it. I loved all my residents. I cared for them as if they were my own mother or father. There were several times when death was very near and they did not have family beside them that I would stay after work just to set by them talk, pray, sing, and just be there so they were not alone when they breathed there last breath. One lady will be in my memory for ever. She was newer to the facility maybe a week or two, she was not under my care that day, I was assigned on the other side of the building. I heard the commotion over the intercom, one nurse calling for help from others. Like all the other nurses in the building we all went running. After an assessment of this resident by all the other nurses they left the room to get supplies, call doctors, and call family. I had nothing to do, in regards to the notifications and preparing. So I did what I saw that she needed most. I pulled up a chair to her bed side and held her hand. She was blind, but she was able to speak. She told me she was afraid. I comforted her as best as I could. She sat straight up in bed breathed her last breath and passed away. She was a DNR (do not resuscitate). I got up and informed her nurse who was at the nurses station. I was with that woman and held her hand when she needed it the most. I know in my heart that I was where I was suppose to be, doing just what I was meant to do. That lady was not alone. And neither shall my mother ever be.

                                                                            April Whitehair