How did I get here?

Let me start out by saying I never expected to be living in a nursing home at the age of 55. Actually I never expected to be living in a nursing home period. Few people do I suspect. Ten years ago a tumor was found inside my spinal cord. They removed it and I learned to walk again. Easy Peasy... OK, not Easy Peasy, but I went from wheelchair to walker to cane to walking. I did it and while not fully functional, I got around. Two years ago I quit a job in Pennsylvania because I was miserable. I've worked in TV for 30 years and have always been able to find work so I didn't worry. Then the recession/depression happened and no one was hiring. In order to save money I let my Cobra health care go, then discovered no one else would insure me with my disability. To make matters worse, the money was running out, my 401K was a quarter of its former bulk and then in April of '09 I started losing feeling again in my right leg. Did I tell my family or go see a doctor? No, I'm stupid and decided to see if it will get better by itself. Big mistake. Then I fell in September and to quote a bad commercial "could not get up". So I laid there on my apartment floor for a week until my brother and sisters became frantic and called my landlady. She broke in, then there were ambulances, hospitals, MRIs, CAT scans, etc. Finally they did a test called a mylogram, a lovely procedure where they inject dye in your spinal cord and hang you upside down, and discovered that my spinal cord had not healed correctly after the original surgery. According to the neurosurgeon, I have a "tethered spinal cord" and my next fall could tear my spinal cord out. My family (who all live in North Carolina) freaked and I now find myself in a Pennsylvania nursing home learning to walk again and waiting for disability to kick in so I can move to a rehab facility in NC. Since I have to be here anyway I thought I would give people a preview of what could be your future in a nursing home.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

10 Things You Desperately Need At The Nursing Home That You Didn't Know You Needed

You may be told some of these things are forbidden. That's why you have a lockable drawer.

10- Your favorite over-the-counter headache/cold medication- They never have the stuff that you know works.
9- Eyebrow Tweezers- Hair will begin to grow in the most unlikely places.
8- Real Kleenex (or Puffs or Scotties)... any soft tissue. The stuff they give you will scrape the quills off a porcupine.
7- Small Mirror- No one will tell you how you really look.
6- Ear plugs and or ear phones- You can not imagine how noisy it is, every hour of the day and night. Wireless TV earphones are the best!
5- Scissors and Scotch tape
4- Small packets of mayo, mustard, ketchup, salt, pepper and tartar, taco and soy sauces. The food is incredibly bland, so anything you can add will help. You can also bring your favorite salad dressing. If you like real caffeinated coffee, you better bring in instant because all you will get inside is a weak unleaded "brown water".
3- Ziplock bags- handy for everything from takeout left-overs to a shower carryall.
2-Your laptop/cell phone/I-Phone... whatever you need to communicate with the world.
1- Your sense of humor... and chocolate (or Twizzlers).

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