Not Your Grandmother's Nursing Home

My only experience with nursing homes before now is the one my poor aunt Kelly was dumped in by my nasty cousin David. It was awful... dirty, crowded and smelled like piss. The facility where I am is not like that. In fact the first thing my little sister told me about the place was that it didn't stink at all. And as you can tell from an earlier post there is a lot of pee around so you can imagine how much they clean. This is what is called a skilled care facility... which means there is at least one nurse on each wing and a doctor either roaming the halls or on call if the need should arise. It's is either a nursing home that wants to be a rehabilitation facility or a rehabilitation facility where 90% of its therapy patients sleep through their sessions. Trying to be both leads to the interesting blend of people who find themselves living together.
First you have people you would expect to find in a nursing home... the Grousing Grannies (sometimes referred to as the Hall Crawlers). They are long-term residents who range in age from 70 to 100+ who can normally be found in the hallways at 6AM, in the TV room during Price is Right and Wheel of Fortune and in bed by 6PM. They spend most of their days talking out loud to themselves about past wrongs, bad husbands and ungrateful children. Warning: Do not attempt to engage in conversation... they only really want one thing and that is to go home... the home that has probably been sold by the bad husband and ungrateful children. If you can not help them go home, they will turn mean. And I do not know where these little old ladies have managed to pick up this language, but most of them could make a sailor blush. Many of them have been dumped here by relatives, or at least they feel like they have been dumped by relatives, in reality they are probably very lucky to be here. They are taken to activities at least twice a day to get them out of their rooms and to clear the hallways. The traffic jams are pretty unbelievable at times.
The second group of long-term residents is really sad. These are the Bed Bounds. These are people who due to their condition can not or will not leave their room. Sometimes the aides transfer them to reclining wheelchairs for BINGO or some activities. Most of them are on another wing, but I try to visit some of them at least once a week, just to remind myself that this is a medical facility that does good work.
You may notice that I talk a lot about the female residents... that's because 75% of the residents and 95% of the staff are women. It is true that women live longer, but there are also women whose husbands visit everyday and married couples who are both residents (although not in the same room).
Then you have the Recovering Rehabs. They range in age from 40s to 90s. They can be recovering from a fall, hip or knee replacements or can be suffering from a regressive disease like diabetes or MS. They know that their time here is relatively short, like 2 to 6 months. They tend to fall into two groups inside of therapy... those who sleep through therapy and those who do not. Those who sleep in therapy tend to drift into becoming a Grousing Granny or even a Bed Bound... or they get "graduated" and get sent home. Trouble is their original problem still exists, so in some cases they find themselves back in the home and back in rehab. Outside of therapy, the RRs tend to stick to their rooms, reading and what not... except for the gang that I roll with. We rent movies from Netflix, order take-out and do all kinds of things. I was the first to ask for the internet to be connected in my room. Since then three more people have requested it.
There is another growing group (no pun intended) and that is the Overly Obese. These are people who are 400-600 pounds and were probably formerly taken care of by a family member. In some cases, the caregiver passed away or the person's medical needs became too much for a lay-person to handle. Given the obesity problem in the United States, this is probably the group that nursing homes will be targeting in the future.
This home also has a beauty shop, a TV room with a 52" plasma and a lounge with a flat screen with a built in DVD player. No Blu-Ray yet.