Onto the business of dieing

I forget sometimes where I work, what it is I'm doing for these people and where the residents end up after all. I love my job, I fucking love my job. I'm surrounded by these once to me, strangers. I'm sought after and demanded by a bell. I'm told what to do and objects to get, sometimes feeling like a "glorified" waitress, housekeeper, punching bag and personal assistant.

 I change beds, I give showers, I get hit and kicked,  I make snacks, clean up spilled drinks or vomit when all other bodily fluids are held in, I get pinched and scratched and told to go to hell. I give back rubs and hugs a plenty, I toilet too many times to count every day. I work about 50 hours a week, waiting, tempting fate to people who mostly don't even remember me.  And I love it, most of it.  

I had a resident die the other night, a lady who sang "Amazing Grace" more beautiful and pure then John Newton.  A woman who told me everyday that she loved me and upon entering her room would say "Hello Daahlin". I would reply "Hi sweetheart" and she would say "Your so beautiful". Alot of the time I would tear up and say " No _______, your the one that's beautiful."  She had rheumatoid arthritis, alzhemiers, dementia, etc. and her whole body was contracting and her bones sounded like they were breaking everytime you moved her.  She would talk in her sleep, making almost no sense but  mostly to her husband who had passed years ago. Listening to her talk of him made my heart soft, daydreaming myself, believing in love ever after.

I've been a CNA for almost a year now and have worked at the same facility this whole time. At which I've watched 7 residents pass on. Some were more sad than others, some affected me more than others. The first time I did post mordem care, it was surreal. So fucking strange and facinating at the same time. Washing up this body that was once alive and able to communicate, once able to consume and be comforted. I helped the guy that came to pick up the body, put it on his stretcher. I started feeling uncomfortable as he put her head on a head block. It then hit me in that moment, that she was just a body. He turned the white sheet over her and covered her face. My face started burning and I felt the panic and sadness fill my chest. Then he zipped up the body bag and placed a decorative quilt over it. I had to excuse myself in which I went to a private room and sobbed uncontrollably for 20 minutes. I'm a visual person, I'm a "in the moment" kind of person, and watching him zip her up was so final, so sad. It wasn't the first time I witnessed this process, this business of dieing, and it won't be the last.

It's very obvious when a person is beginning the dieing process. First they start sleeping all the time and stop taking in food or fluids (not to be confused with having a passing cold or other sickness). Next they start mottling, the feet and hands turn whitish/blueish and the underside of there body (decreased circulation). All of these didn't bother me with ______, it's the death rattle that hit me, that broke my heart instantly. I walked out of her room and told my nurse that she was rattling and instantly started crying uncontrollably. The nurse tried comforting me and told me "you don't always have to be superman, it's ok to cry." She hugged me, which is a little out of character for her despite having 4 adorable children. All I could say was "it's just not fair."  I tend to forget that this is the last stop for these residents, the only way out is in a body bag. They move from the other, more independant, ambulatory floors and end up on our floor.  I forget that they are not here to get better, but to maintain any normalcy they have left, show them love and comfort and give them the attention and respect they deserve.  Even if two months prior they had punched you in the chest and called you "a shit ass Nazi lover".



to be cont...