i am spending five days being trained. the woman training us read from the manual, only she stumbled over the hard words like "coercion" and "eminent" and "respite." boring morning, though i did learn to wash my hands.
so we broke for lunch and i trudged home, read my email, ate a tuna sandwich. we were told to be back by 11, which meant that we only had to spend an hour sitting around waiting while our instructor gossiped and bs'ed with the nurses on lunch break. then we got to go help with lunch. my white nikes are too narrow, and every step felt like fire by this time. too bad.
helping with lunch involved making sure all the residents had bibs (these were the intermediate-care people, not quite able to eat alone but not bedridden) and glasses of water. then i was assigned to feed a woman who couldn't use her hands well. surprisingly difficult work. how incredibly frustrating to have someone else deciding what you'll taste next. she had a soft voice, almost not-there, but still she managed to answer yes-no stuff and make a few requests. sadness. i kept up a conversation, telling her to tell me to shut up if i got too cheerful. two other women at the table, one who ate well but was oblivious to her surroundings and another who kept ignoring her food. every time i reminded her of its existence, she took another bite. it was kinda like trying to get my neighbor's son to eat his lunch only i didn't have any incentive to offer her for cleaning her plate.
so then the first woman was finished, and the second one wanted me to wheel her to her room and help her into bed. the next half-hour or so we trainees bused tables, wheeled residents to their rooms, tried to be useful. then it was time for an hour spent watching cheesy video tapes and being overtrained, and then we got to go home.
it looks like this job is going to involve lots of lifting, diaper- changing, feeding, listening, bathing... hard work. the halls smell at times of urine and feces. some of the residents know what day it is, but some just babble to themselves, sounds with no meaning.
lunch really got to me. meals for me mean sitting down with a book or a friend. i don't think any of these people could've managed reading. kneeling beside the table, feeding mushed-up chicken livers and mashed potatoes to a woman who could've been my grandmother, i wondered if this was preferable to death. if i couldn't even shit by myself, couldn't feed myself, would i want to continue living?
so much of what makes my life seem worthwhile to me comes from cognition. were these people ever like me, wondering, questioning, thinking, writing? will i be like them some day? and if i am, will there be enough of *me* left to put an end to it?
--
sine | deb
six more weeks. thank god.