Sawing Logs

I arrived late last night for my visit with Gram.  It was around 8:45pm. It was dim and eerily quiet in the place as I walked down the hall toward Gram’s room, looking around for her as I always do.  I never know where I’ll find her when I arrive - in someone’s room, on the other side of the floor (Long Term Care section), behind the nurses’ station or in the lunch room asleep in her wheelchair.

The Gay One was walking out of someone’s room as I walked by, maybe his own.  I don’t know.  It was the first time I saw him standing.  He startled me with his tallness and his abrupt appearance in the doorway to the hall.  “Hello,” he said, as if he himself seemed caught off guard.  He and the Hot One were the only two up and about. 

The Hot One, like the Gay One, is a younger guy, 50’s probably; handsome.  The Gay One is loud and talkative and clearly demented.  But until tonight, I thought the Hot One was only here for some type of rehab.  He’s very quiet, so it’s been more difficult to determine.  Tonight, though, I noticed the ankle bracelet on his leg.  It’s the tell-tale sign of a dementia patient, the Scarlet Letter of the disease.  Anyone who has memory issues has to wear the electronic sensor so that if they try to escape out of any of the doors, it sets off a piercing and loud alarm throughout the entire facility.  “House arrest” we call it.  Gram wears the sensor.  Luckily too, because, of course, she has set off the alarm on several occasions trying to escape through various doors on the floor.  I was saddened to learn that the Hot Guy also has the disease.  It’s so tragic.  I hate this disease.

Surprisingly, I found Gram in bed.  She’s a night owl so it’s not unusual to find her wide awake and busy at 9pm.  Tonight, however, she was asleep – “sawing logs,” as she would say – mouth wide open and snoring, surrounded by stuffed animals that where clearly placed there by the staff.  I took a photo of her with my phone to post to Facebook, but when I looked at the photo, I decided not to.  When she sleeps like this, with her mouth wide open and so small against the bed, she looks dead.  With the room being dark, it was even worse.  I quietly put the laundry away, gathered up the dirty clothes and proceeded out.

As I walked down the hall, the Gay One, now in a wheelchair, called out to me, “Father, Father!”  He was visibly confused and highly agitated.  He didn’t wait for me to respond; he frantically kept quickly wheeling by.  The Hot One was in his wheelchair, oddly turned toward a corner, awake, but just staring at the wall.  I hate this disease.

The tall and stocky, middle-aged nurse with glasses, whose name I don’t know, said, as I walked toward the elevator to leave, “She sleeping?”  “Yes,” I replied, “I didn’t want to wake her, so I just got the laundry.”  “She was cantankerous earlier; she must have tired herself out!”  I laughed and it reminded me of the old days.  When Gram lived at home, she would tire herself out all the time.  She would go and go and go -all day, starting several projects - inside, outside, wherever.  Then she’d cook dinner and clean up afterward.  She would completely exhaust herself.  “Now I’m gonna sit down and watch my show,” she’d say with a sigh as she plopped down on the puffy chair in front of the TV.  Within 5 minutes, the snoring would start.  I’d look over and her head would be back, mouth wide open.  Sawing logs.