27 May 2025
The other day one of the patients walked out of his room and, his diaper drooping below his T-shirt, asked a nurse, "Is this a prison?"
She answered him, matter-of-factly, "No, Mr. [inaudbile]. Go back to your room."
"I don't know where my room is," he confessed.
"I'll take you," she said calmly, turning him around in the doorway and leading him back to his bed in the four-bed room.
He had a point though. As nice as the staff can be (and they are unfailingly polite as that interaction demonstrates), it's not a hotel and nobody is on vacation.
Reinforcing the sense of incarceration is that you sometimes get "visitors." And Joyce had two this week: the Mundstocks.
They came on Memorial Day just as I was wheeling Joyce down the hall for her weigh-in.
But the facility was in the middle of a day-long power outage. So the electric scale didn't work and the hallways were dark and the Pacific room was locked.
So we had our visit outside on one of the two patios -- in the fog. "Do you ever remember it not being foggy in Daly City?" Mundstock* asked me. We both grew up in the fog, so it wasn't anything to us.
But Alice, we grew up in Texas, gave Joyce her jacket to keep her legs warm. Joyce was also wearing the jacket I had finally brought from home after she repeatedly complained about being cold. So she was bundled up.
We had a nice visit as Alice caught Joyce up on things and Joyce smiled her appreciation. Later she told me how much she had enjoyed their visit.
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THAT ALSO HAPPENED TO BE the first day Joyce worked with the Restorative Nursing Assistants again. Daisy and Neil. Daisy told me they would walk with her on Mondays and do stairs on Thursdays, which are the two things I asked Liane the Physical Therapist I wanted to continue.
I mentioned to Daisy that Joyce was walking with a trekking pole now, not the walker. So we were on the same page.
They got Joyce out of her wheelchair and walked her along the short hallway by the gym because that was the only hallway free of orange extension cords running across it. Apparently some of the wall outlets were connected to the generator and were powering essential equipment.
Joyce walked the hallway, back and forth, four times across, which amounted to 320 feet, Daisy said. They were happy with that.
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TODAY JOYCE AND I were on our own. After she wrote a check to pay her dental bill, we walked to the stairs around the corner halfway down the hall. But instead of sitting in her chair, I suggested she do the stairs. And she did.
She went up and down the four steps three times with just me alongside, a first. Usually we are joined by at least one physical therapist, sometimes two, once three. But it was just the two of us and she did very well, not stumbling on the third step even once.
When I got home I counted our steps. One at the bottom to get up from the walkway, one at the top to get into the house. Nine to climb up. So she should be able to get into the house.
I ran into Lauren the Social Worker when I was looking for Joyce's lunch to bring it to her in the Pacific room today (which is more comfortable than eating in the hallway). She asked about the physical therapy and transition to RNAs and then about discharge.
I told her I planned to try bringing Joyce home for lunch next month to see how it goes. Mundstock said he'd help, which is probably a good idea in case she does have some trouble.
I don't want to call 911. Where would I ask them to take her? The hospital? Golden Heights? The living room? There's not good answer.
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NOT A WORD about a podiatrist for all the Administrator's noise the other day. I did look online for making an online appointment for her with her old podiatrist in Stonestown. Nothing available until June 5. And that isn't cheap.
I'm thinking I may just bring some small scissors there tomorrow and clip them back a bit. It's very hard for me to see precisely up close but her toenails are so long it may not matter. They won't be perfect, but they'll be better.
Just like in prison.