Bedtime Battles

There's this crazy little 92 year old German lady at work that cracks me up (most of the time). She is the most viciously fiesty person I have ever encountered, even in a nursing home. I have to go in to "change" her adult diaper 3 times a night, but it's quite the challenge.

First off, she rips off anything they put on her body: diapers, gowns, bandages, ANYTHING. So every time I go in there she's completely naked, lying on a sopping wet pad (cloth pad with plastic bottom in case they wet through the diapers-- if they're wearing them) because she's incontinent, often with blood spots on her sheets because the bandages she ripped off were over wounds. Pretty crappy and unfortunate.

But the worst part is it's so hard to do anything to put her in a better situation! She is crazy racist against blacks, and I get the impression most of her aides during the day are black. But every time I've gone in there it's either been alone or with this one mexican lady, and one of the most common things we hear is "Go back to Africa, ***dammit!!" Other favorites include.."Get the hell out of here!" "It's NIGHT! Leave me alone, damn you!" "What are you doing! Get your swine hands (? yeah, I know. Pigs have hooves.) off of me, you filthy pig!" Usually when I come in I have to be armed and ready with wet soapy cloths to wash her with and clean pads... I generally have about a 10-15 second window in which I can do as much as possible before she fully wakes up and goes crazy. She claws and scratches and bites in addition to the verbal abuse... it's pretty crazy hard to try and roll her over to change the pad, much less change her diaper. The part that REALLY got me though is how sneaky she is... sometimes there'll be a lull in her insults and you suspect the storm is breaking and she's starting to calm down so you can change her pad and wipe her off... and she gets really quiet and gently places her hand on your wrist, almost as though she's about to caress it or something, and then RIGHT at the last second her grip tightens like a vice and her other hand comes flying over to claw the hell out of your trapped wrist, cackling insults left and right. It's crazy!! Also, an impressive grip for a little old lady.

This woman embodies the battle I have every two hours to remove soggy, urine-filled linen from her bed every night at work. It's so hard to get done what needs to be done, not just for my job requirements but to improve her quality of life... she's too old to be rotting in urine all night. I'm kind of at a loss as to what to do with her, because it usually only works out once a night where I'm able to change the pad in addition to wiping her off. The nurse is okay with that (she knows what Mary's like)... but it's just so not ideal. How do you soothe such a beast?! And I thought my bedside manner was improving...