Christmas at the Nursing Home

• Today was the Christmas Party at my Grandma's nursing home.  Santa came.  They all received a gift and cookies and punch afterwards.  My grandma is ninety one years old and she' just recently moved into the nursing home.  It's been extraordinarily difficult for my mom to see her very recently independent mother in such a place.  Grandma lives in the memory unit, which is a step up from the regular nursing home residents.  Most of the residents in the memory unit are mobile, for the most part, and verbal.  They can communicate.  Most don't know who or where they are, but they are capable of carrying on a conversation.  I don't handle the nursing home well.  I'm a sensitive soul and visits with my grandma usually upset me.  The sounds, the smells.  These people aren't even aware they're alive.  Those that do probably beg for death.  It's just so surreal for me.  Today I helped my mom help her mom on and off the toilet. We put on her Depends and got her dressed.  Just like a baby.  I can't believe that my grandma wears a diaper.  She's lost bowel and bladder control.  And what is even worse to me is when my mom has to change her pants because Grandma has pooped everywhere.  And I mean everywhere.  But it's not that she's pooped her pants.  It's that she doesn't seem upset by it.  It doesn't bother her in the least that her daughter is having to change her pants and her diaper, just like an infant.  Her mind is so far gone that having a diaper change doesn't even register.  It's upsetting to me.  My grandma used to own her own business.  She was a business woman.  Now she's living the life of a baby.  She lives in a locked unit with other residents who are sitting in their own waste.  Residents who don't recognized loved ones when they visit.  It's awful.  What am I going to do when it's MY mom???  When I'm having to put on my mom's diaper and wipe her bottom?  I can't see my mom in that situation, but I'm sure she didn't see hers like that either.  It happens.  But today she had a good day.  Mom and I went over about an hour early.  We got her dressed and foo-foo'd her hair. Put on a little make-up.  Santa brought her a gift.  She got a make-up bag full of nail polish, chapstick, lipstick, candy, hand cream, powder.   All kinds of stuff.  And she went through all of it.  I'm not entirely sure she knew what was going on today, that it was a Christmas party, but she did seem to have a really good time.  And I'm glad.  



 

Getting her hair did before the party

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Her pretty Christmas outfit

Getting her gift from Santa!

She takes forever to open a present

Her new powder and lipstick

A local doctor came after the party to play the piano.  She loved it!

I don't know who this kid is, but he helped Santa pass out presents.  He was adorable!