elderly

Mayday! Mayday!

Now that life has somewhat gotten back to normal, I wanted to share my experiences over the last week. Saturday, the 13th, I got married. My dad officiated and it was short and sweet and quite complete. The ceremony was filled with wisdom and a constant reminder that our marriage relies on Gods love and he is truly the third strand in our rope. We had cake and punch and other finger foods. My mother put together a beautiful spread of snacks and that cake was phenomenal. She’s truly a talented party planner and I couldn’t have put that together without her. And the best part, there was a storm so it only lasted an hour and I got to put my jammies on afterward and enjoy time with my husband and my parents.

The next day, the storm started moving in more and my community started moving into emergency preparedness mode. Drip the faucets, turn up the heat, ice the sidewalks, etc. Monday morning, I woke up freezing cold and dead quiet. I came out and of course, my mom is doing her thing. Making coffee on the stove, making biscuits on the stove, all while bundled up. We played some games and ran some errands while we prayed the power would come back on. You couldn’t even get through to the power company to get an estimated time of restored power. By 6pm when it still wasn’t on, we made the decision to take the guest apartment at my work. Meanwhile, my GM who lives a block away from me, is trying to figure out where to go so she can plug her oxygen in.

I honestly wish that was the end of story. At 7am Tuesday morning, my bus driver calls me from down stairs, telling me a pipe has busted and the dining room is flooded. I ran downstairs in my pjs, no shoes, and my glasses. The pipe that burst had been in the ceiling of an apartment (vacant one thank god) and had caused the ceiling to fall. Me being a resourceful person, got the water off as my executive chef called in a plumber. We spent the next hour shop vacuuming the dining room while the plumbers did their thing. A huge shoutout to my staff, especially Robbie, Rosa, and Zuly. Without hesitation they went to work cleaning up and making sure our residents were safe and knew the water was off.

As fate would have it, when it rains it pours. Not even an hour later, we lost power. Now a lot of people asked why a place that houses seniors doesn’t have a emergency power back up? Well we do, but it’s for emergency lights and in their newer buildings, emergency plugs in every room and hallway. With us being an older building, we only had emergency lighting. Technically we’re independent which means most of these people are in good health and not have extreme medical needs, but I have multiple people on oxygen. Thankfully I was able to find one working outlet, but we had one extension cord. So who gets it? Who gets to have their oxygen machine running?

So as we’re standing there, praying we find a way to get oxygen machines plugged in, the power comes back on. But now we have to get into preparedness mode because we wouldn’t know if it was gonna be a rolling black out. Thankfully, family members came and brought extension cords and for the sake of safety we ran extension cords to the emergency plug for oxygen machines. Now because we didn’t have a kitchen during this, my executive chef made an emergency trip to the grocery store. As you can imagine, they were barren. He went to the deli and asked for the entire turkey to be sliced up. When he said that, the kid asked to clarify if he wanted the whole thing. He said it was for 88 elderly people so ya the whole thing. The manager was behind him and asked what else he needed. The manager said they just had a truck come in and hadn’t had a chance to restock so he went in the back and got him bread and chips to go with the deli meat. Shoutout to HEB for taking care of our people. You really saved us.

I don’t think I slept much that night, waiting for the power to go out. Waiting to make a run downstairs in my pjs to make sure everyone was okay. I thought we made it out of the woods by the next morning but sure enough I woke up and at 7:30 the lights went out again. Thankfully, it was for two hours this time. We made it through Wednesday and by Thursday the ship had straightened out. I finally was able to go home and sleep in peace.

I saw a lot of posts talking shit about how Texas doesn’t know how to handle a little snow. Let me tell you, I may not be a Texas native, but in the four years I lived here, it’s snowed three times, and only one of those times was it enough snow to close things down. But not once have I experienced something like this. I’ve experienced snow storms, I’ve lived in a house with no heat in the winter, but having an entire town, almost an entire state, without power and water for Multiple days. TeXaS ShOuLd HaVe BeEn PrEpArED. Y’all are dumb. We don’t even own winter clothing out here in west Texas because it’s cold maybe one month out of the year. Last year we got an “Arctic chill” when it dropped to 31 degrees. Homes are built for the heat we get not the cold. People literally died because of this storm and the negligence of the Texas power companies. There were no supplies left to buy. They literally had warming stations set up so people could just come for a little bit to warm up. Furniture stores were opening up and letting people come in to sleep. But everyone wants to say Texas should’ve been prepared. How do you prepare for entire power grids to go down?

Thank you for listening to me vent and hopefully everyone comes out of this a little stronger and more compassionate. I’m ready for that warm west Texas sunshine.

COVID SUCKS

As of Saturday, 2/6, my community has been on lockdown due to multiple COVID cases. In less than two weeks, I have had five active cases, one associate and four residents. When I say that I’ve never experienced this level of work stress before, I’m being genuine. This coming from someone who’s worked through power outages, worked understaffed, worked through active shooters, broken up fist fights, and literally worked 18 hour shifts at a freaking hotel. On Sunday, I had an emotional breakdown from the level of mental exhaustion I had reached. Not from my hours worked, but from the level of seriousness and responsibility put on my shoulders in a matter of one day. One day was all it took for my property to go from zero COVID cases for an entire year, to three, which puts us in a full 14-day lockdown. No dining room meals (delivered only), no activities, no visitors, etc. No one comes out of their room unless its to go to the doctor or they scheduled time for them to do their laundry. Now that might not seem extremely tough for some of you, but having to tell someone they cant come out of their room because there is a risk that they could get sick and the mortality rate for their age group is above average. Then not only are they concerned for the people that are positive, but I cant legally tell them which of their friends are sick. I also get the privilege of telling individuals they may have been exposed and my receptionist gets to call family members and inform them we’re locking down. I’m sure you can imagine how that goes. Lastly, my coworker who is positive is in the hospital, literally fighting for her life. AND I had to go get tested because of exposure. I had this crazy tornado of sad, mad, concerned, and helplessness. It’s better now, but in the moment, I did not see a light at the end of the tunnel. My mind played worse case scenario and it really got the best of me.

The longer I work at Polo Park Estates, the more I realize that human beings are garbage. Day in and out, I watch residents slowly break down, physically and mentally because they are isolated. I dont just mean from COVID either. That is a big factor, but I see so many people who have family that puts them in here and forgets about them. So not only are they limited to what they can do within the community, they dont even have someone checking in on them regularly that isnt my staff. I know this is a hill I will die on, but your elderly family members do not deserve that. Last week I went up to help one of my residents with her TV. She thought some channels were missing and she kept hearing about Discovery+ on the commercial and she wanted to know how to get it. I’m sitting there with her and she’s telling me how she’s become so depressed and has terrible anxiety with this lockdown that she has started taking medication for it. She said she misses her friends and most days she cant even bring herself to get dressed. They are living in a world of fear and loneliness every day.

I know being on lockdown has been hard on everyone, but imagine if you aren’t young and technology savvy. If you don’t have a smart phone to facetime your family or watch Netflix or Hulu. What if the only way you could talk to those you loved was on a phone call and even then, you’d be lucky if that was more than a couple minutes? I have one resident who doesn’t have a phone. When she needs to call her son, she comes down to the front desk and uses our phone. This is also the resident who’s son tells her we don’t allow visitors so he doesn’t have to come up and visit. Is that not heartbreaking? This lady is feisty and at 96 she tells me she doesnt have an ache or pain and she tells me her son will get what’s coming to him for how he treats her. He spends her money while she sits here and slowly fades away.

Today, I lost my first resident. It’s so ironic because this was the one resident that I had a real life connection with because we were both OSU Alumni. I had sent out a letter during my first week here, just introducing myself, and that was one thing I made sure to mention; I got my degree at OSU. Mr. Beazley called me later that day to tell me he graduated from OSU after WWII back when it was Oklahoma A&M and he was glad to have another Aggie in the community. The first time I went to visit him, he went on and on about how much he loved living in the Oklahoma-Kansas region and how much he loved the sunflower fields. This man was so kind and friendly. He had a accident where he had fallen and scrapped his arm up pretty good so the old sales person here at the property had talked him into going to rehab (which she works for) to strengthen him up. He told the staff he didn’t really want to go or felt he needed to go, but she said it was best for him and now he’s dead. That is what we have to live with every day here and my heart is broken.

This is a lonely, heartbroken, and the forgotten generation of people. People who are taken advantage of and treated as expendable. We are the one’s here with them every day, spending the time loving on them and caring for them. Making sure they’re okay. Now, I know that there are families that don’t live here or can’t visit often, but this place isn’t a black hole. The doors are not one way. This isn’t a place to just drop off your loved ones because you don’t want to care for them anymore. Anyway, that’s my peace for the week. Stay safe, stay healthy, and go love on your people.