The new hospital unit is bustling with noise that echoes down the hallways. I just arrived at the time of switching between day and night staff. The first thing I notice, is just how clean this unit was; with bright white hallways, factory blue-white lights, a reflective floor. Each patient was given their own, personal rooms, lit by the natural lights from the large windows, equipped with automated bathrooms —between the room and the outerhallway, there was a mini sink and linen disposal bins just for staff to use. It was so different from the hospital that I was used to working in.
The patient I’m sitting for is Rhys, an older man who lives with dimentia. I was told that he had a tendency to be violent, but when I first saw him, he gave me a very friendly smile. It was 7:30 pm, and he had just finished his dinner — and with the mixture of a full stomach, the comfort of the room and thesetting sun, he decided to tell me about his life story.
He grew up on a farm far away. It was difficult, but rewarding — they grew acres upon acres of canola, wheat and corn. As a kid he went to school, but during his free time, was put to work to help out his parents with the endless responsibilities and chores on the farm. Eventually, he went to university for electronic engineering and landed a job in the city, where he worked for 7 years. It was comfortable, and he was making a good living, but as time went on, his parents continued to age. They loved the farm, but could no longer support the whole thing — and so, he flew back to his rural home, and worked on the farm for another 23 years.
It was a pleasant conversation; I told him about the tropical farms back in my father’s home country, and we both laughed about the chickens and how they would always call at 4:30 am.
But things took a turn during 2010. He said that he started investing in some buisinesses, but they were very unreliable. They promised wealth, only to take away all of his savings. They promised stability, when in reality, they made him go bankrupt. And since then, he has been living alone in the city, abandonned by his son and wife. No friends, and surrounded only by the four walls in his apartment.
It was getting a bit heavy, so I went to grab him some water and some socks. The socks were standard hospital socks, a faded yellow-orange adorned with white grips on the top and bottom. He gets settled down for bed, but the room is still quite cold — the hospitals seemed to have incredibly high AC, despite the temperature already being around a comfortable 20 degrees. So I went to find another blanket, which was, filled with holes. And eventually, he falls asleep.
Throughout the night, he sleeps quite peacefully — the occasional snore, the occasional foot kick, but mostly silence. It’s good, since I get some time to do some schoolwork in the meantime.
But around 2:04am, the patient gets up;
“Hi Rhys, how are you feeling?”
He squints, looking towards the outside hall, but offers no response. So I try again in french:
“Bonjour monsieur, comment vous vous sentez?”
Again, no response. He gets up and shuffles towards where I was sitting in the hallway. At this point I put my laptop back on the chair and stand up as well since I can’t let him leave the room.
“Mister/monsieur? Where do you want to go/Ou voulez vous aller?”
Again, no response but he keeps walking towards the hallway. Oh he probably wants to go to the bathroom! And so I direct him backwards, slowly into his own washroom that was in his room. Bingo! He enters the bathroom and rolls down his pants. But he’s standing right in front of the sink.
“Wait-” I start. But he’s already urinating — into the trash bin right under the sink. The sound of fluid flowing into a bin fills the room, and I just close the door. He’s just very disoriented and he’s older, so it should be natural for that to happen. When he finishes, I rinse the bathroom with the showerhead and the nurse comes in to wipe the liquid with a few towels in case he slips. She passes me a fresh pair of underwear to change him, and asks me to put on a diaper for him, but he refused the diaper and only kept the briefs. After a few moments, he returns back to bed, not having said a word throughout the whole ordeal.
I breathe a sigh of relief, and return to my school work, excited that there was less than a few hours left before my shift ended.
I watch as the sun rises, illuminating the ceiling with a pale yellow light. Rhys starts to toss and turn a bit more, then suddenly sits up.
“Good morning Rhys! How are you feeling?” He looks at me, quite confused, so I continue “So, do you know where you are?”
“No?”
“You’re in Kindred hospital,” I start. And what I say next completely changes the trajectory of my whole morning: “You’re just here for a surgery-” Shit…
“A what??” His face controted into one of frustration and anger “Who planned this? I was not involved in this planning, you can’t do this!”
Well I royally fucked up — imagine waking up in a place you don’t remember, everythings unfamiliar; you don’t know where you are, you don’t have anything on but a loose shirt and a pair of white boxers, you see someone in all black with a mask staring at you and everything feels super unnerving. Then, someone tells you that you are going to get surgery. So obviously he was afraid and got riled up.
(Anyways, turns out that I doubly fucked up — I assumed that he had surgery since the unit was called D3 surgery, and the rest of the residents were in wheelchairs and had limited mobility. But as I later found out, it was just a temporary transition unit for those affected by dimentia, but have not been able to find a home to house them yet.)
He started reliving his trauma about bad buisinesses and bankrupcy — “I don’t want no buisiness — no I do not — especially with the Queensway — that is just a bad company! — I don’t want no association with no hospital! Who’s going to pay for this because I certainly am not — I have no money”
I tried explaining that he wasn’t paying and he didn’t have to worry about money while he stayed in the room (-which he called, his apartment).
He laughs “You really don’t know how any of this works; I’m paying through taxes — I have to pay taxes! I don’t have the money” I lied and told him that due to recent federal tax changes, the government introduced progressive billing which only required rich people to pay up to 30% of taxes, whereas us working class did not have to pay at all. That seemed to appease him slightly, since he didn’t remember anything that happened in recent time. He continues pacing around, but is no longer angrily scolding the air.
I remain standing up just in case he tries to push his way out. But then, oh god, he goes to the bathroom and sees a wet spot somewhere near the washroom from last night (I had thought I thorougly cleaned everything, but apparently, there was a spot that I had previously missed. “That isn’t clean now is it? How dare you come in here to my apartment at night and make a mess on my apartment floor??” I said that it was not me, and left out the detail that he had peed in the bucket the night before. He rushes me out of the bathroom door and continues looking for blemishes on the floor and around the apartment — “Who’s going to pay for all of these damages?”
He starts to physically grab me and push me out “Get the hell out of here!” He repeats, and I move everything out into the hallway, and wait there for about five minutes. I re-enter, assuming that his memory was just as short as the day before, but he is still agravated and yells about how I’ve made a mess by moving things into his apartment.
Soon, a security guard has to come in to physically make him sit back down on the bed — “Sit. Lie down.” he makes simple and firm commands, and eventually Rhys goes back to his bed, slightly fearful, but now, silent.
I hang around for a bit longer until my shift ends, not really knowing how I should feel.
Dimentia is a scary thing — You really lose yourself into fragmented pieces of a few experiences that you retain. Unable to make new memories, you are tormented and stuck in the past — the only modes you have are a neutral reminiscent of the past, or a paranoia filled trauma that lasts for hours upon hours. It’s sad — since they were once, a person, with aspirations, experiences, with family, friends, with full mobility. And now, they are just out of it.
Hopefully I’ll be dead before I get dimentia. It’s just too sad to see.
