Assisted Living

I promised in a previous post to tell you about some of the people who live in the building in which I live. Although not an institution, it's definitely a facility and it's called an assisted living facility because the set-up allows people like me to live independently with some assistance when needed. The place is staffed 24/7 and I can just phone someone if I need help with, say, opening a can or package.for example. Every one of the 200+ residents has their own apartment with full kitchen and bathroom and meals are provided in a communal dining room; meals are prepared by a talented chef and are excellent; the meals are based on the Canada Food Guide and are always delicious and varied. AND - the best part - THERE'S DESSERT every night. I have a tiny little one-bedroom apartment with gorgeous views of the mountains and the Fraser River. Although it's tiny, it's big enough for me and the cats but I can't have parties like I used to before moving back to Edinburgh - there's no possible way this place could accommodate 14 women for a martini party or the 35 or 40 people who used to attend my annual Christmas open house. Staff clean the apartment and do my laundry every Sunday. During the first year of living here, I was desperately unhappy and hated the facility. I've since come to terms with it and am actually quite happy to stay in my little apartment until I'm able to live completely without daily assistance, which could be never, as there are very basic things I'm unable to do without help: for example, make my bed and dry myself after a shower. I can do the shower itself by using my right hand to do all the washing but the post-shower work just isn't doable with one hand. I've made the best of it by learning to appreciate the feeling of safety assisted living provides and getting to know the people who look after me. Some of the staff treat me like royalty and I haven't even told them I'm the Princess of Quite a Lot. They even treat the cats as well as I do, talking to them and petting them. If they're away, they always say to me, 'How are the boys?' Charlie, who is a total attention whore, stares at my care aide and winks at her until she greets him and tells him what a pretty boy he is. The aides fall for it every time. One of the kitchen guys actually brought me a gift back from his holidays. My apartment is also set up very nicely, thanks to Meredith arranging furniture and hanging pictures when I moved in. I get a lot of compliments on the way it looks. My tolerance is tested daily by some of the ancient relics who live here though. After I found a fairly pleasant dining companion shortly after moving in, there was a reassignment in the dining room when some genius decided all the men should sit at the same table and I got stuck with four women who make me lose the will to live most evenings. I only share their table for one meal a day, thank God, or I'm afraid I would've hung myself by now. Two of them talk constantly - mindless chatter to fill empty space. One of them asks me every day what she's eating - not a bloody clue. While eating roast beef, she commented on the darkness of 'this chicken'. Last night, while eating butternut squash, she remarked on the paleness of the carrots. Hang me now! At least she doesn't natter constantly about nothing so the least I can do is answer her demented questions while controlling my urge to utter obscenities and threats.

As is the case in many geriatric populations, the women far outnumber the men. The women are far more careful with their personal appearance, arriving for dinner wearing tidy old-lady blouses, skirts and cardigans, with some even sporting lipstick in a variety of garish colours - usually in the shocking pink and coral ranges. They have a shampoo and set every week at the onsite hair salon. They like to drench themselves heavily in cheap perfume too. Most of the ones I've tried to have a conversation with seem to teeter on the edge of senility. The one not-ancient relic at my dinner table is about my age and wears a black mask like the one Michael Jackson used to wear. Her reason is allergies, which she loves to talk about at length and in detail. She also has waist-length grey hair and the first time I saw her with the mask and hair, I thought she was wearing a Hallowe'en costume so I asked her if she was being Darth Vader. In my defence, it was late October and I'd only been living here five minutes. She has to lift the mask to eat as it covers her nose and mouth entirely. One day I might have to rip the mask right off her to shock her into shutting up for a few seconds.

I eat breakfast alone at a small table with a nice view and don't allow anyone to join me. The same kitchen guy who brought me the present opens all the little cream containers I use in my coffee and porridge and lines them all up in a row at my place every day. I think it's one of the sweetest, most touching things anyone's ever done for me. How could I not like living here when someone cares enough to take the time to make sure I don't need to ask for help?

And there you have it - 85 chapters of a story I could have told you in a few paragraphs, as usual.

The men, for the most part, don't seem to take care of themselves as well as the women, some smelling of unwashed clothes as they pass by. Maybe that's the point of the mask. I believe I have an admirer among the men. Not one of the smelly ones. This one looks like a very large baby, with his chubby pink face and blue eyes. I don't think it's me he admires - rather it's my ample bosom he's admiring. Sometimes he accosts me at breakfast time to ask how I am and tell me it's going to be one fine day. He actually says, or stutters really, 'Looks like it's going to be one fine day.' He likes to drink his coffee with a spoon in the cup and actually chews the mouthful of coffee. He makes a hell of a mess on the table too - just like a toddler. Then there's the massive woman in a wheelchair who wears a bib with 'grandma's bib' embroidered on it. How lucky I am not to have to wear a bib or Michael Jackson's mask.

I only see most of the residents in the dining room and manage to avoid them otherwise by not taking part in any of the organized activities arranged by the recreation director.

As I have done everything I could to become healthy again and improve my mobility, it surprises me to see how some of these people seem to actively encourage poor health or a life-altering event such as stroke or heart attack: the woman with lung disease attached to an oxygen canister, who smokes but says she's careful not to smoke with the oxygen running, and the morbidly obese diabetic woman confined to a wheelchair because of toe amputation, who smokes like a chimney. It's not easy to see why some of the residents here need assistance. I tend to think that anyone with two functioning hands wouldn't need help. Some of them are here at their families insistence because they weren't feeding themselves. There are two meals a day included in the monthly rent.