A story which I think you’ll appreciate is this:
I called mom in hospice on Sunday to chat and remind her that her favorite show Meet the Press was on.
“Ask for a nurse to help you set up your TV so you can watch it,” I suggested.
Later that afternoon, mom called and told me that when she asked the nurse to put on Meet the Press, the nurse (although I think it was really a volunteer or aide) told her that she didn’t want to watch the news, wouldn’t she prefer watching cartoons?
My mother said “No, I want to watch Meet the Press.”
“Are you sure? No cartoons?” the aide again asked her.
My mother replied, “Listen, I’m not dead yet and I still know what I like. I want to watch Meet the Press.”
She got to watch Meet the Press.
And people wonder where I get it from.
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Wendy Thomas writes about the lessons learned while raising children and chickens in New Hampshire. Contact her at Wendy@SimpleThrift.com
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Lessons Learned from the Flock 
Yeah Girl. (both of you!)
Good grief why would they think a full grown woman would choose cartoons over the news?
👍
This annoys me to no end. Just because people are old or ill does not give anyone the right to treat them like children. I have been in many nursing homes over the years (lots of childless relatives), and have seen aides tell residents “you don’t want to walk up the hall” or “you want to eat now” or “this is the music you like”. I’ve seen people struggle to move their wheelchair up to a sitting room at the end of the hall, only to have an aide whisk him back to the desk, saying “you don’t want to be all the way up there Mr. Jones, do you?”. If you protest you can get labelled as “difficult”.
Barbara,
I hear what you’re saying but I’m not sure that this is a case of people being disrespectful. I think it’s more of a case of “we don’t want you to be upset, and the news might upset you, why don’t you watch happy cartoons and be happy?” This is my first experience with hospice (I wasn’t able to visit my dad when he was in hospice for the 2 weeks before he died.) I can’t tell you how many stupid things I’ve said and done because of *my* assumptions of what hospice is. The bottom line is that every person is different and the common goal is to make each patient comfortable. I guarantee that going forward, my mom will be able to watch Meet the Press with no questions asked.
On Tue, Apr 5, 2016 at 12:17 PM, Lessons Learned from the Flock wrote:
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🙂