On adaptability, flexibility, rigidity, resistance & nurses who rock

During these last two weeks at home with Jean following our latest soiree, I have learned that I can indeed empty & replace a colostomy bag, that we would all be amazed at how much gas we produce if we had to capture it in a little bag & that Lisabeth Blandino’s addition to my annual review over fifteen years ago holds true.

I still need to work on being flexible & adaptable.

Until Lisabeth, who was not my supervisor, but our department manager, added that to my review, I thought I was extremely flexible & adaptable.  I thought she was being grossly unfair, forever framing me as rigid based on one incident.  Tarnishing an otherwise stellar review.  (I had to put that in ;-)

I realize now that Lisabeth was right in her assessment.  In an extremely important, highly visable, high pressure situation, I grew rigid & resistant.  Hours of my work had to be redone because someone in the field missed a deadline.  I was not a happy camper & not a kinder & gentler Jaki Jean that day.

During these past weeks, I remembered that from so long ago.  At the LTAC facility, I hated shift changes & the fact that unfamiliar nurses & CNAs were assigned to my mother.  I hated weekends when food services personnel delivered our trays & did not greet me by name or give us extra condiments.

(I am really obsessive about condiments).

As I planned & coordinated our return home I learned that Chike, the home health care nurse who had taken care of mother for almost a year had gone to work for Home Land Security or Immigration or something very Dot gov.    I did not feel very flexible or adaptable.

But, Loretta, the aide who cared for Jean prior to her hospitalization was available if I could work with her schedule.  Loretta is very popular with patients & their families, I was told.

Loretta is the sweetest, kindest, gentlest person I have ever known.  She is simply the best & of course no one else would do for my mother.  I didn’t care what schedule she wanted.  I just wanted her to help me take care of Jean.

A far cry from the woman who looked up at Lisabeth Blandino that day over fifteen years ago & asked, Are you fucking kidding me ?

(That phrase has been with Jaki Jean for far too long ).

However, adapting to a schedule change for a beloved & trusted care giver is a bit different from adapting to a new nurse.

In the beginning of our return to Home Health Care, when I was told that a new nurse, of course not Chike, would visit two days a week to care for Jean, I understood.

Chike came to this country from Nigeria because, as he told me, I want a life, a career, a family.  He became a US citizen, he worked as a nursing assistant while he studied to become an RN.  He graduated with honors while caring for Jean.  He had ambitions – a fine man. 

I understood.  I was flexible.  I adapted.  I was happy for Chike.  I waited for the new nurse.

And I waited.  And waited.  And waited.

Until I no longer cared about being flexible or adaptable & called & asked  

Where is the nurse?  It is Friday & it is going to be hard to make two appearances a week beginning on Friday.

So, the new nurse came.  He was well dressed (no scrubs & that baffled me), articulate, a great story teller.  Jean & I endured the entire question & answer session & I did not once say Are you fucking kidding me?  OR We have over a years’ worth of nurses’ notes in a folder – are you interested in reading them?

Instead I flexed & adapted & listened to his charming stories & a lecture on giving Jean more water.

And accepted his assessment that the catheter was working fine.

Then there was the weekend.  When the catheter was not working fine.

A new week began & Loretta came & added light to our day, but Loretta agreed with me.

The catheter was not working.  Fine or otherwise.

On Wednesday, I called to ask exactly what two days a week I could expect the nurse who did not wear scrubs.

The nurse appeared, sans scrubs, while Loretta was completing Jean’s bath.  Loretta explained that the catheter bag was empty & urine was coming out of Jean.  He without scrubs was very concerned about the fact that their times overlapped.

The nurse without scrubs took Jean’s vitals, he flushed the catheter, pronounced it working & AGAIN gave me a lecture about giving Jean more water.

On Thursday night, I called the Home Health Director Vincent & told him something was wrong.  I reminded him that his service had our business because the prior service did not listen to me & Jean ended up in the hospital for a week, her kidneys operating at less than 15 %.

On Friday, our caregiver Virginia came & confirmed that I was not acting from a position of rigidity or resistance.  The catheter was not working.  

A nurse (not the one without scrubs) called & left a message on the house phone – in spite of my repeated requests to the service to call me on my cell.  I returned the call & waited.

And waited.  And waited.  Virginia went home.  I called Vincent at our Home Health Care Service.

I began packing in anticipation of going to the ER & hospital stay with Jean.  Vincent & I talked several times until at last, no longer flexible or adaptable, but rigid & resistant, I told him if a nurse was not at my door within the hour, I was ready to go to the hospital & explain that the service was not responding to Jean’s needs.

As the sixty minutes wound down, I gathered my medication, the calming jar, an empty vase for flowers.  I packed a few condiments in a small cooler. 

(I have this thing about condiments.)

I knew I could buy protein filled yogurt at the Signature Kroger across the street from Methodist Sugar Land if Jean was admitted.  I remembered that I needed to grab laundry detergent to wash my clothes & hang them to dry and

The door bell rang. 

I went to the door, expecting no one familiar or trusted.  I opened the door  & gasped in wonder.

There, in all his glory, dressed in deep purple scrubs, was Chike.

I don’t remember when I last burst into tears & threw myself into a man’s arms.  But the sight of Chike, a trusted soul, coming to take care of my mother, overwhelmed me.  I was so tired of the battle & then he was there, a gift.

Chike, who plays soccer on the weekends, gives a great hug.

Of course, Chike took care of the catheter.  But his first act was to lean over the bed & hug Jean, asking Do you remember me, Mama?

Chike took care of Jean & then he & I talked.  About his new job 

A friend told me about it – they pay me so much money.  The screening process was grueling.  They asked me about cousins in Nigeria I forgot were related to me.

He is going back to school, for yet another advanced nursing degree.  The job makes that possible.  He still does work for the Home Health agency, but only part-time.  He was there when Vincent received my last call & told Vincent he had to go & check on us.

We talked about current events, about the abduction of the schoolgirls in his birth country, about Barbara Walter’s retirement, about the media.  Chike tells me that he is forty, & I am speechless.  I had him pegged for so much younger.

I tell him that Jean turned 79 while he was gone.  He laughs & hugs her again.  Then I tell him I turned 60 since he last saw me. 

He laughs & says like the gentlemen he is,  Impossible.

As I sign his timesheet, I realize that the next nurse who walks through that door will not be Chike.

But for this day, this moment, being rigid & resistant beat out being flexible & adaptable.  I wonder what Lisabeth Blandino would think about that.

For about a minute. 

My failure to perform in a corporate situation fifteen years ago did not involve my mother or her health care or her well being.   It did not involve anything live altering.

A deadline was missed & then my deadline was compromised & then when I reworked my report & after those deadlines were missed, life went on.  That publicly traded corporation went on.  The world did not dissolve.  No one went to the hospital.

I will truly continue to attempt to be a kinder & gentler Jaki Jean.  To be more flexible, to adapt to what is inevitable.

Except when I need to be rigid & resistant & insist on the best for my mother.

Sometimes, perhaps during the most important times, even Lisabeth Blandino must agree that rigidity & resistance often result in the best case scenario.

Like Chike at the front door.

Nurses so rock.