Difficult Seder Visit

Yesterday was the first day of passover. Manny had the day off so he could celebrate Good Friday. I had lunch with Gregory and left when he was taken to physical therapy.

I returned to Lieberman at 4:00 to take Gregory down to the Community Seder. After a telephone call, I was excited that Gregory had finally gotten the special wheel chair "Broda" that I had been pushing for and was looking forward to seeing it.

Instead the old, "normal" model had been taken and a new "normal" model had been substituted instead of the "special" model that had been discussed AND the new "normal" one didn't work.

It was impossible to wheel down he hall in any sense of a hoped for direction. I literally kept bouncing off the walls, had to straighten out the chair and push again until it hit the wall again.

Besides my rotator cuffs acting up, and my back a little out making it even more difficult to fight with his new normal chair, I was very disappointed that the correct chair had not been delivered.

I called the person I had been dealing with and INAPPROPRIATELY read her the riot act. This was at least the third chair that had not worked at all, the one that did work was taken back, and the correct one was not delivered!

I usually do not loose my patience, am gentle and calm in my dealings with Lieberman Staff, and am happy and even tempered in their presence. Not this time, but I learned an important lesson the hard way.

My being upset and bawling out my connection on the phone got Gregory upset. By now we had reached the elevator. My call was complete. But Gregory was very upset and loud and acting out, unfortunately against me! I know he was just reacting but since I caused his upset, I guess he was mad at me.

So there I am in the hall, by the elevators, trying to help Gregory calm down to no avail, with the Social Worker trying to help also, with the head nurse a short distance away observing and probably trying to decide what the outcome will be.

Finally I was able to get Gregory calm, not without a few tears of my own, and I decided that "we" were too upset to try to go down to the community Seder so we stayed up and had dinner at the fifth floor dining room.

It was not as fancy, there was no service or concord wine. I was disappointed that we couldn't go to the seder service but also pleased that I could make a turn around decision, regardless of my disappointment, on Gregory's behalf so quickly.

To add to the drama, the dining room was quite unsettled and uncentered this night.

There have been a lot of new residents joining us on the fifth floor and most of them are going through the transition of being there and not wanting to be there. Two men are plotting together on how to escape.

One thinks he is trapped there having arrived as only a visitor, refuses to use his walker, and argues with everyone!

The other is an "A" type personality who thinks he literally owns the place and expects his "employees" to do his bidding. He is in a wheel chair and demands that everyone in his path help him out of the chair. He is mean, demanding, and absolutely unable to be engaged in a rational, deflecting conversation, like, "You need to have some dinner before you leave," or "The wheel chair is to keep you safe and from falling down."

One woman constantly screams for help and another yells that she is dying, having a heart attack, can't breath etc (all of which have been checked by the nurses but are untrue) and another woman is quite distraught but only speaks a language that none of us understand.

I know things will settle down. The new residents will acclimate, Gregory's new chair will finally arrive, the staff will feel a little less overwhelmed and understaffed. But meanwhile I myself was doing a little crazy thinking wanting to break Gregory out of the place while at the same time knowing that I wouldn't be able to take care of him if I did.

So we watched "Show Boat" for a while, had chocolate cupcakes with butter cream Easter decorations that Manny left as a gift for us, and finally I said my goodbyes and left Gregory to watch TV with the other residents (as unsettled as they may have been.) I was hard for me to leave but Gregory seemed to retreat into himself or was starting to nap and at least he was calm.

The roller coaster I am riding now is a lot less scary and turbulent than the one I used to ride but it is none the less a roller coaster with its ups and downs and one never knows what new adventure is around the bend!