THE TRIALS AT ST TIMMY'S 16
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THE TRIALS AT ST TIMMY'S --
The Continued Saga of Paul Ess's Rehabilitation
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Last night I had the dumbest CNA in the world put me to bed. I
almost always request the bed pan upon becoming flat on my back
because this is when I will finally let go, without much control,
of all the gas which has accumulated in my gut over the day.
Usually this stentorian blast will bring along with it the main
of my buildup of groganpaste[tm]. If I don't get all the paste
out at this time, I am likely to have wet farts all night long
and be a mess by morning. Shitting with your poopchute at the
horizontal is grossly inefficient.
Usually when they come take the pan away they do not exhibit the
contents. Now, I'm mildly interested in my output. I was always
one to look behind me upon arising from the porcelain throne.
This one sat the uncovered pan on the floor while she ministered
unto my profuse need for cleanup. We'll let it go that she about
scoured me shitless, literally, to the accompaniment of unheeded
cussing and squeaks of pain. I looked in the pan below me.
Children, the muck was most impressive.
CNA then proceeded to take the quite-full bed pan to the toilet
between our room and the groaners next door. She washed out the
bed pan using our sink in which we shave and wash our face. She
wiped it out with paper towels and threw the used towels and the
muck into the toilet. So far so good, but then the toilet
wouldn't swallow. It doesn't like paper towels. Why she didn't
take this generous offering across the hall and blast it loose
with the hydraulic powers invested in the Hooper, I do not
understand.
The occupational therapist came to see me and said she found out
The ERR used up all my Cruel Cross allowances for physical and
occupational therapies for the whole year 1996. They managed to
do that in five months. NOW do you believe me that this rest
home scam is what I tell you it is? That was 50 visits and they
are all gone. Most of the visits amounted to having a semi-
skilled employee drag my butt to the Torture Chamber and hand me
the exercise equipment. I could have done most of this without
any help.
Now the California taxpayers are going to foot it for what I need
and didn't get. I'll have an evaluation -- to see where I am
"at" and six visits to be billed to MediCal. At the conclusion
of this course I should be getting in and out of bed on my own,
shitting in a regular pot, and able to go places by car -- all
with minimal assistance, like if I get into trouble with the
sequence of steps. I hope the car thing is handled by the end of
the month cuz I want to go bye-bye with some a.t.ers.
Rochelle and I are butting heads. I let her read some of the
earlier ERR rants. She thinks they are funny. Her brother
thinks they are funny. Her friends even think they are funny.
She hasn't told me that I protrayed the situation as other than
it is. That is, I didn't exaggerate nor tell lies. After all,
she's been in the CNA business for a good while and has seen
everything -- you can just tell -- except a mad amputee who's
terminally pissed off and vows to write a book.
She asked if I mentioned her in any of the writings. I admitted
I had. She is the one who got Godammit Lady ready for the family
to take away. She and I have finally come to terms and we agree
that we each are bullheaded and have a 'tude on. We are both
strong personalities and we are wary of each other. Neither of
us sees him/herself as the world sees us. When we are told the
effect we have, we find it strange and a bit disconcerting.
I think Rochelle has magnificent potential as a sister in the
tasteless fraternity, but I don't think she can put her reserve
aside and just do it. I've been there; I understand that. It
takes a piss-poor bringing-up or real study and effort to become
tasteless and a conaisseur of ironic bawdiness without being just
plain crude. There is no more ironic place than a hospital or
tardfarm[tm].
Social Dining is getting too crowded. Only when I threatened to
go elsewhere did they lower that silly table from chin height
down to something moderate. Both tables are now seating five.
This is capacity because we are knocking elbows. I still want my
food left on the tray as does George because we don't want our
slop handled by everybody on the planet.
Breaded pork chop was the entree. We had bacon for breakfast.
This is too much pork. I really crave rice, beans, and cereals.
If I'm going to eat meat, I want it unseasoned and unsauced and
to pour ketchup on it. They make a big fuss around here about
cholesterol, yet here we are with all this pork and dark turkey
meat. I prefer unadorned hamburger to nearly anything else off
the haunch of a dead animal. But beef isn't the cheapest thing
right now. Once again, money beats out real health concerns and
aesthetics. Fuck it.
There was quite a commotion in the hall this afternoon. Mr
Salazar from The ERR is down the hall and hasn't shut up since he
got here. He is farther away from me than he was over at the
other place, but he is not far enough away... To help with his
terrible bed sores which Mrs Salazar said they did nothing about
at the other tardfarm[tm], they brought in a $30,000 electric bed
which looks like a bathtub on wheels. It's filled with 1200
pounds of tiny glass beads. A compressor constantly blows
thermostatically controlled air through the beads, keeping them
constantly in slight motion. The physics of the situation are
that the pressure exerted on human flesh by lying on this
contraption is less than the compression necessary to close
surface capillaries.
The old boy can lie there on this thing, soothed with warm air,
and supposedly heal up now. They claim that people in pain calm
down quite a bit after being put on one of these beds. Gee, the
place will save money on useless Tylenol and will have even less
excuse to dose out the good stuff like codeine and morphine. So
far the magical properties of the bed have not materialized.
Salazar was bellowing damn near all night long. This is not pain
bellowing; this is senile bellowing. His old lady should get
real. The old bastard has the human equivalent of Mad Cow
Disease. Scuttlebut is that staff like to take naps on vacant
beds of this type. They often sleep so soundly that a honcho
discovers their transgression with embarrassing, uh,
complications.
Here is the really tasteless bit for today. I got a letter from
The ERR. It turned out to be a letter of request to them from a
state bureau wanting information about me from my medical records
at The ERR. Why The ERR sent this letter to me is beyond
understanding. So I sent it back to them together with a copy of
the letter to the agency saying I was returning the letter to its
addressee, and would the agency let me know if the addressee does
not comply with this perfectly legitimate info request within a
reasonable length of time. I guess the assholes over there can't
even read, I dunno.
And it gets better. Here comes another letter from The ERR.
It's over the signature of Dragon Lady, no less. "Dear Patient:
Recently you were a patient at The ERR. You have been selected
from a random sample of patients to take part in a survey that
will help us to evaluate the services provided by The ERR.
"The survey is brief -- it should take approximately 10 minutes
to complete. Your opinions will help is to better meet the needs
of future patients and their families, and to ensure that The
ERR's patients continue to receive the highest quality of care.
"Please mail the survey back in the enclosed postage-paid
envelope. [Damn. I wish the mail had arrived all at once; I
could've mailed the state crap back to them on their dime.]
"Thank you very much for your participation. If you have
questions or comments about this survey, please call me at your
convenience. 000-000-0000. Sincerely, [Dragon Lady] R.N.
Administrator" Gee. Howcome no "MBA" like on her cards? Did
they pull her yuppie credentials? --Repossess her Lexus?
Here goes--
Please rate your overall satisfaction with The ERR's admission
process. [They dragged my ass out of the ambulance on a gurney,
down the hill out front, into the front door, into the room, and
transfer-sheeted my ass into the bed. Then two funny-looking
women came in with a clipboard and looked at every square inch of
mah bhoddy, muttered, and scribbled on the clipboard. Rating:
Sucky.]
Please rate The ERR for the planning of your care, or your family
member's care. [I had little idea what was going on until I
asked questions. Very often I had no idea what questions to ask.
You dragged out my care as long as you could get away with and
you didn't finish what you started. And I think you knew fully
well that you wouldn't be able to do your rehabilitative job
because you knew you lacked the facilities to do so. Rating:
You suck shit through a cat catheter.]
How do you rate the care you received from The ERR's staff
physician, Dr Sawbones? [He loves to tell people what he is
going to do to them. If it involves IV needles, he's in seventh
heaven. Otherwise he won't even say Good Morning. Rating: Some
people give the impression that, when they enter the room,
someone just left.]
Were your pain needs met to your satisfaction? [Not applicable
in my case, but I heard plenty of screaming by people who were in
severe pain. I have discounted complainers and hypochondriacs as
such. I heard real agony expressed and, for whatever reason,
they got no adequate relief.]
How would you rate the care you received from the nurses?
[Better than at this place. They answered calls a lot faster
there. But you employ La Diosa (The Goddess) who stands around
and primps and who finds somebody else to clean asses, not to
mention two others who are the laziest human beings I have seen
in my life. Here they may take a while to get to you but they
just dig right into that ole groganpaste.]
Were you or family members informed about the purposes and goals
of physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy?
Were these goals reached to your satisfaction? [By "goals" do
you mean "claims"? Realized?! Don't get me started!]
Were social work services excellent, average, poor? [Well, you
lost my applications for the dole at least once. It is unclear
whether you or some bureaucrat lost them two other times. You
suck.]
Did the food taste good? [Are you kidding?!] Please rate your
satisfaction with food services. [What food?]
Did everything in your room work properly? [Sometimes things did
after I bitched enough. After I'd been there six months you
decided I could have a string on my overhead lamp. You never did
fix the gaposis of my closet door. My room was cold enough to
hang meat.]
Please rate housekeeping. [The place was kept excellently clean,
but did this mean you had to use the noisiest vacuum cleaners on
the planet and do it at six o'clock in the morning? Rest homes
have a reputation for smelling like pee. This one never did.
Sometimes it smelled like shit tho.]
Were you or your family given adequate assistance with discharge
planning? [You kept me in your hommmmme until my insurance quit
paying. Then you sent bills to my best friend who ignored them
because he isn't up for paying my debts. You didn't tell me you
did that nor did you tell me you alleged that I owed you money.
When it suited you to tell me, you did so using the information
as a weapon and retaliation. You finally got half of what you
allege I owe you, and you got it at taxpayer expense. Since your
aim was to exhaust my insurance and then get rid of me, you could
have done your scam a bit more carefully than that. But you
didn't and so you will have to settle for half price which is
about what your services were worth. You're perfectly free to
find a palsy-walsy judge-friend to drop a judgement on me. You
won't get anything even when I am dead. I have nothing more for
you to take. In your favor I have to say that you dragged my ass
around the East Bay at your expense so I could look at places
your ethnicly-similar friends run or are associated with in hope
of placing me in one of their joints. Most of these places were
incapable of dealing with my needs or took one look at me and
found me not to their taste. You people spend a lot of your time
bullshitting each other and you compound the bullshit by
involving innocent parties. Finally you foisted me off on
another tardfarm[tm] similar to yours. Thanks to the way you
dragged your feet and misrepresented your capabilities, I am no
farther along now than I was nine months ago. Discharge
planning, indeed! You discharge people like a hungry spider
discharges its dried-up shell of prey.]
Was your family or caregivers given all the information they
needed for your recovery at home? [You sent half bogus
information along with me to the new tardfarm[tm] which has
caused me problems here because these people don't listen to the
patient (who is the reason you are collecting any moolah at all)
any better than you did.]
How would you rate the care you received at The ERR? [There
aren't enough different cusswords and not time enough in the
world nor paper and ink enough to set them all down.]
If you needed care again, would you return to The ERR? [No.]
Would you recommend The ERR to others? [No. It's not good
enough for my friends and it's too lame for my enemies.]
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