Courtesy of Minding Our Elders

Continued from Dementia Boot Camp: Sensitivity Training for Caregivers, Part 1.

We finally reached the top step. The woman holding my elbow didn’t have
much to say. I was hungry for the sound of an unfiltered human voice,
but I had to concentrate so hard on climbing the steps, as my sight was
distorted by the goggles, that I probably wouldn’t have heard much,
anyway. Besides, the headphones were isolating.

We passed
through a doorway. Two other women were in a large room. They must have
been aides. One aide stood beside a young woman in a wheelchair,
likely one of the staff going through training. It was obvious they
were waiting for me.

An aide pushed a wheelchair toward me, mentioning “the one in the black pants.” I was wearing black jeans.

“This one’s hospice?” she asked the woman who brought me in.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’ll put her in this chair. No one who uses this chair lives long, anyway.”

I
think the woman who brought me in left. I never thought I’d miss my
silent partner, but I felt abandoned, here with these strangers.

One aide said, “Did she do anything? Work anywhere? Know anything about her?”

The second aide said, “I think she worked at a newspaper.”

“Well,
we need a nickname for her,” the other one said. “Even though she won’t
last long. Look at her. Not much to her. Let’s call her Nosey. People
who work at newspapers are nosey."

“That or Snoopy,” the other one said.

 “Snoopy.
Nosey. Pretty much the same,” the first one said. “Don’t know what it
is about that chair, but people sitting in it always die fast.”

They
sat me down in the chair people died in. One aide was on each side of
me now. They tied my arms snugly to the arms of the chair. They lifted
my popcorn-filled shoes up to the chair’s footrest. At least my feet
felt better.

Then the chair began shaking side to side. “This
chair needs fixing,” the aide behind me said. “See, it wiggles.” Once
more, she shook the chair rapidly, side to side.

“Oh, well. Snoopy isn’t going to last long. Nothin’ to her,” she said.

The other one corrected her: “It’s Nosey.”

“Snoopy. Nosey. Doesn’t matter.”

My aide called out, “We’ve got a couple of feeders here!”

She
pushed my chair, nearly side-swiping a wall in the process, to a table.
All the while, she was chatting with her co-worker about the “bad luck
chair,” and how nosey newspaper people are and how I wouldn’t last
long.