COLUMN: Life in a Personal Care Home – Packing your bag for a PCH

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/03/2024 (412 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Most personal care home rooms are large enough for a hospital bed, a chair, a night table and an armoire. My late husband’s parents both passed in a PCH in Winnipeg, memorable for its pink floors, pink walls and pink blinds. Their rooms allowed four of us to sit around the death bed, so long as nobody needed to get up for any reason. One bathroom was shared between two residents.

My dad’s room has space for a loveseat and plenty of room to maneuver his wheelchair. His own washroom is large enough to keep a small horse: a diversion I offered to get for Dad, but he declined. He opted for a small fridge to keep some cold drinks and snacks. With his limited vision, access to the communal fridge would be many small disasters just waiting to happen.

Personal care homes are operated around the premise that the resident will ring the bell when they need help. There is a bell beside every toilet and bed, and most residents are also wearing a bell on a wristband. Dad refused the bell on the wrist due to it being uncomfortable while laying on his side in bed, his main activity besides going to the toilet and eating meals.

Wait. Old-timers are expected to ring a bell to get help? They have never asked for help for anything until the day they enter a PCH. We’re talking about my father who, years ago, fell from a pile of hay bales, badly injured his wrist and, despite his pain and nausea, changed his clothes and drove himself to the hospital. Mom had the same do-it-yourself doctrine, getting right back to work after any major surgery, no help required.

Both my parents and my parents-in-law certainly didn’t want to bother the PCH staff who surely were busy doing other more important things than covering them with a blanket or wiping up the spilled apple juice or getting them a clean pull-up.

All that Dad really wants is for someone to sit down next to him for a five-minute chat just because they like to. Ringing a bell to get some company? It’s a bit like me picking up the phone when I’m feeling down: not likely to happen even if I know I’ll be hosting a self-pity party of one.

And residents with dementia? They don’t ring the bell because they don’t remember that they have a bell to ring. Instead they call out with surprisingly robust shouts: Help! Help! Help me! Help me! Help me!, continuously with all their might and main.

Before Mom passed, I would offer her a loonie for every time she rang the bell, trusting her thrifty self to keep track. To no avail. I should have offered chocolates or drugs. The evening of the fall that proved fatal for her, she was most likely pushing her walker to the washroom on her own steam; we’ll never know for sure.

One item that proved indispensable for Mom near the end of her life was a pocket-talker. She did have the $4,000 hearing aids that got lost under the bed and needed new batteries every second week. Often enough to pray that the inventors of those slippery bits be subjected to punishment by pummeling. We still had to shout to be heard and repeat everything multiple times to be understood.

The pocket-talker, on the other hand, cost around $200 and was good for one-on-one conversation as well as hearing the sound on the weekly movie in the common area. We could speak at a normal volume, and Mom could hear us clear as a whistle. The pocket-talker involves the person wearing headphones which are attached to a small microphone held by the visitor or placed on the table in front of them. Being understood by my Mom felt miraculous and made me giddy with relief.

Dad is not using hearing aids or a pocket-talker. If we talk at a normal volume into his ear at close range, he understands. He understands even better if we speak in his mother tongue of Low German.

The meds delivered to Dad by the nursing staff include a CBD / CBN cannabis oil product called NightNight to help him sleep. This is pre-tested, provided and paid for by family. As is the case with cannabis, the day will come when psilocybins are legal and in widespread use again; their efficacy for emotional and mental health issues, even in microdoses, is indisputable.

We also go through large jars of coconut oil for dry skin and zinc ointment for bedsores. Vitamins B12 and D3s help with relaxation. The morphine doses provided by the PCH are not for pain but for relaxing Dad’s head and chest so that he can breathe more comfortably.

I have a Level 3 in practicing reiki, but Dad seems to appreciate foot rubs more. The healing power of touch hopefully outweighs my lack of training in reflexology. Vicks Vaporub is good to apply on the soles of the feet to suppress coughing and relieve congestion. Often I’m unsure if Dad is asking me to “work with the toes” for his sake or for the purpose of keeping me occupied. The massage gun rotating on dad’s back seems helpful but not life-changing.

Sometimes he falls asleep while I’m massaging his feet. He often tells people who ask that he feels okay so long as one of his children is with him. My invincible and usually confident Dad of yesteryear is revealing the vulnerability and fear under his thick skin, and it’s difficult to watch. He occasionally suffered from deep depression for years at a time, but then he could always spend time outdoors with the horses or visit a friend who was feeling worse than him.

One day, when the devotional reading focused on the biblical story of the persistent widow who went to the judge asking for help, Dad said he didn’t understand the story. I couldn’t hide my surprise. What’s not to understand, I asked. The widow got what she needed because she didn’t give up.

Then it dawned on me. Like the widow, Dad is asking and asking and asking for relief but unlike the widow, he is not receiving it. His faith in a friendly universe or a benevolent Higher Power is being tested, and as I see his suffering, so is mine.

As I prepare to leave to go home to Winnipeg, Dad reaches for my hand and says to me in Low German, “safe travels”. I say, “the same to you, Dad.” We grin conspiratorially, but it’s no secret to anyone that he feels very much like travelling on.

This article is part three in a three part series.