Our Land: Getting Old Part 2

Today’s Our Land is a Part Deux by by Lizzi of Considerings; a follow-up from last week’s.  Last week’s had a couple of people commenting on how they did not see how it related to Our Land. They were justified in wondering, and rightfully confused, as it wasn’t my typical Our Land. If there are readers out there who were confused about the desperation left in last week’s post, I hope that this week, Lizzi brings home the point for them.

So, without the Ado’s…

Our Land: Getting Old Part 2 – Getting old isn’t for wimps

After a harrowing experience in a three-week stint in a care home for the elderly, I swore I’d never work with them again. It was too hard, I determined, to see first-hand the awful indignities they suffered, and to be party to the extent of their marginalisation from British society.

So I took the coward’s way out, quit, and spent a decade looking after humans at the other end of the spectrum – delightful, bouncing babies and bonny wee toddlers in a day-nursery. These were far more my kind of human – on their way IN, bursting with vitality and joie de vivre. A far cry from those who could almost hear death’s whisper in their ears and feel his kiss hovering over their wrinkled cheeks.

Yet I ended up back with them, these elderly. This section of our society we find so complicated to engage with. These ancient humans.

I see them now as patients, coming to me to have their eyes screened to check for diabetic retinopathy. They totter out to my van and they (usually) smile warmly as I introduce myself by name. I tell them I’m their ‘photographer,’ trying to glam up the job, and avoid the reminder that they’re there because their bodies are failing them.

When I check to confirm their date of birth, many of them make some remark about it:

“That was a good year.”

“A long time ago, that.”

“Yes, I’m very old now.”

And usually they smile, wryly, and I offer to ‘knock a few years off, if you want,’ as I enter their details into my laptop. Or I tell them “Birthdays are scientifically proven to be good for you – the more of them you have, the longer you live!” This makes them smile, and I grin back at them. Then they might tell me a story about their childhood, or their grandchildren, or the 80^th birthday they just had.

And while they like the idea of magically regaining their youth, most of them decline the offer. Most of them are content, and my heart feels full.

But some have genuine complaints. They wince in pain as they move from one area of my mobile screening unit to the next. Sitting for too long on the twizzly chair is awkward for them. They struggle to climb in, lifting their legs laboriously and clinging to the safety rails. They collapse onto the seat inside, wheezing, palpably wishing they could still manage this task.

And they tell me droplets of wisdom.

“Don’t get old – it hurts.”

“I lost my wife last year. Fifty-two years we were married. I’m moving house and going to live with my son now.”

“Getting old isn’t for wimps.”

And this latter sentiment has struck at my core and tapped into some deep-seated fears.

Because Alzheimer’s and arthritis are part of my heritage. Because I’ve seen what happens to the incapable and the infirm. Because I’ve been witness to the rack and ruin that can befall a person as they age.

Because I’m terrified of being elderly in this society.

I’ve seen them on their knees, having fallen, unable to get up.

I’ve seen them shuffling in their wheelchairs, scrabbling to try to get close enough to the head-rest of the camera (on its lowest setting) so that I can take the photographs I need.

I’ve seen them held forward and spoken down to by their carers.

I’ve heard about how the care home lost their glasses or put them in someone else’s wheelchair.

I’ve noted when the care homes haven’t bothered to bring them to their appointments at all.

And in two shatteringly awful cases, I’ve seen them left in corridors in hospitals in their wheelchairs, waiting hours and hours for patient transport to return for them. With no-one to talk to. No books to read. No way to propel themselves to find a more comfortable place to wait. No access to a toilet, or refreshments.

Stuck. Abandoned. Alone.

In the latest case, I returned repeatedly to the lady. I commiserated with her about how awful the patient transport was, who’d told her to ring, but not left a number. Who’d told her not to bring her purse, so she was unable to book a taxi back to her care home. Who weren’t there. I rang my admin team and they got back to me – patient transport would be about an hour.

I brought her water (her request). I offered her coffee. I popped back in between patients, and later when I had a break I sat with her and drank my coffee, and she told me about the Bed & Breakfast she used to run in Ireland with her then husband. She told me about how she’d had a heart attack and ended up in a wheelchair, and how he hadn’t been able to cope. She told me about how he’d struggled with her disability, and how it had ended their marriage. She told me about how the care home she was in was costing her £1000 a month, and she didn’t know what she’d do once the money had run out.

And at the end of my clinic, two hours later, she was still there, in the corridor. And the lights were out.

A friendly security guard had noticed her, and I explained her plight. He shook his head, appalled, and offered to take her through to the reception desk to try to get things sorted out.

I don’t know what became of her. I hope she made it home. But it really makes me fucking wonder.

In other cultures, these people would be venerated. Cherished. Adored if not for themselves, for their status – survivors. Warriors. People who have lived and who have entered their end days with honour and dignity and grace.

Here, they struggle, sometimes daily. They might not have enough money. They might have started losing their minds, and are at risk of harming themselves. Sometimes they can’t afford to heat their homes. More often than not, they’re desperately lonely. They ache. They hurt. They’re wrinkled, battered, old, washed-up and uncared for, by and large. And they know it.

No. Getting old isn’t for wimps.

We need to change.

It is unacceptable to bequeath this heartless, marginalising attitude to future generations.

We need to find the strength within us – the warrior-strength that each of those old people embodies – and use it to make them count.

We need to celebrate our elderly, our aged, our venerable older citizens and somehow strive to let each one of them know that they are valued.

Cherished.

Adored.

For who they are now. For all the ‘them’s they’ve been in each preceding decade. For the contribution they’ve made. For the ways they’ve built the world we live in. For the massive things and small things and important and not-important things they’ve done with their lives.

For being.

For surviving.

For not being wimps.

photo credit

I feel like this message about how we treat the elderly members of our society is a needed part of Our Land, and I thank Lizzi for giving me this perspective. Here’s more about her:

Lizzi is a Deep Thinker, Truth Teller and Seeker of Good. She works a normal job and has a secret life as the writer at Considerings. Wife to Husby and Mother to two Neverborns, now dealing with the challenge of primary infertility, she is a frequent instigator of silliness and loves to entertain with words.

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