Today I begin my 9th week in a rehabilitation center. Instead of dealing with an adiction, I’m here because my podiatrist wants me to be in a position to better heal from a mailitis ulcer on my left foot. I’m grateful to my podiatrist because he saved me from getting my left foot amputated. What I’m not too grateful for is the rehab center that I was put in. The center will not be mentioned here not only due to legal reasons but I don’t want any publicity to be garnered.
This facility houses many ‘bad cases’. What I mean by ‘bad cases’ I mean it houses mainly people who are on thier final days on this mortal coil. The main population has various issues from lack of mobility [due to amputations] to those who cannot do anything for themselves, namely being a quadrapelegic.
Since my coming here I have trained no less than 4 nurses how to change the dressing on my wound vac, dealt with lack of response time from the staff, and the noise. I share the room I’m in with 2 elderly men, 1 has had 2 partial leg amputations [with no prostetics] while the other has lost the use of his legs {he gets around via a wheelchair that he needs help to get in and out of]. These 2 guys are hard of hearing and quite often play the ‘I don’t understand English’ card to the fucking hilt. Every night the guy without his legs has a machine that turns on from 11 pm - 1 am then again turns on from 4:30 am - 6 am. This fucking machine is way too loud for anyone who has decent hearing to stay asleep. Then every other day the other guy screams to the top of his lungs in chinese … IN CHINESE!!! Normally it wouldn’t matter but the intonations in Chinese are much louder than most other languages. And then everday the staff makes way too mauch noise while saying ‘Good Morning’ very loudly so the hard of hearing can hear thier greeting. On top of that, between 6-10 times a day, both of my roomates get thier diapers changed … more if they have and accident. The pung is about as strong as the smell of death, and believe me I know the smell of death.
Since that very first day, I have tried to tell anyone I could from the administrators to the nurses. about how I wasn’t supposed to be brought here, but the complaints about noise levels. Everyone to the man/lady said they couldn’t do anything about it. I tried going through the health department of California. And of course thanks to Repulicans for the last 30 years, nothing was done because all the rules/laws that governed my problem was taken off of the table. So while I’m doing what I’m being told to do in order for my healing to take place, then comes another person in the room next door. This guy should never have been brought here because he needs serious one on one care. Since he has very little health coverage, he was wheeled in. This guy, every 5 minutes, cries out for the nurse. At first it was because he was lonely, then it became more and more annoying. “Nurse can you come and help me” slowly became “Nurse can you get me a phone so I can call my wife” then became “Nurse can you call me a cab so I can go home”. Every 5 minutes he wants to sit up, sit in a chair, turn over, watch tv, change the channel. Now I can understand the last 2 but everything else is rediculous. Now this guy has a wife and familiy, his wife comes by 2 times a week for 2-3 hours. Apparentley he hasn’t figured out that this is as much as his wife comes by she can’t handle doing this 24/7. This hasn’t stopped and is driving me crazy.
Right now I’m determined more now than ever to go home. Maybe when this happens I can hopefully get some finances coming my way and I can finally get the many projects I have on the burners off and running. The plan right now is to still get a couple of my books out and available to the public. One is about my many adventures and misadventures as a bus driver for a well known company. The other is about my horrific experience with this country’s mental health community. Along with that I’m formulating an enjoyable podcast about traveling in time to watch movies in the era they were meant to be enjoyed along with the music of the time and other fun stuff.
I would apreciate any helpful critisism, and yes maybe even spelling errors so I can bring to you that which I enjoy so we as a community can have a great time.
Thank you and until next time … Have a great day!
P.S.
Please excuse the inexplicable text style change.