The following post is from January 2022, when I seriously wondered if we would ever escape the madness? Indeed, as I re-read this today, it seems impossible. Did these events really take place? It is hard now to imagine it. But take place they did!

Though my lovely friend has since passed, memories of that crazy time have not.

Today we are in a different kind of madness. And who can possibly predict the outcome?

Now back to January 2022:

My 88-year-old friend with dementia recently (on Christmas Eve) had a fall on the care-floor of her senior’s residence. Because she hit her head when she landed, she was sent to the hospital to be checked out. She was in the hospital for maybe 4 hours, where she suffered through a battery of tests that left her very confused and even more annoyed, albeit with a clean slate for discharge. When I went to pick her up at 9:30 at night, she said, “Get me out of here, and I’m never coming back! I have to leave here NOW!”

This was a sad, and unfortunate event, but only the beginning of even more trials for my confused and frustrated friend.

After her required exhaustive check-up and her discharge from the hospital, she had to go into isolation in her room at the residence – I gather this is the accepted protocol. Her meals would be in her room; there would be no more walks with me outside; any visitors had to be gowned, gloved, masked, and socially distanced. 

How can a woman in her condition process this? How do the staff manage to keep her calmly in her room 24 hours a day?

Though very unpleasant for her and for me, we were informed that this situation had to be endured for 4 days? or 10? or 14? No one knew (or was willing to say) for sure how long this would last. Actually, I learned later that it would be as long as it took to be tested twice and declared “non-infected” or at least, “non-positive” with you-know-what.

Seven days after her return from the hospital, the staff called me to say that she had tested positive; her movements were now going to be even further restricted and controlled. Five days later, they called again to say that she was refusing to comply with the instructions to stay masked and to stay in her room. And in fact, they claimed that she was solely responsible for the escalating number of cases on her floor. (BTW, all staff and residents on this floor have been double and/or triple vaccinated.) The staff member said that she was not free to tell me how many cases there actually were, but they were certainly because of my friend’s non-compliant behaviour. 

So they have now taken her to yet another hospital, to a ward with other positive cases. Was she sick – with symptoms of sickness? I don’t know, but she has tested positive, and apparently, she is a threat to the health of other triple-vaccinated seniors.

The best I can hope for is a compassionate hospital staff that will keep her comfortable and at peace for the five days before she can return to her residence. 

To what? Another isolation stint and two more tests?

This theatre is so exhausting.

See too, this post from February 2021. These were the early days of the circus: https://auditiescards.com/2021/02/19/locked-in-step-sadness/