Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer’s – Excerpt
tables wiped and cleaned
2 people showered
8 people toileted three times
11 people served lunch
3 people hand fed
kitchen cleaned
tables wiped and cleaned
carpet swept
garbage collected from 11 rooms and kitchen, taken out to dumpster
I am glad it takes almost a half hour to drive home, an unheard of commute in this town, because I need every minute of it. For the first fifteen minutes I obsess about the residents. I talk out loud, naming all the names I can remember, mentally going around the perimeter of the neighborhood, room by room, to see if I can match names with numbers: Marianne, 141; Eloise, 140; Hayes, 139. That’s all I can do. I’ll write myself a cheat sheet when I get home, a 3 x 5 file card I can stash in my half-apron next to the trash liners.