by Tyra Phipps, Ed.D. (tyra.phipps@gmail.com)
Ms. Phyllis McCormack is a nurse who has cared for the elderly all of her life. She deeply appreciates the Native Americans who respect their elders
and writes about the fact that if it were not for the elders, none of us would be here. She is credited with this heartfelt poem that was written on a napkin by an elderly man in a nursing home in 1966.
Ms. Janet Williams,
who cares for an Alzheimer’s patient, forwarded this work on January 26, 2016.
What do you see nurses?… What do you see?
What are you thinking… When you’re looking at me?
A cranky old man… Not very wise,
Uncertain of habit… With faraway eyes?
Who dribbles his food… And makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice… ‘I do wish you’d try!’
Who seems not to notice…
The things that you do.
And forever is losing… A sock or shoe?
Who, resisting or not… Lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding… The long day to fill?
Is that what you’re thinking?… Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse… You’re not looking at me.
I’ll tell you who I am… As I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding… As I eat at your will.
I’m a small child of 10… With a father and mother,
Brothers
and target sisters… Who love one another.
A young boy of 16… With wings on his feet
Dreaming that soon now…
A lover he’ll meet.
A groom soon at 20… My heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows… That I promised to keep.
At
25, now… I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide… And a secure happy home.
A man of 30… My young now grown fast,
Bound to each other… With ties that should last.
At 40, my young sons… Have grown and are gone,
But my woman is beside me… To see I don’t mourn.
At 50, once more… Babies play ’round my
knee,
Again, we know children… My loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me… My wife is now dead.
I look at the
future… I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing… Young of their own.
And I think of the years… And the love that I’ve known.
I’m now an old man… And nature is cruel.
It’s jest to make old age… Look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles… Grace and vigor, depart.
There is now a stone… Where
I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass… A young man still dwells,
And now and again… My battered heart swells.
I remember the joys… I remember the pain.
And I’m loving and living… Life over again.
I think of the years,
all too few… Gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact… That nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people… Open and see.
Not a cranky old man. Look closer. See… ME.
Ms. McCormick called attention to her work with the elderly in publications to enlighten readers about what they see when looking at the elderly, or looking at their own parents. So many older people talk about how they still feel like they are in their 20s, 30s, or 40s in their mind, but their bodies are another story. To some, aging may be perceived as an illness or a disease, but the natural process of growing older changes everyone.
Ms. Nora Gallagher states emphatically, “We are all vulnerable.” In her book, Moonlight Sonata at the Mayo Clinic published in 2013, she talks about her baffling illness and the bureaucracy of the medical system that is taken over by experts in efficiency who are inefficient and do not understand healthcare. Ms. Gallagher was featured on NPR February 7, 2016, in an interview on Growing Bolder where she discussed that her illness was like going to the Land of Oz. It seemed like everyone else functioned in the day while her own world stopped and she belonged to the land of the sick. A perplexing illness forces one to meditate on the spiritual and physical vulnerabilities according to Ms. Gallagher. Illness can happen at any time. Does the aging process bring on the same vulnerabilities? What then?
Perhaps Ms. Julie Craddock has an answer for how to Look Closer at the elderly and see a different picture during this February month of Valentines. She wrote of her own family situation on January 24, 2016, and said, “I am thankful we can care for our Mom in our home. I believe that if families can care for older family members in their home it is best. I almost feel like I have a second chance to be a good daughter. I see her face in the morning and kiss and love on her to tuck her in at night. Oh my goodness, how special!”
By 2020, “special” moments with loved ones turned into people in all walks of life being overwhelmed with lockdowns, overcrowded hospitals, shortages of protective equipment, and losses of life. The general population learned what Ms. Gallagher referred to by “belonging to the land of the sick.” Families could not take care of loved ones in their own homes. Ms. Craddock enjoyed being there for her mother who was aging and “getting a second chance to be a good daughter.” Four years beyond her quote families and loved ones could only watch helplessly through glass windows as the pandemic robbed them of their right to be good sons and daughters.
Ms. Gallagher talked about her “baffling illness and the bureaucracy of the medical system.” A decade later, do the same problems exist? Is there a more serious pathology, causing people in a health crisis to feel more helpless and hopeless. More than half of the people in America deal with one or more chronic health conditions. About 50% of the population has mental health problems. Is the healthcare system so overwhelming and difficult to navigate that the majority of people suffer with a feeling that they live in the “Land of Oz.”?
The reality of the problems that exist in healthcare includes a lack of staff, untrained staff, medication errors, misdiagnoses, communication breakdowns leading to medical errors, and indifference to the difficult adjustment of transitioning from a hospital or home environment. People can find themselves called residents in a room with a stranger, without their pets or any comforts of the life they previously knew before a heart attack, stroke, accident, or the end stage of disease. A lack of compassion on the part of staff makes the adjustment to long-term care even more difficult.
What culminates in long-term care is the worst of all healthcare problems as stated by Mr. Johnathan Cohn in the book, Ten Year War. The challenges include selecting which nursing home is best suited for the family member, cost factors, what is covered on a daily basis, and navigating the bureaucracy of Medicare and Medicaid.
Dr. Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist who is the author of the book, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. His work is based on years of sessions with his psychiatric patients, research, and a belief in Albert Einstein’s theory as the left brain is the servant and the right brain is the gift operating with compassion and oversight of the left brain. Dr. McGilchrist states that, “The left hemisphere is detail oriented, while the right has greater breadth, flexibility, and generosity” He writes about the pathology in Western culture that society is becoming a servant to the left brain while ignoring or overlooking the gift of compassion in the right brain. The evolution of artificial intelligence, robots, and cobots are examples of the heavy dependence on left brain. In other words, the new orthodoxy in society honors the details, systems, and algorithms of the left brain. The care, empathy, and compassion of the right brain are ignored making healthcare, especially nursing and long-term care a truly dehumanizing experience.
Could these dehumanizing experiences be the reason why the elderly male patient left a poem for the nurse to find after he died? “Look closer. See… ME.”
February, 2016
May, 2021