As my 89-year-old mom has become increasingly frail, the demands on my older sister who is not only her caregiver but also has a full time job, have become extreme. At a family dinner characterized by atypical, unanimous consent, we siblings decided to pitch in and hire a nurse’s aide in the morning. The job description was easy. Give Mom breakfast. Get her dressed. Make her bed. Give her lunch. Go home.
Hiring a home health care worker is not as easy as you would think. An agency that handles this sort of thing was recommended and we began to interview nursing assistants. My older sister and I handled the interviews, but because we are both openly intimidated by anyone who looks us in the eye and has a firm handshake, we hired the first woman we met. As fate would have it, we also hired the second, third and fourth.
The first woman, Delfine, was pleasant and desperately eager to please. Delfine was supposed to arrive at 9AM, but she could never quite find the house. She would call every morning, lost and confused, asking for directions from the most unlikely of places. “I’m in Kendall” she would say, or “How far are you from Belle Glade?”
Olivia was sweet and punctual, arriving at 9 AM after working the third shift at a local hospital. Things seemed to be going well until the day Mom called, asking if I could come by on my lunch hour and open a can of soup. “Where’s Olivia?” I asked. “She’s so tired,” Mom said; “I don’t want to wake her.”
The agency assured us that Gloria was highly efficient but her first day on the job, which coincidentally was her last, was highlighted by a hysterical phone call from my mom that Gloria left the door open and the dog had run away. My normally unflappable sister was frantic until her neighbor, Marco, called and said he caught and returned the dog. I felt compelled to ask my sister if she would have been that upset if Mom wandered away. “Mom can’t run as fast,” was all she said.
Stephanie was the scariest of the nurses. She and my mom detested each other on sight and the 10 days she worked for us were a battle of wills fought to a bloody stalemate. My mom suddenly turned into Leona Helmsley around this woman, barking out commands in an imperious tone while Stephanie, whom we called “Nurse Ratchett,” would threaten bodily harm.
Things reached a head on the day my sister unexpectedly went home for lunch in time to hear Mom ask for a glass of water and Stephanie say, “Get it yourself, old woman.” In spite of this, Mom begged us not to fire Stephanie: “She knows voodoo,” she said.
Michelle is sweet, punctual and patient and actually seems to enjoy my mother’s company. On Michelle’s first day, after introductions were made, Mom nervously asked Michelle if she knew voodoo. If Michelle was taken aback, it never showed, as she solemnly assured Mom that she did not. Mom was pleased.
Michelle’s nursing skills are minimal but she is so darned pleasant that we never mention it. When Michelle gives Mom a shower she manages to saturate every room in the house and she tends to confuse Ambien and Advil, but these things happen. She makes up for it by making my mother lavish, elaborate lunches. “Michelle jerked a goat today,” Mom told me recently, not long after my sister announced, “My house smells like curry.” Sounds like job security to me.