Nursing Home Prison Case Studies (Or - The Story of Mandy)
Mandy, 58 - wanted to "go to college," despite her disability. Now she can't ever leave, and her dreams have been dashed.
A Note on My “Nursing Home Prison” Case Studies
I’m committing to this Substack blogging exercise for the reasons I laid out in one of my initial articles - basically I have had almost all that I can take. When I first started working at my current facility 10+ years ago, I had a sense that hey - living in a nursing home may suck for a variety of reasons, obviously 90%+ of the people there don’t want to be there, but we can, as nursing home workers, make it tolerable for a bunch of them - and possibly even make some of their lives better. I truly believed that!
These days? My residents can’t leave, visitations have been significantly restricted and controlled, volunteers and voluteer-led activities are largely absent, paid companion services are gone (and this is just for starters)…. and everything, daily living is and remains largely subservient to COVID mitigation and control… so now, I go to work every day with a sense of ongoing loss and anguish about what’s been done at my workplace and to my residents - it sucks.
It’s not just the principle of the thing that bothers me - in fact, that’s pretty minor. It’s the individuals - the residents whose lives are being destroyed by this. These people each have a story, each have hopes, dreams, and yes - simple desires and yearnings.
So - I bring you some more “nursing home prison case studies.” Let’s meet Mandy.1
The Story of Mandy
Mandy was admitted to my nursing home approximately four years ago for long term care to address her longstanding issues with multiple sclerosis, which has affected her ability to walk and care for her basic needs.
Mandy first became sick with her MS around the age of 30 (she is 58 now, one of our youngest nursing home residents). Prior to that, although she was only a high-school graduate, she had actually worked for several years at a local Boston Market, initially as a line cook but eventually worked her way up to assistant manager.
Her work at the restaurant was also somewhat of a triumph for her. She had a bit of a rough time since high school, with problems associated with drugs and alcohol, a stint in rehab, and an unwanted pregnancy that ended in an adoption that made life difficult. But - after she got sober and got her life back on track, she got herself into the restaurant business (using the love of cooking she inherited from her Mother) - and things seemed to click for her.
Since getting sick though, after soldiering on for a little while and trying to stay on her job, she had to quit and she ended up moving back in with her parents (who were 1st generation Polish immigrants) and they did their best to take care of her in the home for several years. After her parents became too old to help, eventually Mandy’s siblings, mainly her older brother, Antoni, stepped in. Eventually she ended up with us.
“I Just Want to Go Back to School.”
As she’s a very social and active person, relatively speaking - Mandy comes and visits my office often, which she has done both before and after COVID lockdowns.
Prior to lockdown, she had expressed a strong desire to “go back to school.” This was understandable - one of her great regrets was disappointing her parents after high school with her teenage rebelliousness and aimlessness that culminated in her unwanted pregnancy.
So, we worked out a plan: Although she was very functionally impaired, we had arranged a paid companion service (think Visiting Angels, similar to what they offer2), to send a nice young lady to start visiting with her, with the eventual plan to start driving her to our local community college and accompanying her to a couple of specially handpicked “adaptive” classes designed for people with disabilities, so she could finally satisfy her dream of going to college.
In late 2019 things looked like they were working out. Working with her brother Antoni, we had matched her with a caregiver whom she seemed to click well with. We had the classes lined up, and a plan to get her there. She was excited.
But then COVID lockdowns happened. At first, it seemed like this would be over in weeks. Then months.
Now it looks like Mandy will never be able to go back to school. And no - she is not a candidate for “Zoom school.” Mandy is not particularly technologically-savvy - and particularly with her cognitive issues on board, a “virtual school” option would not be good for her.
Mandy Today - just Marking Time
Because there’s a lot less activities at the nursing home since COVID (volunteer-led and Recreation Therapy-led activities have been significantly scaled back), no more outings, and visitations curtailed - these days Mandy just spends her days aimlessly wheeling herself around our nursing home, chatting with our increasingly-busy nursing staff when she can, but otherwise just existing.
Whule Mandy continues to visit my office, and will still talk about how she wishes she could “go back to school,” and while she’s pretty upbeat still - I know she’s been deflated by all of this, as am I.
It’s clear at this point she won’t be setting foot on a college campus for the forseeable future, because the world considers it far too risky that Mandy mixes with the outside world.
So she’s just here now, existing and marking time, with her dreams of going “back to school” - to just set her foot on a college campus - dashed by nursing home prison.
(Keep in mind that when I share a case history, I am not using real names, ages, and I may change around other personal details to keep their stories confidential).
Not an endorsement
Please keep writing and sharing. I'm passing many of them along to friends in Facebook land, in the hope that someone's eyes may be opened just a wee bit. A nurse friend needed help explaining why she hated masks - your "masks are ableist" article was very helpful for her.
This is so heartbreaking. Both my mother in law and one of my grandmas were nurses at nursing homes and both said they never wanted to be in one after what they experienced, and that was long before covid.