A Brief Note on the "Sanctity of Life"

The sun was dipping behind some anonymous hills on my way down interstate 99 to another, equally anonymous nursing home. It was one of those days that made you feel really alive; full of crisp, vibrant gusts of air supporting a sky full of puffy cumulus clouds that were aflame with colors Monet could only dream of. As I reached my destination I got out of my car and took a deep, grateful breath. Then I gathered the tools of my trade and walked in to the aforementioned anonymous nursing home.

Like many nursing homes this one was showing its age through the 70's era earth tones paint chipping peacefully into an unkempt rose bush. The door opened into a familar scene of forlorn elderly searching the walls and halls for their lost lives. The smell is the first thing you notice in these places and is the hardest thing to develop a resistance to. A good nursing home usually smells good, looks clean, has nice new paint and furnishings and is staffed with people that still retain a spark of life in their eyes. They represent maybe 5% of the 100+ homes I visit in Northern California and are the costly exception to the rule.

This particular home features a Korean war surplus intercom system that looks like it came straight from the set of MASH. The acrid urine smell is mixed with the steady pulse of fecal matter from patients waiting patiently for their very literal shift-change; that magical time of day when the staff can be bothered to change their soiled clothing. It's easier to wait to change folks until the end of your shift because then you only have to do it once and, lets face it, nobody gives a damn about these people: America's "Greatest Generation". They all get rashes, bed sores, urinary tract infections and they all go there to die.

I do my paperwork and start down the hall towards the patients room, carefully avoiding the small clump of human feces in the middle of the hallway like the rest of the staff. I am a true professional. As I enter the patients room the smell intensifies. It's like crawling into the giant, rotting colon of some long dead beast - the stale, putrid air violating every open pore on my skin. The nurse is doing something to the patient whose thin buttocks are shaking in response to his rattling of the bed rails. She asks me to wait outside and I gingerly comply, stepping over the poop pile again to wait my turn. Three CNA's and a nurse make the same course correction as I wait my turn in the hallway.

The nurse leaves the room and lets me enter. Somehow it smells even worse then it did. Air freshener costs money.

The patient's eyes are vacant and flecked with chunks of what I imagine were once tears. He offers no resistance to my poking and prodding and no response to my halting attempts at conversation. I feel real pity for this patient seeing the condition of his life and knowing that, statistically, he is probably visited by family members once a month - if he is lucky.

I leave the facility and take another deep breath of air. It's not as crisp or as pure as it was before but I am still grateful. As I vigorously rub the anti bacterial lotion on my hands, in between the fingers and under the nail beds as far as it will go, I daydream about how good it will feel to take a shower when I get home. I pull out of the parking lot and press play on my audiobook.

Now, almost a week later, I can't help wondering if they are still waltzing around that little pile of crap.