Monday, December 15, 2008

A new roommate

It didn't take long but this afternoon I found a new roommate laying in Danny's old bed. His name is Gerald and he has been in the home for a long time. The skinny is he doesn't talk much. He spends most of his time outside smoking (hopefully he won't reek or I will complain.) He spends a lot of time outside of the room and eats in the dining room so I might get some piece. He is a transfer from "Wing 5" the dementia wing. Wing 5 is where must of the people in vegetative states are stored, but they can't be in that wing if they are in a chair or use a walker because they could hurt themselves, or each other with them. This worries me. It's too soon to feel one way or the other about him. We'll soon see. It's just another reason to buckle down and get better and get out of this place.

I had a session of restorative therapy with Lamin. We talked a little about the weather. It is fucking cold! It's supposed to snow on Wednesday!! it's supposed to be the coldest winter Seattle (and the rest of the Pacific Northwest) has seen in twenty years. I remember that winter (1998). I remember going to The Evergreen State College. It would be a few weeks before I officially moved into the dorms with my friends, so I was sleeping on the couch. Olympia got about four feet of snow and when it finally started to melt, I went out to dig out my car and go get provisions from the grocery store. Sometime between parking my car but before it started to snow, someone had broken the window and stole my stereo. The car was completely full of snow.

I wondered aloud to Lamin if we will have that kind of winter or that kind of snow storm on Wednesday. I wish I wasn't broke. I am going to have to eat the food here indefinitely.

I worked with the new occupational therapist, Kathy, today. I don't remember if I mentioned her before, but she had been working with Danny the past couple weeks and I was afraid I made a bad impression with her. I explained why, when the first time she came in to work with Danny, at 6:30 in the morning, why I said "Jesus Fucking Christ! It's six-thirty in the morning!" I explained to her how I am woken up at four a.m. every morning by Crazy Alice (who is yelling help as I write this...and Gerald just came back and he reeks of cigarette smoke).

Nancy was understanding and I think we will work together pretty well.

I had physical therapy with Z and spent the first 15 minutes working with the leg bike. It was surprisingly easy and I am asking them to look into Medicaid buying me one to use all the time. (They do that sometime.) Then I used the standing frame for about twenty minutes then finished the session off with some leg stretches.

That brings us to now, 5:00 p.m. I need to go microwave the rest of my Mexican Food and get out of this room (the smell of cigarettes is making me sick. I don't think this loving arrangement is going to work out).

No comments: