"I Can Laugh for Nothing!"

I'm not entirely sure how I fell into this job. I spent most of my college life working for spending money as a nanny for wealthy professors and doctor's wives. But suddenly I found myself on a year off from college, broke, and my third nanny posting in as many months had decided that they would no longer require my services, as they would "like to spend more time with our child."

So, I began scanning Craigslist for positions. Because Portland, OR is a city full of
twenty-somethings with bachelor's degrees and students earning said degrees, all the "cool" jobs were taken. I had given up hope and was half-heartedly clicking through postings and trying to decide how best to ask my mother (once again) to help me with my rent, when I came across the ad from Russell House. "Caregivers wanted for Alzheimer's care facility. No CNA required. Please apply in person."

And I thought, "Sure, I could do that."

On my first day working in the Alzheimer’s care unit, Peter Warren leapt serenely from his third floor window, and died as he hit the concrete of the employee smoking area. Blood mixed with ash and bits of tobacco as we looked down from the third floor, stunned. I’ve never been a person to set much stock in superstitions or signs of any kind. But some things are hard to escape. For some reason, this event occurring within four hours of starting my new job did not bode well.

I was prepared for fallout. I was prepared for confusion and horror and trauma. I was not prepared to turn around and see a woman in a purple sweatsuit, with wild grey hair and bulging eyes gleefully singing “Froggy Went A’Courtin’”, dancing mechanically and pounding out a staccato rhythm on the wall.

Every moment at Russell House is brand new. People who have lived under the same roof for years meet for the first time every day. Even something as tragic as Warren’s suicide failed to register. Everyone worried about how Peter Warren’s roomate, Jim, would react to his death. We told him that Peter was no longer with us, and he answered, “So, I don’t have a roommate now? Good. I like having my own room.” And he smiled and put a bluegrass CD on the small stereo by the window, closing his eyes, enjoying the music.

*** *** ***

What happens when we begin to lose our minds? Is there some essential part of ourselves that is revealed? or do we lose the things that make us who we are? I have a hard time couching the process of Alzheimer’s in such simplistic terms. In order to know exactly how the disease is effecting these people, I would like to get a time machine and go back to meet them when they were whole.

In their rooms, young versions of them stare out eerily from behind the glass of picture frames. It’s strange to see them as they were. Now prim women are replaced with wild hair and sweat suits stained with applesauce. Handsome gentlemen pile on four suit jackets, and their pants bulge with the volume of their adult diapers.

But it’s not all sackcloth and ashes. This place is not death’s reception area, as much as you have to be aware from day to day of these people’s mortality. No. This place is fun. For a population of people who are losing their minds, who’ve lost much of their families, who’ve lived long lives and are now sick and confused, Russell House is surprisingly full of life.

I want to use this blog in order to relate my experiences working with people suffering from Alzheimer's, as well as to spread information about the disease. Because these people have become another family to me. And they have changed my life