Caley Ridge Assisted Living, Colorado, Elder Abuse, Our Nightmare - The Scream

A scream pierced the quiet halls of Sky Ridge Hospital. 

They were moving her one night.  She still wasn’t stable for surgery.   She screamed - her pain was so great.  It wasn’t her first scream, but I remembered it so clearly.  I stepped out of the room.  I was crying-her pain too much to stand.  I walked down the hall.   The scream penetrated the walls.  The loved one of another patient approached a nurse in the hall.

“Can’t you keep her quiet!?” this woman demanded.  “She is disturbing my . . .”

I looked at the woman incredulously. 

“She has a broken leg and she is in pain,” I quietly said as if I thought she would understand. 

She glared at me and walked away.  I was appalled and I was sad. 

I walked away and down the hall.  I thought about all that she had been through the past few days.  The Caley Ridge Assisted Living driver who took the turn too fast causing her to hang upside down in her seat.  Thinking about his continuing on driving and not helping. 

I thought of her begging for help, her screams going unanswered perhaps responded to just as this woman in the hall at the hospital.  I thought about Caley Ridge not responding to her screams denying her assistance.  I thought about her bouncing around the floor of the van once he moved her to the floor and drove her back to Caley Ridge.  All this with a broken femur.

Her scream that night reminded me of all that she endured because of the neglect of Caley Ridge Assisted Living.  Her scream that night reminded me of all the unheard screams of our elderly .  The response of the woman in the hall at Sky Ridge Hospital is just a reflection of the attitudes of the staff at Caley Ridge.  

Just keep her quiet so no one is disturbed.   Her leg was in great pain.  Her heart was broken.  If screaming helped her endure it, then I am glad she screamed. 

I only wished that the staff at Caley Ridge Assisted Living would have responded to the scream so her suffering would not have been so great.

Caley Ridge Assisted Living, Colorado -Elder Abuse - Our Nightmare Part 8

“Who are you?  Don’t I know you?”

My mother spoke those words to me as I walked into her hospital that Monday night.  My sister had awakened her so she could see me.

She couldn’t figure out who I was that night.  Some may think it is funny.  I didn’t.  I don’t.   She behaved as if she had dementia, but I knew she didn’t.  She recently had a neurological work-up and the doctor reported no signs of dementia.

 That night I was a nun, I was God, and for a brief moment I was me.  She had come around after I had been there some time and asked me when I got there.  I guess you could see humour in all of that.  I just didn’t.

I laughed to release tension - easier than crying. 

She was drugged pretty heavily because of the pain, and she was crashing from heart failure.  There was liquid oozing from her stomach.  Her kidney’s weren’t working.   You could hear her struggling to breathe.  Fluid was building up in her body.

I am not a nurse and have no desire to be one.  I don’t know medical terms or situations.  I only observed and speak what I saw and it wasn’t good.   

I didn’t want to go back to my sister’s that night.  I didn’t know if she would live through the night. 

I felt anger about Caley Ridge’s lack of concern.  I felt angry with the driver for driving too fast.  I felt helpless because I couldn’t make everything okay. 

Betrayal takes many forms.  Caley Ridge Assisted Living betrayed my mother that day.  Some will say perhaps this is God’s will and how everything is supposed to be.  Maybe or maybe not.  I don’t know for sure.  What I do know is that I never want another human being to suffer the same way.