11:24 p.m. - 2020-04-14
The oversized chair
Today at work I was really tested..had to pick up a woman I sometimes have to take to ortho. She lives in an end of the line senior center, the last stop in assisted living. This time both her legs were propped up under a pillow sticking straight out from her wheelchair, and work gave me the smaller van to load her in! Luckily her nurse helped load her, then we were off to the doctors office, which by the address I was given turned out to be dialysis (also the same office my next pick up would be from). My next passenger met us at my van and in broken Spanish asked if she could get in. It took awhile for me to unload my oversized wheelchair, then get her into the building where they told me she was not one of their patients! Quick call back to base and turned out they gave me the wrong address and asked me to take her to this other one..the ortho clinic at the hospital instead. I told them I now how a Mexican lady with a walker in the van who does not speak English and she'll have to wait until I get back.. luckily my dispatcher could speak Spanish and we got her to move.
After getting my oversized wheelchair in, then out again once we reached the hospital a man in a hazmat outfit, along with a receptionist approached us. I gave her the paperwork and she told my old lady "you don't have an appointment today and all the doctors went home early because of Covid", then told me to take her back to her center!
I'm so greatful the women in the chair only weighed about 90lbs, otherwise I don't think I could have loaded and unloaded her as many times as I did today. The poor woman later told me that the nurse in her home got her out of bed early and was being rough and mean to her. She said the nurse was yelling at her to eat her breakfast, then started force feeding her, shoving it into her mouth! I've reported some potential elder abuse from my riders in the past when I saw bruises and behaviors of their caregivers, but didn't report anything this time. When I see her next I'll ask for more info.
After all my pickups and drop offs I had my online lesbian support group on zoom. This meeting was on spirituality and actually it was really pleasant. There was one girl on there that I noticed. She asked me a lot of questions in our short time together and something about her eyes started to draw me in.. Then, then there was this other woman on there who at first glance I thought was the last woman I went out with! When they split us up into groups of three there she was, and with a small dog on her lap that looked identical to T's! On closer inspection I discovered it for sure was not her, but really made me nervous, and brought back some memories I'm trying to repress.
Well, my mocking bird is back so that means I'm going to write out my bedtime prayers. Tonight I decided to also do the ho'oponopono. In the past it really helped me feel at peace around certain people I had issues with, and then noticed they were more at peace to. It's so interesting the research that was done around that Hawaian prayer...
