A kick in the ass

Client: “I’m not getting up today. I’m just going to stay right here in my bed.”

Me: “Yeah? Good luck with that. I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”

This is an actual exchange that took place between me and a client. Now, some of you might be thinking “Wow, she’s really rude!” Well... yes, sometimes I am.

It isn’t that I am disrespecting my client. It’s just that some people don’t respond well to cajoling and weakness. They require a bit of a push on some days. In fact, my client calls it me “giving him a kick in the ass.”

And yes, he got up fifteen minutes later, and had a lovely breakfast, and we went for a walk and in general enjoyed the day.

The alternative to my rudeness would have been to just agree to his desire to not get up. He would have stayed in his bed until his back started to hurt and he got really hungry and maybe had a seizure because he skipped his meds.

There usually comes a point in my elderly client’s lives when it is better to just let them stay in bed. Their bodies start to wind down, and the effort to get up or even eat is tantamount to running a marathon. At that point, it becomes cruel to force them to get up; you see it in nursing homes, people slumped in their wheelchairs in the hallways, their heads and bodies at awkward angles, probably in pain, but out of their beds because they are “supposed” to be.

Don’t get me wrong; I have also seen people left in their beds when they needed to be up and about, socializing and still allowed to live their lives. And I don’t completely blame the nursing facilities; they do have a lot of people to care for in a day.

But I am privileged to do homecare, where my one on one relationship with my client allows me to make a considered judgment on what course is best.

Some days, I get my client up and I can tell from his posture and demeanor that yes, he would be better off in bed. He is, after all, ninety two years old, and sleep is practically a hobby. On those days, I escort him back to his bed and tuck his blankets in exactly the way he likes them and I let him sleep.

But not that particular day. That day he still had some living to do, and I am there to remind him of that fact and to help him do it. Even if it requires a kick in the ass.