"I've lived here all my life"

[Emergent, RN]

So, I've done four agency shifts in the local nursing home. I was on a different wing my last shift, and I struck up a conversation with one of the residents, a woman in her early sixties who is wheelchair bound. I asked her how long she has lived there. She said "Oh, all my life."

She said that she has cerebral palsy, and she was adopted as an infant by some local farmers. This is a fairly rural area and back in the 1960s it was even more so. I guess the local nursing home took in infants back then.

She told me "I'm pretty with it", referring to her cognitive ability. She must have picked up that term living there. She seemed quite cheerful and well adjusted. I know back in those days institutionalization of disabled babies and children was more the norm. Times have changed.

[DavidFR, BSN, MSN, RN]

Sad story.

Before nursing school I was a nursing assistant in a psychiatric hospital in the early 1980s in the UK. "Care in the community" was only just being talked about and there were still big psychiatric hospitals like the one I worked in, out of town in a rural setting - the old "lunatic asylums" - horrible term but we spoke like that back in those days. 

The acute wards were psychiatry as we know it today and thankfully that's where I was placed. However I was horrified when I did some overtime shifts on the long stay wards. These horribly grim places had been "home" to some people for all their adult lives and often put there in the 20s, 30s and 40s for the most unbelievable reasons like being deaf, homosexual, falling pregnant while unmarried or just having been disruptive at school. Unbelievable cruelty. And having been "sane" went they went in all those years in such an institution had certainly taken its toll.

These old hospitals have largely been closed. Funny thing was, years later I was  back in my home town and bumped into an old school friend. He invited me to his house for a meal and lo and behold, he lived in a new housing complex on the site of my old hospital, long since demolished. Felt kinda weird!

So glad we've moved on and no longer just lock people up.

[HiddenAngels]

Wow, I can't imagine. What type of nursing home is she in.  Do they get to go out on supervised excursions like movies or shopping?

[Emergent, RN]

HiddenAngels said:

Wow, I can't imagine. What type of nursing home is she in.  Do they get to go out on supervised excursions like movies or shopping?

It's just a regular nursing home. This woman has lived her whole life in this small town, and in the 1960s it must have been more of a general care home that also took in disabled children. Since I've lived here it's changed hands from being a private entity, to being part of a nursing home chain, and it was recently sold off to a different out of state, for profit chain.

Back in the 60s, and before, it was much more common for disabled children to not be raised in the home, but to be institutionalized. I remember as a child that started changing. My mother was a special education teacher and I heard a lot of things from her. Also, I remember her commenting happily that a brother of a girl in my campfire girl group was being raised by his parents in the home. He had down syndrome. It was a newer concept at the time. Prior to that, at least in the 20th century, many disabled children were raised in institutions.

[HiddenAngels]

I'm glad times have changed since then.  The one good thing mentioned is that you said she seemed cheerful and well adjusted, she even said "I'm pretty with it" (smile).  The tone of her statement demonstrates a sense of confidence and autonomy.

Since she's been there all her life, every time a new person enters that nursing home, it's most likely a chance for her to understand and explore someone else's culture.  

Sometimes from the outside looking in we see things as unfair and devastating (her not being able to explore other towns and other parts of the world, meet new and different people, other cultures) when in actuality since it's all she knows, it may not be that bad.  She's made it to 60 something and "she's pretty with it".  I bet if you sat down with her (if you had the time as a nurse) she could tell you some stories.  She probably wanted to swap stories anyhow.  It can be surprising what a simple conversation can mean to someone, and what effect and impact it could have on both of your lives.  

[want to be an rn]

Poor women, I'm glad that she is happy and that children today don't have to go through what she did. Also, back in the 60s, it was much less common for people to keep their children. Today, there are so many services that make holding a child who is challenged at home so much easier 

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

We have a local nursing home that has an entire wing of peds pts that are either vent dependent or require a lot of care. Many are wards of the state. Many have lived there since birth

[want to be an rn]

there are no childrens homes for them

[HiddenAngels]

Because of the high acuity of care the homes would most likely have to be staffed with licensed professionals 24hr and that may be why they are there until they can become downgraded from the vents.