h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In Which Lil Throws a Fit

This past Friday night / Saturday morning of the day I was to have my MRI, our well-known co-resident, E the hospice patient, was feeling more uncooperative than usual. After midnight the aides would go in and ask her to turn her television down. She would turn it down. Then, only a few minutes later, she would turn it back up to its previous level. This kept happening. Several times I hit my call button, and on one of those occasions the charge nurse came back to talk about it. I like Alia; originally from Afghanistan, she is content to work graveyard shift on weekends, in addition to working North Hall during the week. She was completely sympathetic to the problem and quite exasperated with E.

E didn't care. Never mind the aides' time being wasted. Never mind whether anyone was being kept awake.

Finally, both aides came in together (each usually has one side of the hall), to apologize. This was at about 1:15 a.m. "We asked her again," they said, "And this time she just said no. She said she's listening to it and--" They got no further with the story. Their eyes went very round with surprise, like a person discovering a new law of physics by dropping a frozen turkey into a vat of hot oil. You could liken my physical reaction to that vat of hot oil.

I cupped both hands around my mouth and shouted, nay, hollered at the top of my lungs. "I'M LISTENING TO YOUR DAMN TELEVISION TOO, E___!!!!" A little-girl voice from across the hall could be heard saying, "Whaaaat?" So I hollered some more. "WILL YOU PLEASE TURN YOUR TELEVISION DOWN!!!!!!!" I wish I could print the word 'down' in red bold 36 point gothic, because that is the sort of emphasis I gave it.

Several things happened next:
The volume of E's teevee went down.
Interestingly, both aides turned and fled the room. If Pamela is on tonight I'm going to ask why. I used to teach riding and can still give most Drill Instructors a run for their money, so perhaps my hollering hurt their ears. I will let you know what I find out.
I apologized to Gretchen, who laughed and showed a full awareness of the situation. "Ya had ta do it," she said, laughing.
Louise in the next room hit her call button and asked to know what was going on.

And I felt ~great~. Not one iota of remorse did I feel. In fact, now I know I have an inner berserker, and I am all for self-knowledge. But I am not going to thank E for acquainting me with this facet of my personality. I'll just wait till tonight and see whether I need to set the flying monkeys loose again.

Good for you!

I hope E takes it more to heart than my mother-in-law did when I went ballistic on her a few years back.

Yes, me.

Yes, any one witnessing would've certainly considered it to be a definite display of anger and frustration.

No, I didn't feel particularly bad (well, except the sore throat and ears--I was loud enough to hurt my own ears) or guilty about it.

No, it didn't do a bit of good. Might as well have never happened

Yah. I just booted up (2:30 a.m. my time) because E turned her telly on 15 minutes ago. She was awakened because the aide chose that time to "take her vitals." And this aide, not the brightest crayon in the box, has a talking BP meter. I could hear the meter from here.She got the meter from Avon, honest to Bob. It says, in snotty female tones, "Please remain still and do not move." Well, duh! And when the reading is complete it says, "Your blood pressure IS..." number over number. And finally (in case you weren't completely disturbed), it says, "According to the World Health Organization, your blood pressure IS... normal." Why would any health professional use a cuff at this hour of the night that is guaranteed to disturb the patient?

So, being awakened, what does E do? She turns on her television. She's watching a western. Horses are neighing.

Well, I'm not going to scream again. I am sane. I see that it didn't work last time.

How do you manage not to write letters of complaint to the management every single day?

I would like to learn more about management, but I don't know who to ask. The administrator is actually responsible for two facilities, and so us proles don't see much of him.

Inner berserk? Any Scandinavians in the ancestry tree?

I've gone completely berserk a few times myself (Kristina the Flamenco Dancer), which always seems to surprise people who are accustomed to me being a rather calm and somewhat timid person.

It is possible that E may discover that she can hear her tv better if she uses headphones.
I have hearing problems and have discovered, while being considerate of my neighbors, that wearing headphones to watch tv benefits me as well as my neighbors!



Maybe everyone can chip in to buy her some of those cordless ones

I have been to visit her and brought my own headphones for her to try and she really likes them... but alas, there is no headphone output jack on her television. Also, seeing as all of us in this hall get $67 a month, passing the hat would get her enough for a bag of popcorn.

I'll echo that good for you. If it did nothing else, it alleviated some of the stress for you and that's got to be good. And I bet you get admiring glances now

Deb

I can't tell whether they're admiring or fearful.

You'll soon tell Lil. If those aides come to you next wearing flak vests and tin hats you'll know.

A temporary solution was deployed last night; I was allowed to have our room door closed. We got both dark and quiet. Bliss!

Being susceptible to suggestion, I went off to Amazon and purchased the mp3 of the Tallis Scholars double disc, and played side 2 (starts with the Lamentations of Jeremiah) right through at a good volume.

I'm dizzy from the beauty, quite frankly, and what's more, the television has been turned off in the room across the hall.

Tallis power!!!