What is the nastiest/filthiest thing or person or event or living space you have encountered?

[krowface]

This was horrible, but not in a derogatory way.. it wasn't her fault. I used to home health care, and would be called in to do basic nursing care on patients. Many of our clients were poor, under-insured, with crappy families and couldn't get the care they needed as often as they needed it. I was sent to do a bed bath & other basic hygiene for an elderly bed-bound patient. When I arrived, the eerily silent house had a mildew, musty, rotting scent to it. It looked and felt empty. The furniture had been cleared out. The indentations still showed in the dirty carpet. There was cheap bric-a-brac, moldy papers, and detritus scattered here and there over the floor and counters. Back in the bedroom, the curtains were closed, and the smell of decay was almost overpowering. I hesitated in the doorway, and in that moment of stillness, I could hear a low, wheezing breath. I announced myself again, and went over to her, and she looked at me and smiled tentatively. It was obvious she hadn't been cared for in days, at least. The sheets were wet, the floor around the bed was wet where the sheets had fallen, her breath was rancid, and her eyes were nearly shut from the goop. And she smiled at me. I had to swallow a few times to blink the tears away, and plaster a smile on my face, and get ready to bathe her. I called adult services while the water was running in the bathroom, because I didn't want to embarrass her. I went back to her, and she asked my name. She told me hers, and asked if I had children. She was utterly and completely lucid, and kept that tentative smile on her face as she tried to overcome the awkwardness of having a stranger come in your home and see you this vulnerable. It broke my heart, but we kept up a cheerful dialogue as I removed the soaked and filthy gown. When I rolled her to her side the smell of rotting flesh was overpowering. There was a layer of feces, urine, blood and bits of the very old diaper stuck to her skin. Keeping my voice cheerful and soothing, I told her I was going to clean her back, and silent tears rolled down her cheeks. It took washcloth after washcloth to gently get the encrusted diaper to peel away from her skin. I was so afraid the skin would tear, it was so fragile. When I peeled it off, my heart sank. She had a hole at the base of her spine the size of a grapefruit. The flesh had died.. she was rotting from the inside out.. it had obviously worked through muscle and possibly into some organ tissue, I couldn't fully irrigate the wound in that environment. A pressure sore from lying on her back too long. Neglect. She kept muttering, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" as if it were her fault. Her family had come and picked through the house, taking jewelery, clothes, furniture, silverware, anything with any potential value, and left a living, breathing, person, with the garbage. That is the nastiest thing I have ever encountered - not her situation, but that there are people in this world who would do that to her.

Comments

[sylphon.livejournal.com]

heartbreaking.

[krowface.livejournal.com]

this is how we treat our past. as refuse. to be forgotten and told "hurry and die".

anyone who is bothered by this story, i ask that they go to their local nursing home and just BE there.

[(Anonymous)]

Unforgivable. I beg for an extra 10 years from my parents so they have more time to enjoy their granddaughter. I sure as hell gonna make sure they are comfortable while they are still here.

[jdredd5150.livejournal.com]

some people shouldn't have kids. some people shouldn't be left in charge of their parents. at times, it's a sad sad world we live in.

[sylphon.livejournal.com]

I've worked in 2 nursing homes and also a home for the mentally disabled.


I just don't get people that can throw away their family so easily. I know sometimes it's that they have no family, but too often it is just abject neglect.

[barrelofrain.livejournal.com]

That's atrocious.