Where have you been

Dear insansapinas,
A story of friendship part 1-this is my tuesday with morrie experience.

I looked at the old man in the wheelchair. A few months ago, he would greet us with his dashing smile, wearing his favorite butterfly necktie and sports jacket while walking side by side with his wife of more than 50 years. He attended informal meeting with his colleagues in the medical field.



That day, I thought that he would never recognize me. News was that, he became quiet and withdrawn.  When I went to his private room in the facility, he seemed oblivious to the people around him, the nurses, the visitors,  the daughter and son, James Bond.


He looked up at me and said, "Where have you been?" At first, his face registered anger as if he was waiting for me and  that I did not come as promised, then he held my hands and smiled. It melted my heart. His daughter sighed a relief and gestured if I was accepting the offer. James Bond had a poker face. I knew he did not approve of me.



A few months ago that year, the doctor's lawyer-daughter  handed me my last paycheck. Her dad who diagnosed himself with Alzheimer's was already committed to a skilled facility. She, as the executor was going abroad and a CPA was retained to handle the accounting and tax matters. The  caregiving of the old doctor was left to his son and the former housekeeper who would be in charge of the hiring of the 3 shift nursing care aside from the 24 hour available nurses in the facility. Payroll will be done by the accountant on a retainer and paychecks will be directly deposited to the employees' bank account.


If it were JB who would make the decision, I would be out. He favored one former employee.  Masyado raw mataray.


I did not look for another employment since I was busy with the school for nurses that my friends/former MBA students  were putting up. They raised the capitalization while I  will be managing it when it becomes operational. It was my brainchild as a backward integration strategy for recruitment of nurses for the partners'  nursing registry business. The graduates were assured of jobs upon graduation  and the registry will not run out of new applicants.


Then came the call. My future sis-in-law offered me a temporary job of managing the care of his father. The housekeeper got pregnant and she contracted gestational diabetes which required her to stay in the hospital for a long duration.


Should I accept the temporary position, I will be tasked to take care of the hiring, training and supervision of the private duty nurses who alternately watched the doctor on an eight- hour shift each.  I was not a nurse and except for the brief experience in the hospital when I took the short term course for nursing to know how a nursing school is run and to get copies of the syllabi and insructional materials, I was not aware of the  tremendous responsibility when nurses failed to report. 

Part of my tasks was to  liaise with the administrator/nurses of the facilities and report to the family whatever was required and needed to comply with.  If you think, caring for an Alzheimer's who was combative was easy, you should have been there when after a day of hiring, the nurse assistant would simply say, it was her first and last day. Then the search will start all over again. The turnover was high. The ladies were scared of him especially when he refused to be touched.  

I did not know that when I said yes... the working  relationship was the one that I would treasure the most despite the tears, the fears and the anxieties.


It gave me an education that was not evidenced by certificates but the experience was forever etched in my heart and the scars were left in my arms.


Pinaysaamerika