Toward the end of her nursing career, my mother had worked in several assisted living facilities, each one, from the way she described, a cross between a hospice and senior citizen condominium complex. Each facility had slight differences in the way in which they were run; however, they all shared one thing in common: every morning, the nurses would go around and make sure the residents would get dressed even if that resident was planning to remain in his or her own apartment.
She explained to me the reason that the medical staff was so insistent that their charges put on =-79a fresh set of clothes daily was because getting dressed created a sense of normalcy which helped stave off some of the depression that affect a person facing the end-of-life whether they are sick or not since depression can be a significant factor in making a person ill or making an already present illness more severe. This practice always made sense to me, though, until recently, I’ve never fully understood it.
While I don’t feel the need to go into details of what happens to me each day regarding my health, I will say that, since was admitted to Maitri, I have good days and bad days. Frustratingly, the bad days have begun to outnumber the good days. Mornings have been the worst. When I first arrived, I was waking up between 5 and 6 a.m. each morning without an alarm. I would wake up, shower, get dressed, have a cup of coffee and a donut and go to a nearby 7a.m. meeting.
Ever since I was down with the flu about three-weeks ago, I have felt increasingly worse every morning, barely waking up in time for the 8:30a.m. breakfast. After I would eat, I would immediately head back to my room and go back to sleep for as long as my body would allow. From the time the flu hit until only a few days ago, I had not been out of a variety of sleepwear. I would shower, sure, but only to put on a new set of pajamas. I was beginning to feel more depressed and sicker and weaker.
I don’t remember how or why, but a conversation about my mother began with one of the nurses. I was explaining the type of work she used to do and all the things she told me about it. It was then I remembered what she told me about the importance of dressing the residents.
The Maitri staff doesn’t insist that we do anything that we don’t want to. Therefore, I’ve taken it upon myself since that conversation to be fully dressed by lunchtime. I’m still having trouble getting up in the morning as each day reveals a new set of aches and pains, but the depression has been melting away and I don’t feel as sick as I was feeling when I was wearing exclusively loungewear. There have been a few of these past few days when I’m only dress clothes for a few hours before I get ready for bed, but even having those few hours have made a difference.
While it would be nice to still have mom here so she could tell me these things when I forget, it’s comforting to know that everything she taught me, intentionally or unintentionally, is still with me and helping me even though she is gone. And, even though she is gone, I also find it comforting in an amusing way that she was right – again!
