Goodbye Freedom

The minute you step through the doorway of "your" room you've lost all calls on freedom.  I say your in quotes because all three of the rooms I occupied - you can't call it "living" - had three patients per room.  Not a lot of privacy - if any - to be had.

Remember that you are at their mercy.  They can withhold food, pain medication or, God forbid, a dry diaper and all sense of privacy.  It is normal for a member of the opposite sex to "bathe" the other.

Said "baths" consist of one of the roughest all over scrub downs you will ever encounter.  They apply a lot of pressure in sensitive areas (read: genitals)  And intrusive.  I was reminded of a sex practice of gay males called "fisting" and called them out on it to no appreciable positive affect.

Nursing staff revels in fright - the nurses flip you around on the sheet you are lying on (Kevlar?) and as for privacy normal routine is to approach a patient and the nurse will then bellow, "Dry pants?"  and the hapless patient can only respond, not dive under the bed.  

You can't escape by cutting and running since the beds all have alarms that go off if you so much as remove a toe from said bed.  Your bed is resting on scales and the slightest removal of weight sets off horrendous noises.  

Speaking of noises, my corridor and closer still, my room also held an elderly woman who spent most of a night moaning most plaintively, "Hep me!  Nurse!" over and over and over.  That corridor was quite willing to "hep" her.  Right into a hearse!  If a bed can be wired to an alarm ...