Keys of Authority and Escape

When I was in nursing school, we did our Psychiatric Nurse’s Training at Stockton State Mental Hospital. For six weeks, 15 of us lived in the attic above the acute women’s ward and had keys to let us in and out of the various doors of the wards on which we made direct contact with patients.

The first two week, we wore our uniforms. Ours was the last class to be required to don a front-buttoned, blue dress to which we attached starched cuffs, a starched collar, a starched bib, and a starched pinafore-like apron. We also had to wear starched white hats, white support hose and white shoes. (Does anyone remember when nurses wore hats that denoted which nursing school they attended?)

The second two weeks, we wore lab coats over our ‘civilian clothes’ which were dresses or skirt and top sets with nylons and sturdy shoes.

The third set of weeks saw us only in our regular clothes. The one distinguishing factor between us and the patients was that we held the keys, safety-pinned to an inside pocket so we wouldn’t drop them or leave them somewhere.

At first, I remember feeling safe in my uniform because it was my identity. Its stiffness had defined me while I worked the wards at St. Luke’s Hospital’s School of Nursing. It gave me authority. I also remember being treated like a child, even tho I knew I was a grown woman of 20 years of age. (Oh, how naïve I was) In the lab coat, I retained some identity as a student nurse and when that was gone, I realized I was not so different from the patients there. In fact, many had a firmer grip than I did on the reality of life. I look back now and realize I lived in a fantasy or illusion of ego-centricity. The stories I heard of circumstances and life experiences from both men and women broke my heart or terrorized me. I was so gullible; I even released a social-path one day thinking he really needed a pack of cigarettes and would return.

I’ve been checking on my mother monthly or as often as I can for the last 7-8 years, watching as she falls slowly and more deeply into dementia. She will be 99 in March and wants to die but is too healthy to make it out on her own. As I’ve said, before, our current system of medical care for the elderly supports life, actually, force-feeds it.

Visiting her means visiting the entire unit. Because staff encourages patient social interaction, eating together is a big thing. So, I’ve joined her in her dining room with a variety of patients; some with cancer or stroke, others with Alzheimer’s, hip replacements, other aging issues. I used to sit at the corner of the table. More recently, now, when I arrive for a visit, the kitchen staff sets a place for me and a bib is provided. I have learned these full-chested towels are handy items. I have also realized that I am now past the stance of being removed from “these people” to being one of them. Some can remember to ask me specific questions about my family and my trip from home and the traffic. Others chat with me about the trips they have taken long ago but they seem to think they took them last week. They speak about their family only to be confused about the fact that sisters and brothers and husbands or wives and children are gone.

I have crossed this other line into their world. I used to be frightened by it, holding myself back and onto my sanity, I guess. “OH, No! I’m not aging or forgetful or infirmed, not me!” And yet I am getting older, and I do forget things, and I don’t bounce in and out of the chair as I used to. Putting on that bib now is like I’m trying on a new role, a different existence. I can’t say I look forward to their kind of an ending. I would prefer a different last chapter. What it has done is give me another view of the world of aging, like an inside seat and has made aging very real to me.

Because many of the patients have come and gone during her six-year stay, I also keep bumping against the reality of death: the observance of the space one holds for a time in a scene, and then how that space fills in when the place holder is there no longer.

One thing I am currently very grateful for is that I can walk out the facility doors and use my keys to drive away.