The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83¼ Years Old

by Hendrik Groen

  Thursday, 9 May

  A great comfort to know: once you get here, here is where you’ll remain until your final departure for the churchyard or crematorium.

  The papers were full of it again: the cost of elderly care is going through the roof. The solution is twofold: first, the bar to what constitutes disability is to be raised; and, second, the personal contribution the elderly must pay will be jacked up considerably.

  Item 1: According to these new measures, quite a few of the residents shouldn’t be here at all. They are far too spry and independent. There was a rumour going round that people in that category would be kicked out to make room for more serious cases. It created quite a stir, and in some quarters resulted in an acute exacerbation of existing ailments. Just as a precaution.

  But we can all breathe easy now: management has assured residents in writing that they’ll never have to leave, no matter how healthy. ‘Unforeseen circumstances excepted.’

  It’s a shame they had to add that proviso.

  Item 2: I have gathered, from hushed conversations over coffee, that some residents who hadn’t emptied their bank accounts already, have now done so, hiding their nest egg under the mattress or in an old sock. ‘Elderly care should be free, we’ve worked hard for it all our lives,’ is the prevailing opinion. The two euros for the minibus is already highway robbery.

  A couple of sorry cases confessed in a whisper that their children had already withdrawn everything from their bank accounts without asking, ‘for safe-keeping’. Safe-keeping the inheritance, they mean.

  ‘Every day you’re still alive costs me oodles of money,’ Mrs Schipper’s son teased her. He was just joking. His wife, who has no sense of humour, sat there nodding agreement.

  Friday, 10 May

  There’s an initiative called ‘An Outing with Grandma’. Children are rounded up to spend a day with some poor granny, no relation, who otherwise is sitting home all alone. I gather it could also be a grandpa. A group of secondary-school children took some of our residents to visit the revamped Madurodam miniature park. At the risk of being accused of being a peevish old curmudgeon, I’d much rather stay at home. Visiting Madurodam wouldn’t be a barrel of fun under any circumstance, but in the company of eleven- or twelve-year-old know-it-alls I’ve never seen before in my life, it could be a blistering bore.

  Stop being so negative, Groen, it’s a lovely idea. Especially if you remember that the children of today seem to think you don’t have to bother with old people because social services will take care of them. Many adults think the same.

  The newspaper that took the trouble of devoting a column to ‘An Outing with Grandma’ further reported some disconcerting statistics from the Economic Policy Bureau: the Netherlands has some million and a half solitary old people, of whom over 300,000 are extremely lonely. That’s a lot.

  But it should be said that some old people do it to themselves. In this house alone there are dozens who are to be avoided like the plague because they are boring, bigoted bellyachers. Forgive me for stating the truth, but that’s just the way it is.

  Frequently overheard: ‘At least in here there’s someone to talk to.’ That is indeed the great advantage of this place as opposed to living alone, where only the cat or canary can be relied upon to discuss the weather.

  I wonder how many of the residents in here suffer from ‘extreme’ loneliness?

  Saturday, 11 May

  Reading about cute American five-year-olds who on their birthdays are presented with their first pink gun, ‘My First Rifle’, complete with real bullets, made me wonder if in American nursing homes the oldies walk around packing loaded ‘My Last Rifle’s. With all the Parkinson’s about, that would lead to quite a few accidents. I haven’t heard of any such mass shootings, but I can’t imagine there aren’t at least some instances of old geezers shot point-blank by fellow residents protecting their God-given property – a piece of cake, for instance.

  One advantage to being surrounded by all those weapons is that you won’t have to jump through hoops to obtain that elusive euthanasia pill. As long as you can still move one trigger finger, the solution is waiting for you in a holster.

  As in every other year, we never seem to run out of things to say about the wonders of spring – nature running riot. ‘You can just see it growing,’ you’ll hear at least three times a day. Then Evert will say facetiously, ‘I can just hear it growing.’ Occasionally someone will actually try to listen. Sometimes – rarely – they’ll say they can hear it too.

  I walk to the park twice a day. With Eefje one time, the next time with Graeme, Edward or Evert. Eight minutes getting there, fifteen minutes on a bench, eight minutes home. There’s no haste, and spring is never boring. Sometimes I’ll slosh there in the pouring rain. ‘What’s that old git think he’s doing?’ I overheard some gangly teenagers, sheltering in a doorway, thinking out loud just a bit too loudly. I was amused; they just didn’t get it.

  Sunday, 12 May

  Although the nursing wing is separate from ours, you do sometimes come across a dementia case in the corridors, accompanied by a nurse or male attendant. Some residents will scoot back inside their rooms, because they think dementia is catching. Or maybe it’s not, but you never know. Keeping out of the way can’t hurt in any case, is the basic attitude. And that goes not only for dementia. Cancer patients, homosexuals, Muslims: they’re all best avoided. The older they are, the more scared they are. At our age, surely, there’s nothing left to lose, so why not be fearless?

  It’s the little things that get you. Or rather, that you don’t get. A daily annoyance: packaging. Cans with tabs you can’t wedge your finger under, vacuum-sealed ‘lift up here’ corners too small to pull, childproof cleaning products, apple-sauce lids impossible to twist open, Prosecco corks, blister packs: they’re all specially designed to make it as difficult as possible for feeble, trembling old hands to manage.

  Today a jar of pickles slipped from my grasp as I was trying in vain to get the lid off. My entire room stank of pickles. Glass everywhere; I found the last piece in my carpet slipper.

  Someone ought to bring a class-action lawsuit against the packaging industry for physical damage and mental distress. They have to be doing it on purpose. If they can send people to the moon, surely they ought to be able to come up with an easy twist-off lid? All right, I’ll admit it, I’m a bit of an old moaner today.

  Monday, 13 May

  Evert was rushed to the Emergency Room this morning. He rang me from the hospital: could I look after Mo? Two of his toes had turned black a couple of days ago. When he went to the surgery this morning, the GP immediately called for an ambulance.

  What he was afraid of has come to pass: he is following in the footsteps of that old mate of his, who kept having to have bits amputated.

  He rang me from his bed.

  ‘Why didn’t you say something?’ I couldn’t help asking.

  ‘I’d only have been bombarded with unsolicited advice, which I’d have ignored anyway.’

  He had a point.

  He is to be operated on tomorrow morning, and if everything goes well, he’ll wake with only a couple of toes missing.

  After we’d hung up I took a taxi to the hospital to bring him some necessities: underwear, pyjamas, toothbrush.

  He was trying to cheer me up, while it should have been the other way round. It only occurred to me afterwards, and I felt ashamed.

  Evert takes things as they come. He weighed the risks beforehand, accepted them, and went on living his life as if he didn’t have diabetes. With gusto and bravado. That was still his attitude, lying there in his hospital bed.

  When I returned home I informed the members of our club and the staff. The nurses and attendants were remarkably sympathetic. Most of them do have a soft spot for him after all. Although there’s probably at least one who silently wishes even more amputations on him, preferably his head.

  Two of our fellow residents couldn’t resist remarking, triumphan
tly almost, that they’d warned him, hadn’t they?

  What a rotten day.

  Tuesday, 14 May

  I have just spoken to Evert. He came to from the anaesthesia an hour ago. He was operated on early this morning, and they amputated three toes on his right foot, including the big toe. It will be hard for him to walk, especially at first. He’s looking at six weeks’ convalescence. He sounded knackered.

  I’ll draw up a visiting schedule for those who want to see him.

  Now I must go and fill in our club members and some of the staff.

  Wednesday, 15 May

  I visited Evert in hospital this morning. He already has his usual swagger back. He’d asked the nurse if he could take the sawn-off toes home, to display them in a jar on the dresser. The nurse had gaped at him at first. ‘I believe your toes have already been disposed of,’ she had said a bit nervously.

  Evert: ‘But they still belong to me, surely! I might just lodge a complaint … Don’t worry, love, just kidding!’

  They’ve put him in a ward with two other old men. One of them hacks and coughs constantly, and when he’s not spluttering, does nothing but carp and complain. That’s according to Evert, anyway, who didn’t look too good himself, pale and drawn, although well enough to wink broadly at every nurse he sees.

  ‘Just ten days or so, and I’ll be strutting about like a peewit behind my Zimmer frame,’ he assured me.

  I had to solemnly swear that we wouldn’t put off our excursions for his sake. He did suggest limiting the next ones to stuffy museum visits, saving the fun ones for later. I promised to propose it at the next meeting.

  Evert couldn’t say how well the operation had gone. The surgeon should have stopped by yesterday afternoon, but had been called away on an emergency. There was no one to take his place, and the nurses knew nothing, or pretended to know nothing. The doctor might come by this afternoon.

  Patients don’t matter very much in hospitals. It’s all about the doctors.

  A minor trauma avoided: Anouk has made it into the Eurovision Song Contest finals, thank God. Around here people would have preferred an old-timer like Ronnie Tober to sing for the Netherlands, but fine, whatever they think is best for our country … The general opinion here is that all those corrupt Eastern-bloc countries have turned the Netherlands into a Eurovision dwarf, wherefore the Iron Curtain ought to be drawn shut again as soon as possible. ‘And don’t forget to kick all those worthless Romanian accordion players back behind that curtain where they belong!’ – thus the ever-diplomatic Mr Bakker.

  Thursday, 16 May

  ‘It costs five hundred and fifty euros a day for me to be in here, and for those few lousy cents I have to eat a breakfast of dry toast at seven in the morning, am given three cups of dishwater coffee a day, the food is cold and the bread tasteless. A five-star tab for a no-star hotel. Well, OK, and a nurse who takes my temperature twice a day.’ Evert Duiker was already full of bluster as he ate an entire box of sugar-free Jamaican-rum chocolates. The hospital won’t let him have any alcohol, so he hoped to get some into his system that way. He had rung me specially to buy him some. Cherry-liqueur chocolates were another option.

  ‘And a bottle of mineral water. By Bols, if you get my drift.’

  The surgeon had popped in a day and a half after the operation to report it had been a success.

  ‘What do you mean, a success?’ asked Evert.

  ‘The infected toes have been amputated.’

  ‘I don’t consider that such a great success.’

  ‘Doing nothing wasn’t an option,’ the doctor said unperturbed, and made as if to go.

  ‘What next?’

  ‘If there are no complications you’ll be allowed to go home in four days. You do have to make an appointment for a follow-up and for physical therapy. Goodbye.’ And he was gone. Hadn’t even bothered to take off the bandage.

  My diary has for the time being become more of a journal about Evert.

  Friday, 17 May

  Last night there was an impromptu meeting of the Old But Not Dead Club. Principal item on the agenda: Evert’s condition. We decided to give him a warm welcome home, probably next Monday or Tuesday. The next excursion will be wheelchair-friendly, according to Edward. This will be the last outing of the first go-round. The enthusiasm is as high as ever, and we are to embark on the second round following the same sequence. At the end of the meeting we raised our glasses to that, and to Evert’s health, and may possibly have overdone it a bit on the drink.

  Returning to my room I tripped on the doormat and fell flat on my face over the threshold. I was lucky: the white wine had made me as supple as a garden hose, and I got up again unscathed. However, this morning I did discover a bump on my head. I’ve thrown out the doormat and will need a day to recover.

  Falls are uncommonly common in here. Sometimes people fall by tripping over a rug, as I did, but often they’ll just keel over for no good reason. Or they’ll sit down and miss the chair. Mrs Been, getting up from her chair, grabbed the tea trolley for support. Someone had failed to lock the wheels. The trolley tipped over with a great crash. Down went Mrs Been in a cascade of biscuits, sugar cubes and creamers. Luckily the Thermoses were tightly closed. A brief silence, and then Mrs Been, on the floor, began laughing hysterically. Everyone joined in the laughter to be polite, until Mrs Been’s laughter turned to wailing. It was at that point that someone went to fetch the nurse. I wasn’t there but it must have been quite a surreal scene.

  Saturday, 18 May

  My temporary dog-walking job means I now have to take a stroll three times a day. Fortunately Mo walks even more slowly than I do. Actually, it’s more of a slow-mo waddle. It would be hard for him to get lost on his saunter round the house, so I could just let him go by himself, but for Mo it’s more about the company. If he weren’t so old and lazy, he’d jump up on me and wag his tail whenever I come in, no doubt about it. As it is, he slowly hauls himself out of his basket, groaning, gives me a few languid welcome licks and then goes and stands by the door.

  When Evert takes him out, he sometimes shouts for Mo by his full name. Not that that’s necessary, since Mo is never more than a couple of metres away. It’s only when he spies some Moroccans in the vicinity, or people who look like they might be, that he’ll yell, ‘Come, Mohammed!’ – in the hope that one of those Moroccans answers to the same name, which is not unlikely. Once Evert’s created enough confusion, he’ll make an apologetic gesture, point at the dog, nod politely, and continue on his way.

  It does embarrass me, though, to have to scoop up Mo’s turds and drop them into a plastic bag. I keep my head down, because I know I’m being spied on from behind many curtains. By the way, I read that someone suggested using DNA testing to trace any unclaimed faeces back to the dog, so that its master could be fined. Whether dogs would be required to submit to a cheek swab, or could do so on a voluntary basis, it did not say.

  Sunday, 19 May

  This morning I took Mr Dickhout’s mobility scooter for a test drive (he of the April Fool’s joke). He had already offered to let me try it out several times, but I’d said no out of politeness and reserve. I was on my way to go out for a walk when he came riding into the lobby.

  ‘Care to give it a try, Hendrik?’

  The insurance regulations say you’re not allowed to let anyone else drive your scooter, and officially any new mobility-scooter rider is supposed to have three driving lessons before he can drive off by himself, but Dickhout doesn’t like rules and isn’t fussed about such details. He just spent five minutes giving me a few pointers, told me to have fun, and went to have a coffee.

  Taking a deep breath, off I went, ever so cautiously. I ended up cruising round for a good half hour, taking bicycle paths and cutting through public gardens. It was early in the morning, Whitsun, so there was hardly anyone about. I kept it in ‘snail’ gear at first, which barely lets you overtake a pedestrian, but a few minutes later, throwing caution to the wind, I switched to ‘hare�
�. The manufacturer assumes all old people are senile, so a little picture of a snail and a hare is easier for them to understand than, say, gears ‘1’ and ‘2’. The manufacturer may even be right.

  I must admit, however, it rides wonderfully. It makes almost no noise, you sit there like a king, you don’t get tired and your legs don’t hurt. I am sold! My only complaint: it gave me cramp in my right hand, because you have to keep squeezing the throttle. So, Mr Manufacturer: please consider adding cruise control.

  I was a tad too confident as I drove into the lobby and just bumped the porter, who was rolling the linen trolley out of the lift. Nothing serious, but the turning radius is wider than I thought. Luckily I don’t like the porter anyway.

  The Capri Pro 3 mobility scooter only costs €399. But I’m in the market for something a little more robust. I’ll have to pay for it myself, since I’m still able to walk.

  Monday, 20 May

  A dementia patient yesterday stuck a billiard ball in his mouth; it couldn’t be dislodged by any means. He sat there pitifully emitting high-pitched squeaks as two male nurses tried to pry the ball out with a spoon. After a fruitless fifteen-minute struggle, he was carted off to the Emergency Room. It wasn’t as big as an official tournament ball, but when I briefly held one up to my mouth, it did strike me as a very large item to swallow. Quite alarming.

  Mr Kloek was furious because he had to finish his game with only two balls.