by Pepper Pace
“Come in.” A middle aged man stood and offered her his hand. He was tall, silver haired and had a smile like a television evangelist.
“I’m Ben Kennedy; one of the managers here. And you are Robin Mathena? How old are you?”
Robin nodded, taking his hand. “Oh, I’m twenty-one. Robin was aware that her round face and relatively short stature made her look a lot younger.
Ben spent a few minutes asking her about previous experience, criminal history, her available hours and then had her put in a brief application and disclosure form. He seemed rushed but nice and less than half an hour later she was back in her car. It was just that simple. One minute she was talking to him on the phone, the next she had her application on file waiting for her first assignment. She guessed that she was now an employee of Pinnacle Healthcare Providers.
She drove home confused but excited.
At work that night her cell phone began to ring. She asked one of the women to cover for her while she snuck away to the bathroom to listen to the message.
“Hello, Robin this is Ben at Pinnacle Healthcare Providers. Call me back tonight if you can fill in for someone. I know this is sooner then you had expected and we would normally train you with a coach to walk you through your first time. Unfortunately someone just quit on me and we have a client that needs someone to administer meds, and to do some monitoring. She is a female patient, seventy-eight. Call me back to let me know yes or no.”
She called back. “Hello, Ben. This is Robin, I got your message. But, well, I’m at work right now and I close so I won’t be done until late-”
“Not a problem. Can you get here by one am?”
“Well yeah-”
“I can get the girl on duty now to stay over by a few hours if you can relieve her by one. Plus she will stay long enough to instruct you on what to do.”
“At one-?”
“It will only be for four hours. Your replacement will arrive at five. And it pays you seventy-five dollars. For four hours, that’s pretty good money.”
“Okay.” Robin said. “I’ll be there.”
“Do you have something to write with? Just go directly to this address.” He gave her an address and she keyed it into her phone. “Don’t let me down, Robin.”
“I won’t, Sir.”
“Once you get there, call me to check in.”
“Ok.”
Robin hung up the phone, a nervous wreck. Was she ready for something like this?
After work she needed to rush home in order to change out of her work clothes and to do a mapquest search of the address that Ben had given her. It was in a part of town that she wasn’t familiar with. As she drove through the quiet streets and into Indian Village; an upscale community in Cincinnati, she wondered how she had gotten here in such a short amount of time. But the seventy-five dollars would do her good, that was for sure!
It was five til one when she hurried up the stairs of the nice townhome and rang the doorbell. Immediately a young Hispanic woman, not much older than herself, yanked open the door.
“God, man! Why’d you ring the bell? Do you want to wake her up?”
Robin’s face felt hot. “Oh, sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
The girl smiled suddenly. “No problem. Come on in.”
The house was really nice, even if it was decorated in florals and there was plastic on the two sofas.
“Look, I need to get going, so let me show you the ropes.” She led her into the kitchen and opened a cabinet. “Be sure to put the medicine back in the exact same spot, okay?”
“Okay.”
“She takes fourteen pills a day.” The woman picked up three bottles. “She needs two of these every four hours. Wake her up at three to give them to her.” The woman picked up another bottle. “She needs one of these with a glass of orange juice. The orange juice has her other medicine in it so only give her half a glass. Give her the insulin injection then-”
“Insulin injection?! I’ve never given anyone an injection!”
The woman gave her a long look. “Are you squeamish?”
“Not really, but-”
“It’s easy.” The woman moved to the fridge. “It’s already pre-measured. Just pinch her flesh and stick. First swab with an alcohol pad which is on her side table, and then toss the needle in the dispenser in the bathroom. Easy, ok?”
“Um…no. Not okay.” Robin’s hand felt sweaty, and her stomach began to twist into knots. She didn’t want to give anyone a shot!
The woman chuckled. “Millions of people give themselves insulin shots each day. If they can do it to themselves then you can do it to someone else. Now, I need to go so if you’re going to write any of this down then you best do it. I still need to show you her breathing monitor.”
The woman headed down the hall and reluctantly Robin followed. The bedroom door was closed and when they entered the dimly lit bedroom, Robin could hear the steady beeping of a machine and the slight swooshing sound that came at regular intervals. The room was cooler than the rest of the house. She saw the bed and a lump of blanket that must have contained a human being though Robin couldn’t see anyone.
Quickly, the woman ran through the purpose of the machinery, how to reset it, what to do if the red light went off, and last, how to put medicine into the breathing apparatus.
“And that’s it.” Robin was silently repeating the information as she jotted it down on paper. “You’ll be okay. Call Pinnacle if you have any problems, okay? Someone is always there, morning noon and night.”
Robin sighed. “Okay.”
“I gotta go. I have kids and I need to pick them up from my Mom’s so that I can get some sleep before its time to get them up for school.”
It was one thirty and Robin suddenly thought about something other than her own confusion. “You go on ahead. I’ll be okay.”
The woman pulled out her cell phone. “Ben. Yeah. I got her trained and I’m heading out now. Yeah she got here at one.” Oops, forgot to call. “I’ll tell her.” The woman turned to her as she gathered her things. “Ben’s going to need you to work until seven but he’ll give you one hundred twenty-five. Write down in the log when you give her medicine and check the log for the schedule.”
“What log?” Robin was scratching her head and thinking about the extra hours that had been dropped into her lap and now something about a log. She followed the girl nervously to the door.
“I didn’t tell you about the log? Shit, I’m sorry, it’s on the fridge. Initial what you do. I gotta go. Everything will be good. You take care, Chica.” Then the nameless woman disappeared.
Robin closed and locked the door. She turned slowly into the room. It was just one day ago that she’d even heard of this job and here she was looking after a senior citizen that needed a boatload of care.
She knew that she’d been suckered but it still needed to be done. She pulled some of the pamphlets from her purse that Ben had given her, and she sat down on the plastic covered couch and began reading. She still wasn’t comfortable that the woman had told her everything but she would be gone in a few hours and she’d tell Ben that he could shove his job!
At three, Robin stood stiffly. She had been entirely too anxious to read the book she had brought or to even relax, less she fell asleep and missed administering the medicine. She went to the kitchen and gathered the pills that the woman had pointed out. Then she checked the fridge for the schedule just in case she hadn’t been told everything necessary. One medicine she couldn’t find until she remembered that it was probably the one hidden in the orange juice. She went to the cabinet for a glass and hesitated. She said half a glass but did she mean a half cup of juice? Robin measured it carefully into a glass and then carried the items into the darkened room.
Damn, she didn’t even know the woman’s name. She stood quietly over the woman’s slight form. She was pale, wrinkled, and had strikingly white hair done up in a single braid. Dear god, what was she--one hundred years old?!
“Ma
’ame?” Gently, she placed her hand on the woman’s birdlike shoulder. “Excuse me, Ma’ame?” After a few moments of this, the woman finally opened her watery eyes and looked in Robin’s general direction, though she didn’t seem to be focused.
“I’m Robin. It’s time for your medicine. Can you sit up?” The woman closed her eyes and went back to sleep. Uh oh. She wasn’t sure what to do. She gently shook the woman’s frail shoulder again until her eyes again opened, and this time the woman mumbled sleepily. Robin lowered her oxygen mask and propped her up gently. “Medicine time.”
Terrified that the woman would choke she slipped the first pill into her mouth and pressed the glass of orange juice to her lips. But she seemed to know what to do and she placed her hand on the glass and expertly swallowed the first pill even though she was still partially asleep.
The oj was gone and there were still more pills to take. Robin saw a glass of water on the bedside table and she slowly gave her the rest of the pills along with the tepid water.
With that over came the hardest task; the injection. She found the alcohol swabs and lifted the bed covers and hiked up her gown. Her leg was so thin that she didn’t want to pinch it for fear of injuring her. Carefully she gathered her flesh and then used her teeth to uncap the syringe. Robin squinted her eyes and silently counted to three. Then she quickly stabbed the gathered flesh and waited for the woman to jump and yell. She barely moved and Robin quickly depressed the syringe.
When that was over she could finally breathe. She helped the old lady lay down, and got her tucked in. It had taken her half an hour to give the older woman a few pills and an injection. She marked the log, replaced the pills and then sank down onto the plastic covered couch. She had made that harder than it needed to be. And now that it was over fatigue overwhelmed her. She had worked hard at the restaurant and did a lot of ripping and running to interview in order to put in her application. Her eyes drooped and she yawned. And despite the fact that the plastic on the couch squeaked and caused her to slide around, before she knew it, Robin had fallen asleep.
“Help…me!”
Robin lurched awake and then jumped off the couch as if it was on fire. She ran into the bedroom only to see the elderly woman halfway out of bed. Her tubes were pulling and the machine was beeping loudly and flashing red.
Oh god…She placed her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t be getting up, Ma’ame. Please let me help you-”
The woman slapped her hand away. “Do you want me to pee myself?!”
“Oh…kay.” Once she made sure that the woman wasn’t going to fall and break a hip she rushed to the machines and tried to remember how to stop the red light from blinking and buzzing.
“Hit the top button!” The woman yelled weakly. “Then the bottom one twice.” She coughed and Robin did as instructed. She hurried back to the woman and placed the oxygen back on her face.
“Take a few breaths Ma’ame and then I’ll take you to the restroom.” The woman placed her hand over the mask and took a few breaths. Then Robin removed it and helped her to walk way across the room to the restroom. She was so small and thin that she probably could have carried her.
The woman brushed her hand aside and lowered herself down onto the toilet with the aid of the hand rails. Robin listened as she peed for damn near five minutes. Her stream would stop for a few moments and when Robin thought she was done it would start again. The white haired woman gave her a long look.
“Is this your first caregiver job?”
“Is it that easy to tell?”
The woman smiled. “Where’s the other girl?”
“Um…I guess she quit.”
“Hmph. That girl didn’t do anything right.”
The lady used a wad of tissue to pat herself clean and then she got up and washed her hands. When Robin tried to give her a hand back to bed she brushed her aside.
“Well help me get dressed.”
Robin glanced at the clock on the bedside table. It was just after six am. “Okay, sure.” She moved about the woman’s room pulling out underwear, clothes, socks. She helped her put on a huge bra. Robin wasn’t squeamish but…it wasn’t pleasant. Next came granny panties and then a comfortable dress. During this time she found out that the woman’s name was Lucille. Lucille didn’t ask her name.
Lucille talked about her son who was a doctor and her grandchildren. She talked about some women who were in a group with her. She talked so much that she lost her breath and Robin had to give her oxygen.
Seven o’clock came and went and her replacement still hadn’t arrived. She led Lucille to the living room and set her in a comfortable chair.
“I guess it’s time for your medicine. “ Lucille turned on the television set to watch an evangelist, paying her very little attention. Robin covered her mouth as she yawned again and checked the schedule. Four pills.
Lucille wouldn’t hold out her hand for the offered pills. She looked at Robin and scowled. “I can’t take these on an empty stomach. I need food.”
“Oh…Um. Ok. What do you want?”
“Coffee, toast no butter, soft boiled eggs; two.
Really tired now, Robin headed back to the kitchen and started coffee. She dug through the refrigerator for the carton of eggs and set two to boil. She checked the clock again. Seven thirty. Damn, where was the replacement?!
“Miss Lucille, do you want to come in here to eat, or do you want a tray pulled up to the chair?”
“A tray, please. And I like cream and heavy sugar.” Yawning, Robin prepared everything and carried it into the living room. It took her a long time to eat and finally she could take her medicine. She marked everything into the log.
At eight fifteen she called Ben’s number but didn’t get an answer. Of course not, he was probably sleeping! At a few minutes after nine the replacement finally strolled in. Robin was so mad that at first she couldn’t speak.
“Hey there. Who are you?” It was an older woman about forty.
“Robin. And you’re late.” She spoke, uncharacteristically rude.
She scowled. “Five minutes. So-r-r-r-ry.”
“Try two hours. You were supposed to be here at seven.”
“No.” The woman put her stuff in the kitchen. “I always start at nine. “
“Damnit.” Robin whispered. Ben was such a liar!
Lucille smirked. She had known all alone. This was a full shift. Ben had tricked her here with promises of a half shift.
She went into the kitchen where the replacement was looking at the log. “Hey, I’m sorry for being a bitch. Ben told me I’d be working for just four hours.”
“Yeah. Look, this is a good job but don’t let Ben push you around. Get a shift and stick with it. If he asks you to fill in for someone then do it at your own risk and ask for a shit load of money. He’ll have no choice but to give you what you ask for.” She held out her hand. “I’m Jodie.”
“I’m Robin. Um, how much do I get paid for working a full shift?”
Jodie gave her a curious look. “Girl, you get paid by the hour, don’t let him try pulling that ‘I’ll give you X amount for X amount of hours worked.’ We get paid 18.50 an hour and 23.50 for overtime and they don’t take out for taxes.” She gave her a sly look. “It’s like getting paid under the table! Your shift is no longer than 8 hours and after that you charge him at the overtime rate!” Robin did the calculation in her head taking a painfully long time to come up with the figure before Jodie jumped in with the answer. “You get paid one hundred forty eight dollars a day. That’s not bad money because any other place would be taking a shitload of taxes out on you, especially for people like me that don’t have kids.”