I have always felt that a person could be judged by how they treat those weaker than themselves. Much can be seen in a person’s moral character by observing how they treat small children, animals, and the disabled. As a society, we can be judged by how we take care of the forgotten group of disabled people: our elders. When we think about the disabled, we tend to think of the person in a wheelchair, the person with a walker, or those with mental disabilities. It is uncomfortable to think of the fact that we will all be disabled by age one day, if we are blessed with a long life. Many of our elderly are in nursing homes, forgotten by their families who entirely trust the nurses and caregivers to take care of them as if it was their own family. In many cases, the nurses are so overloaded that this can’t occur. I don’t want to demean nurses. Despite the story I’m about to tell you, the great majority of nurses are wonderful people, overworked and underpaid. They do jobs that many of us can’t do. The purpose of my story is not to go after people in the medical field and tell you that they are all loose cannons, about to kill your loved ones. Far from it, in fact. There are people who will always remain in our hearts that we met on this journey, and some we’ve kept touch with afterwards. The purpose of my story, I suppose, is to give a warning. There are terrible people out there that you don’t suspect. They can get around the most observant and loving of families. Most importantly, take care of your elders. If this could happen to us, it can happen to anyone.
I can’t really write about the lessons in life that I learned from my Grandpa, Tony Mitschke. I suspect my cousins and I could fill a library from the things we learned from him and my Granny. Grandpa was a hardworking man, a brick mason by trade and wood worker by hobby. He created the most beautiful work, and we could always find him in his workshop behind the house. He loved music. Both him and my grandmother had astounding natural abilities. They could pick up an instrument and be able to play in in a short while, by ear. I bought him a mandolin, once. It took him less than two weeks to be able to play it. Most importantly, though, my Grandpa was a man of immense faith in God. He was very well respected in the local Church of Christ community for his knowledge and wisdom. I learned about my God at his knee, and will carry that my whole life through. It was his greatest gift to me.
As Grandpa got older, he lost his eyesight from Macular Degeneration. The only thing this stopped was the woodworking, since he was already retired by then. He lived on his own after my Granny died. He cooked for himself, and took care of himself and his dog, Lulu. He played bingo for canned goods twice a week with the aide of an in-home nurse. (We knew to NEVER plan something on Grandpa’s bingo days!) She was such a wonderful person herself and we honor her memory, too. However, as happens, we ended up having to put grandpa in a home when he was around 90. My mom and aunts just couldn’t care for his more intimate needs, and my uncle was also very unhealthy. (He passed away just a couple years after Grandpa did.) He needed 24-hour care for the needs that he would not allow us to take care of.
This part seems unbelievable, but my grandfather never spent a single day alone in that nursing home. For three solid years, there was a member of his family with him for 3-5 hours a day. We could not bear the thought of leaving him without us in a nursing home. Mom and her sisters drew up a schedule among themselves so that someone was always there to bring him at least one meal a day and sit with him several hours. Most of the time, someone arrived around 11:00 am and left around 5:00 pm. While my mom and aunt battled cancer, I or my cousins stepped in. In addition, I was there a couple of times a week. He also had visitors from the church, and a congregation near him always stopped for a visit on Sundays. Someone was always there. We were a constant presence at the nursing home, and became friendly with many people there. We especially became friendly with one nurse, who seemed to be the most amazing guy ever. We felt safe when he was there. Grandpa loved him. We even found out he was working over Thanksgiving one year and brought him food. I made a batch of homemade fudge for him once. Such a wonderful guy.
Notice I’m not naming him, right? Or that I haven’t named the nursing home or any identifying details? Legalities. He was, in all probability, the cause of my Grandpa’s death. And he has more rights than his victim and victim’s family. (I understand why and the legalities. This understanding doesn’t take away the anger or bitterness.)
Grandpa should have died quietly in his sleep. He really shouldn’t have died surrounded by family, (although I’m glad he was!) because it should have happened one night after a wonderful day. Just slipped away and woke up with Granny in Paradise without warning. He didn’t. He died violently, a victim of elder abuse. He died because that coward of a nurse above got violent with Grandpa and he ended up with a head injury. Elder abuse….just a fancy name for the potential negligent homicide of the elderly and disabled, the weakest of our society. Does it say something about our society to wrap up the pain of my Grandpa’s death in such a bland term? Until you’ve had personal experience with it, it doesn’t seem like a bland term, it doesn’t seem like just pretty wrappings for homicide, does it? It seems horrifying. To us, the reality is that it was a pretty term used and then rejected as a possible explanation for my grandfather’s death.
My aunt left him one night, and found out that this nurse was on duty. I was with her that day. I remember her commenting “Great! We are leaving him in wonderful hands, then!” She got a phone call from the nursing home the next morning saying Grandpa had pink eye. When she got there, another nurse ran up to her and said, “I was with <insert name here> the entire time he was with your dad and he didn’t do anything!!!” My aunt went into the room to find out that Grandpa a terrible black eye. It covered half his face. His roommate’s son said that in the middle of the night when he came, there had been blood pooling under Grandpa’s face on his pillow. Most definitely not pink eye. The nurse we loved so much? He had already walked off his job and disappeared. The nursing home had closed ranks already. One brave soul came up and told my aunt that the nurse in question had a violent streak and that she witnessed another patient thrown violently in a bed. She was fired for telling us the truth. My Grandpa was completely lucid at this point. Suddenly, according to the home, he had dementia or Alzheimer’s. (He had never been diagnosed with either one.) His story wasn’t believed. Who believes such a terrible story from a 93 year old man, even if the cops we called out stated he was completely lucid? The home changed their story, and said Grandpa hit his head on the triangle bar that helped him get up. Grandpa couldn’t even reach the bar. He couldn’t sit up on his own at this point. Totally bedridden. It was impossible.
We couldn’t get him transferred, so at this point we were with him 24/7. Grandpa first mentally broke down. He would get incredibly angry at everyone. Even me. It was the first time and only time my Grandpa ever yelled at me. I didn’t take offense, of course. I knew what was going on, but it was still hard to see him like this. He cried and apologized a few minutes later. He would cry for his long-dead brothers to come and protect him. He spoke in a mixture of English and his native German, and didn’t know what language he was using. (One memorable phrase when I didn’t quite catch what he said…”SAM!!! Kannst du Englisch sprechen?!?!? Literally, “Sam, don’t you speak English?!?!”) About a week later, he became comatose. Occasionally he would rally enough to open his eyes and look at you, but that was it. In another week, he passed away.
We had him autopsied, of course. Nothing was found, except they mentioned that he had a black eye. He was in the earliest stages of dementia, but had been totally lucid a few days after he was hit in the face. The only periods he had ever been confused were when he had a UTI. To make a long story short, the nurse was never prosecuted. We know that Grandpa had months left, tops. But we feel that the nurse’s attack hastened his death. We pursued it, because we didn’t want this to happen to another family. The local police were called, as well as the state officials. There was no proof of wrongdoing, so the nurse got away with it. No one accepted the word of an elderly man and a grieving, angry family. We were blown off as a family that just couldn’t accept the death of a loved one and irrational. The state officials found nothing in my Grandpa’s case. On the same day he died, though, another nurse at the home gave a patient 5 units of insulin when their blood sugar was normal, and that patient died. This was discovered during the investigation of the nursing home that we instigated. Many people lost their jobs, and many things came to light. My grandfather’s death brought change and justice for other families. The nurse that caused his death is possibly still out there, taking care of patients.
We tried everything, legally. But the facts are that we were blown off as a grieving family that was bitter about an inevitable death. Grandpa’s death was inevitable. But he suffered great pain before he died, and that is absolutely despicable. It’s despicable that it happened. It’s despicable that people felt morally justified in covering it up, instead of protecting him, who needs our protection the most. It’s despicable that we were blown off as irrational. I even have my suspicions about how seriously they took his autopsy. We didn’t get the results until 10 months after his death.
What does this say, when people would rather protect a violent individual at the expense of the elderly? That the home would rather protect its money interests than their frail patients? What does it say when I tell you that as much as we were up there, we knew many of the elderly whose families never come to see them?
It says to me that we need to do better by the most vulnerable in our society. My family did all we could to protect Grandpa. Because of the evil of others, it wasn’t enough. Now all we can do is tell as much of his story as we can legally tell, and warn others. Take care of your loved ones, and watch over those who cannot watch over themselves. Remember that one day, this can be you if you’re blessed with a long life. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.
Unapologetically Disabled 