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Ethnography: Nursing/Rehab Center

There are many types of relationships that can form between people; they vary from being just acquaintances to being married. Honesty, trust and similar hobbies and ideas are the fundamentals of a relationship; without them, a relationship cannot thrive. Nursing homes and rehabilitation centers have a mix of relationships—nurse to nurse relationships, nurse to patient relationships, and patient to patient relationships. Crawford Nursing and Rehabilitation Center is where I observed there types of relationships.

I pulled into the half-filled parking lot and put my car in park. I looked around, noticing the cleanliness out front, and the lack of color. I walk up the ramp to the back entrance and fiddled with the handle until the door opened; I hurried in and shut the door behind me so the alarm doesn’t sound. Immediately I could smell paint which gave me a headache. I hurried to the second floor, which is where the permanent residents live, and hurried through that door as well, so the alarm wouldn’t go off.

The place was tidy with low ceilings, but it smelled like age, like old people with a hint of fresh linens. I don’t really know another way of describing it; it just had the smell of old people, like dentists and hospitals also have their own indescribable smells. The lower halves of the walls were a maroon color, and the majority of the upper half was white, with speckles of light green. Throughout the whole upstairs, it had the same floral wall paper, which looked like it was painted with watercolors, or maybe it had just faded over time. On the walls hung flower-like pictures and pictures of cottages, which had the faded look too. Walking down the Oak Grove Unit hallways, I peered into the rooms noticing that most rooms had three beds, and every section of the room was decorated differently. A door on the right side of the hall had a snowman hung on it. The inside of the room had an endless flow of flowers, making it feel very bright and happy. But all rooms were not so cheerful.

Down the hall on the left was a room that belonged to a woman by the name, Blanche Lafrance. From what I gathered from the nurses, she was not a very nice or friendly woman. She didn’t get along with any of the patients, and hardly any of the nurses. A nurse told me that she once pushed another patient down, causing her to break her hip. Blanche was also very picky, for instance, there was only one nurse that worked there that she allowed to clip her nails. Her room was filled with shadows, which made it very cold to me. In the middle of the room stood an isolated bed with a fan at the foot of it. On the opposing side of the room was a dresser which reflected little light from the window. That was it. No roommates, no personal touches, not even a T.V.

On my way to the living room area, I could hear the nurses bickering with one another; it almost sounded like they were having a dispute about who has to do what with the patient they were tending to. Beside the livingroom was the Oak Grove Unit desk, with maroon countertops and record books, matching the color scheme. To the left of the desk were patients all lined up; these were the “high-risk” patients, meaning they were at a high risk of falling if they were left unattended. Sitting there, half of them were asleep in their wheelchairs. The others which were awake, muttered to one another quietly every once and a while. All the patients in this area had three things in common-- gray hair, wrinkles, and saggy bags below their eyes.

Through the threshold of the living room sat four elderly people, all of them were as silent as can be. The television was turned on and tuned to the USA channel, an action movie was playing. There were four couches, four chairs, fake plants and two bay windows which were accompanied by a coffee table, a regular table and a green floor. I noticed that this room was the only room with another type of wallpaper; the wallpaper resembled small diamonds. In the far right corner sat a little TV stand and a rather large TV, which made the room flow nice. On the walls hung art the patients had obviously colored- the kind that had the felt that outlined a picture and all you had to do was color the white empty spots.

The last spot I observed in was the diningroom. There wasn’t much to the room. The walls were purple and cream, the room was filled with tables, at the far end there were two huge windows. By the windows were more fake plants, but I guess they’re better than nothing. Soft rock played while the people did activities such as bingo; others just ate.

The Oak Grove Unit is a place where elderly people can find a new home that accommodates their needs considering that most patients there have dementia or some type of heart or respiratory problems. Most of the people here are from the age of 60 to 80; but some are as young as 30 and others as old as 104. There are two couples here who are married. The rest of the people didn’t know each other before they were admitted. Because the families of these patients don’t see them very often, they have formed very close bonds with other patients as well as the nurses. This is not only a large group of people, it’s a large group of friends- they’re so close, you could call them a family.

Six Sentences

I lay on my bed, tears running down my face, unable to speak or grasp what was going on. My father put down his bags and wrapped his arms around me, his cold leather jacket evoking goose bumps on my skin. He drew back and squatted down beside my bed with his hand in mine. I could see water forming in his green hazel eyes—I knew it was all he could do not to break down crying. With a little crack in his voice, he said, “It’s only for a little while.” As he stood, he kissed my forehead and hugged me one last time before he grabbed his bags and left.