A Memory of Being Young and Powerless

Today as I tutored a high school student in biology, we went through a table of vitamins and why they are important to the functions of the body.  It has been many years, but Vitamin B-12 triggered an unpleasant memory.


At this time of year in 1965, I was in nursing school in the Chicago area and affiliating for 3 months at Chicago State Hospital.  In 1965 that place was a hell-hole in more ways than can easily be described.


I don't remember what ward I was working on, but I was instructed to leave my usual assignment and go to a huge ward where elderly people with dementia were warehoused....and I do mean, warehoused.  I was assigned to give each of them an injection of Vitamin B-12.


Dozens of frail old souls, who fortunately had no idea where they were, sprawled on rickety metal cots with plastic covered mattresses.  Most were naked or nearly so, and did not have a sheet between them and the plastic.  I watched as one aide put a sheet on the mattress without cleaning up the feces smeared on its surface.


It sickened me that I was powerless to change the situation.  I was a student with a tray of syringes.  My only function was to see that everyone got their Vitamin B-12 to satisfy some requirement and allow someone to put a check mark in the appropriate space.  Apparently there was no requirement for dignity, much less TLC.


I saw worse things there.  I wish I had had the power or courage to do something.  But, I was young...20 years old and trying to do what was expected of me.  Classmates came away from those three months rocking on the edge emotionally.  I survived.  But, the images are embedded in my mind.


I suppose the impact of such experiences is one reason I am so intolerant of people who are careless in their care of others or who take advantage of the vulnerable.  Last year, my mother-in-law was in a nursing home, and I walked in on an aide not cleaning her up properly.  I am no longer a powerless 20 year old, and I did not remain silent.  I am sure that some nice tolerant Christian ladies would think I was overly assertive...not gracious enough, but they have never stood in my shoes looking over a room of hurting souls with nothing in my hands but a tray of syringes filled with Vitamin B-12.