After the gift basket lady from Rehab X left me with stroke-related and other assorted take-aways, a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), which had her name and her title right on her tag, helped me into bed because I couldn’t help myself. She left right away and, it seemed, she couldn’t get away fast enough. I wondered, does everybody treat stroke patients this way? Not even a “hi, how are you?” or “what good weather we’re having.” The CNA offered nothing.

I didn’t know what a CNA was, but I found out soon enough. They were the people who give showers, brushed hair and teeth, cleaned up urine and poop, helped with the meals, and a couple of other activities, in no particular order.

It soon became obvious: there were not enough CNAs at Rehab X to go around, or they were hiding and didn’t want to be found. If I had to guess, the typical CNA was overworked and underpaid, so I think they were hiding. There were about five places a CNA could hide and not be found for much of the day.

How do I know? To everyone else but a select few, I appeared to be a non-talker, which I was, and a non-thinker. But I was thinking all the time, and it was sort of like being in disguise. They couldn’t see my brain clicking or watch the smoke coming from my ears, as the cliches went. And that was one of the ways I got by–fooling the CNAs, on the one hand, by being mostly brainless, and, on the other, observing everything, even things I didn’t want to see. Read more…