ALERT: A Voyeur in the Nursing Home

I always wonder about people who do odd, compulsive things. Take voyeurism, for example. Voyeurism is French meaning “one who looks.” In popular wisdom, voyeurism occurs when somebody views or photographs or films others without their awareness. In common vernacular, voyeurism can be defined as “a peeping Tom.”

Now for some trivia on a non-trivial topic: In England, voyeurism became a criminal offense in 2004, if the subject didn’t know he or she was being viewed. In Canada, voyeurism became a sexual offense in 2005 by the same guidelines as England. In the United States, voyeurism can be both a criminal and sexual offense, and may have the guilty party register on the Sex Offenders List.

And there’s more. In Saudi Arabia, the sale of camera phones was banned for about a year because of non-consensual pics but reversed in 2005 only because cellular companies wouldn’t be able to offer complete 3G services if camera phones weren’t included. In South Korea, the government requires that all camera phones elicit an audible noise whenever someone snaps a picture. In places like Afghanistan and Iran, voyeurism can lead to, well, who knows. The point is, voyeurism is annoying, to say the least.

Sorry to say, I had my own experience with a voyeur at the nursing home. The man was old and he was harmless but a voyeur, none the less. Here’s what happened.

One week had passed and I still didn’t get someone, probably a CNA, to shower me. The nurses didn’t say anything and I didn’t either. maybe because I realized how the Shower Room was used. Remember the post “WARNING: This Post Contains Language”? To repeat, the individual rooms didn’t have showers so the Shower Room was it, where anybody went if they urinated, pooped, or threw up on themselves. The Shower Room also was used, well, if you just wanted a shower. In other words, the Shower Room was for anybody for any reason.

After a week, smelling like anything rotten, I succumbed to taking a shower when the new CNA, one I hadn’t seen before, came into the room saying, “When’s the last time you had a shower?”

I replied with a shrug. I guess the word got out. I didn’t have a calendar and every day was just like every other day, for the most part.

I didn’t want to tell her it had been a week because I was dreading using the Shower Room. I was wearing a hospital gown (gown is a misnomer, right?) and she put me in the wheelchair. She covered me with a blanket for privacy, but she didn’t have to do that. My modesty was lost at Rehab X when I showered with a man (see the post called “A Shower with a Strange Man: It’s Not What You Think”). And off we went down the hall.

A very old man was sitting as close to the Shower Room as he could get, like a sentinel. In fact, we couldn’t get in unless he moved. The man figured to be in his late eighties.

“Are you still peeking?” the CNA asked the man.

Oh, no! I asked her to turn around and take me back to my room. She ignored me, the elderly man moved, and in we went. I had a potential voyeur who wanted to see the good stuff which wasn’t that good.

There were horrors awaiting me, both inside and outside. Once inside the Shower Room, the CNA removed the blanket and hospital gown. My eyes were peeled to the door in case the man opened it. I was moved from my wheelchair to a chair that had wheels that could be locked (so I couldn’t go splat on the floor). The chair could also get wet. When I was seated, the CNA unlocked the chair and pushed me over to the shower. She started the shower so it would get hot.

Another CNA entered the Shower Room. The first one said, “Oh, I forgot to wipe the chair down.”

Huh? Wipe it for germs? From urine? From poop? From vomit? She wasn’t getting that I could talk and understand now.

I said, in broken English, “You hafta wipe the chair!” I didn’t know if those were the rules or not, but I imagined they were. I stood up for myself, once again.

So the two of them transferred me back to the wheelchair which was now covered with the blanket, cleaned the shower chair by rubbing it all over with disinfectact, and put me back in it. The whole event was getting long.

When the water was hot, she wheeled me in and put me under the showerhead and it felt good. Suddenly, with no warning, the door opened again, this time with the elderly man. But the shower hid me from his view.

The CNA, not intending to make any more mistakes, like wiping down the chair, said, “Get out of here. You can’t come in here.” And the men left.

The other CNA was with me while the first one went out to report the incident. I don’t know what happened to the elderly voyeur, but I guess he was returned to his room. In Russia, that move would probably send him to Siberia. And in Afganistan and Iran, anyone want to take a guess? Anyone?

After the shower was over, the two CNAs dried me, put me in a fresh gown and used a clean blanket to cover me, and I went back to my room.

The elderly man, a voyeur, was still waiting for anybody to take a shower over the weeks I was still at Rehab Y. I know because I passed by the Shower Room many times. It was a game for him in the nursing home, but in the real world, he wouldn’t stand a chance.