Difficult........

I turned the CD player off and made the phone call: “I’m here”

A minute later, I saw him walking toward the locked gate. Tall, burly, an imposing figure, he smiled at me as he unlocked the gate and rolled it open. I drove through slowly and pulled up in the driveway, parking behind a pickup loaded with hay bales.

Normally assigned to patients in Podunk, here I was, 25 minutes east of the city limits, in a semi-densely populated area near Lemon Cove. The narrow roadway cut a path through small acreages populated by “weekend ranchers,” and wannabe farmers. Paddocks and a riding arena on the right, a few head of cattle on the left.

So, what am I doing out here? There is an elderly couple living out here, in an apartment next to their son’s home; both are on service with our home health agency. Two other nurses have been out here to take care of the patients. Both were “fired” by the son, the man who just opened the gate.

Lucky me.

I spoke to the son this morning. We set a time for my visit. I am puzzled: this is a man with a bad reputation, “difficult to deal with”, “time-consuming”, “argumentative”…….and I have just had another conversation with him. One of many. Always polite, always says “please” and “thank you” and always seems reasonable to deal with.

As I get out of the car and grab my nursing bag, he starts talking. His father is doing better; he is eating more; his wound looks “good” and his bowels and bladder are working fine. Sounds good to me. The son uses many terms that most lay people don’t know. His parents have been in and out of the hospital enough that he has picked up on the terminology. Considering the fact that he quit school in the seventh grade to help his father on their dairy farm, that is quite remarkable.

We go inside his parent’s apartment. It is attached to his home and it is immaculate. During the course of the visit, I have the son demonstrate the wound care for me. It has to be done every day and we already know that I know how to do it; I need to know that the son can do it.

His hands are huge and strong. He is in his mid-forties and he has been working, hard, for most of his life. He has a long ponytail and a salt and pepper beard. His arms are covered with tattoos. The kind “bikers” have. He used to be a “biker” and he used drugs and abused alcohol. He still rides a Harley.

And he treats me with great deference. He appreciates that I don’t care what he looks like, or what he does, as long as he does the wound care right. He is talking as he removes the old bandage. He is telling me what he is doing and why. And he is getting it all right. He definitely knows what he is doing and why. It is amazing, to me, to watch a man with such big hands be so gentle as he takes care of his father.

When he completed the wound care, he looked at me for approval: “you did it perfectly, good job!” He grinned at me. He was pleased with himself, too.

He cleaned up the old bandages and washed his hands thoroughly. When he came back, he had several questions to ask. I answered all of them except one: I did not have the answer for that one, so I wrote it down on a piece of paper and promised that I would get back to him with the answer.

And I did.


After I was finished with my visit, he walked me to my car. He has been telling me about what happened when his dad was in the hospital. He has some real horror stories. I listen.

We agree on the day and time for my visit next week and I am in the car and ready to leave. Reversing our routine at the beginning of the visit, he unlocks the gate and rolls it open so I can leave. As I drive off, he gives me a smile and a big wave.

Yup, he’s a difficult one!