In June of 1988, Sherry Fieldhouse called to say we would be getting a new resident, one she thought would fit well in the Tretton Place family. I went to Salem Avenue to pick up Alexandra Paredes’s chart, and to chat about her with Sherry.
When I walked in, Sherry was on the phone, chewing a pencil. She motioned me to sit. A minute later the call was over, and she said, “Yeah, pretty stupid looking. And I’m ingesting tiny flecks of yellow paint. They can’t be as bad as the tar and nicotine, though.”
Alexandra was nineteen, relatively capable and self-sufficient. She could eat with a spoon, and drink without a no-spill cup. She needed help with toileting, but she would let people know when she needed to go. She understood almost anything that was said, but she spoke only about twenty words, and very softly.
“And she’s delightful,” Sherry said; “She smiles and laughs, and she’s totally alert. You’re going to love her. But there is one critical challenge.”
“Of course there is,” I said.
“She’s five-two, and weighs 81 pounds. She just resists eating. Her father cares for her wonderfully. Alexandra’s got every type of professional help. The concern is that if she doesn’t gain at least a little weight, in a year or so we will need to start tube feeding her. That’s a severe lifestyle limitation, and we would hate to do it.”
We had two tube feeders at Tretton, and I agreed. It would be a life-changer, and almost certainly a permanent one, “So am I supposed to fix her?”
“No, of course not. I mean yes, that would be ideal, but nobody is expecting that. I’m placing her with you because you’ve solved a few things over the years, with your tendency to think outside the box.” Sherry’s door opened a crack. She held up one finger, and it closed.
I said, “And thinking outside the box got me written up a few times.”
Sherry laughed, and said, “Well, you’re supposed to look around inside the box first.” She stood up and took a jacket from the hook on her door; “That’s enough work. Let me buy you lunch. I don’t have anything until 3.”
Her jacket had a, “Kiss Me. I Don’t Smoke.” button. I pointed to it.
“Yes,” she said; “Eight days now. I finally can say I don’t smoke.”
I said, “I was wondering about the other part.”
That took her a second, then she laughed, “Not in the office.” A solidly married sixty-something, but she still knew how to flirt.
Alexandra was remarkably beautiful. Flaming red hair just the color mine had been at her age. A red-haired man is just a man with red hair, but a red-haired woman is beautiful and exotic. I was so glad to see her walk in with her father, Reggie. Too few residents have any family involvement. Alexandra moved steadily with a four-wheel walker, the kind with a seat and a little storage area. She shook my hand with a dazzling smile, and did the same for two of the daytime workers.
I greeted her, “Welcome, Lady. I am so glad to meet you. You are going to stay here with us for a while. There will be other people, too. We can do a lot of things together.”
She seemed so relaxed, I said to one of the workers, “Dave, could you show Alexandra around the house? Kitchen, dining room, bedrooms. Go on the back porch and see if there are any cows looking over the fence at us. If she stops smiling, just bring her back here.”
I motioned Reggie to the little parlor, and we sat on facing couches. “This is breaking my heart,” he said. “Ola’s mother died right after the delivery, and we’ve been together every day. I’ve got a good-paying job, so during the day I’ve had a private caregiver. Ola goes to the Green Street program two days a week. So it’s not like she’s not been around other people. And she goes to OT. We go to church, and she goes to Sunday School without me. Her caregiver takes her to the grocery store. She’s outgoing and trusting. She likes to be with people. I believe it’s time for her to get out and live on her own, so to speak. I know Ramona Henderson in your office, from church. She says this is the one house Alexandra needs to be in. We’ve been waiting for an opening. I understand one of your people died. I’m sorry for your loss.”
I said, “Ernest was one of a kind. I work to keep up a professional conduct, but I love my people like they are my own.”
“That’s what Ramona said. That’s why we’re here.”
He said yes to tea, so I started water to boil and asked Bonnie to finish it up; “But as for your daughter, first let’s get her name straight. I got her paperwork yesterday, and it’s for Alexandra, not Ola.”
Reggie gave a little laugh, “You figure it out, and explain it to me. My wife, Monika, was Polish. Her family came here when she was four. We knew we were going to have a girl, and decided to name her Alexandra after Monika’s mother. And in Poland, Ola is short for Alexandra. Why?” He laughed again; “Eight years with Monika, I learned a little Polish, but it’s a crazy language. There are traps like Alexandra-Ola here and there all over. She’s always been called Ola, but she knows Alexandra.” We talked some more, and Reggie was as proud of Ola as any father could be. I began to love him a little. He filled in some of the important information missing from her paperwork. Ola loved handling books, and she always kept one or another of her stuffed animals with her. She made loud happy squeals in the shower.
It’s ironic to call severe underweight the elephant in the room. We eventually talked a little about it. All I could say was, “I’ll put my whole heart and mind into this.”
Bonnie came in with the tea. Reggie sipped, and said, “I want to visit her, and get to know her roommates. I could come every day, but you tell me what’s best.”
“No two people are alike, so I can only guess. Stay away for a week. Call her in the evening, and hold it to five minutes or so. She seems so self-confident, and that’s a tribute to your work as a father.” He smiled and shrugged; “No, really. You’re bringing us a girl, woman, who’s ready for the next phase of her life. Then when you do start visiting, make it no more than about three times a week at first. Stay as long as you like, even until bedtime. You might enjoy watching the circus around getting eight very different people tucked in.”
“I’m sure I’d rather watch it that try to do it.”
We could hear Dave and Ola coming in. I added, “When you leave today, say goodbye like you do every morning leaving for work. That’ll be hard, I know, but we don’t want to give her the idea that something catastrophic is happening. She needs to see you leave like always, and know you’ll be back like always.”
Ola was laughing when the two of them came in. Dave said, “To start with, cows are the funniest thing in the world. Then when they moo, that’s funnier. But then when they poop, well, it’s almost too funny to breathe.”
Reggie stood up, wiped his eyes, and gave me two thumbs up. He went to Ola and said, “Hug,” and they did. “Bonk,” and they butted heads softly. “Nummy nose,” and they rubbed their noses together and made bluh-bluh-bluh noises; “See you later, goofy girl. Be good.”
Ola whispered, “Later,” and he was gone.
We did the obvious things for Ola. When we had ice cream snacks, it was ice milk for three of the roomies, ice cream for four, and expensive extra-fat ice cream for Ola. We didn’t give her celery, carrots, or anything else which she would register as food but which did not pack any calories. Dave turned into her special buddy, so he sat beside her at meals if he was working. Then I remembered something from my days babysitting little cousins. At dinner one night I gave her a saucer instead of a plate, with two green beans, a bite of chicken, and a spoonful of mashed potatoes. If she ate anything, I replaced it. In the end, she ate four beans, four pieces of chicken, and some potatoes, then one slice of canned peach, in heavy syrup. Given the variety of our meals, food on the floor, and all, there was no meaningful way to quantify her eating, but this was at least as well as she had been doing. At her official July weigh-in she had gone from 81 to 82. August, she was 82 again, then stayed stuck from 81 to 84 for the rest of the year.
The light switched on in January, 1989, at a conference I really didn’t want to attend. It was an occupational therapy thing with nothing really relevant to my work, but I needed some continuing education credits and the schedule was right. I went to one session just because a cute woman from Annapolis Easter Seals was presenting on teaching hygiene to toddlers. She said to try letting the child brush your teeth. I left the conference a day early and hurried home.
I put Ola’s dinner in a bowl as usual—a spoonful of corn, two bite-sized chunks of turkey, and a spoonful of applesauce. I made a similar meal for myself, with a little more food. I sat opposite her at a corner of the table, with our bowls in front of us. I said, “Feed me, Ola. I’m hungry.” I put my spoon in her hand, picked up some applesauce, and guided her hand to my mouth.
“Num num num! Yummy yum!” A head shake and a horse whinny. This sent her into a spasm of laughter. We did this a half-dozen more times, and it never lost its comic effect. Then I took applesauce in her spoon, held it up to her mouth, and repeated the num num yummy formula. She laughed and ate it, and with a little coaching she said, “Nummy.” She had altered her behavior! She had altered her behavior! The rest was inevitable.
After dinner I went to the office and detailed the procedure and result. I decided it would be best to not introduce anything new to the routine yet, so I started coming to dinner even on my days off. After one week, Ola was definitely eating a little more than she had been. After the eleventh trial, I let Dave, Ola’s special buddy on the staff, do it. There was a regression for two days, then Dave was doing as well as I had been. Next I expanded the program to breakfast, and we could see a quantifiable increase in the number of Cheerios she would eat, from 20-something to almost 40. Meanwhile, Wanda and Jorge both started saying “Num num yummy yum” after every bite. It did get old.
Ola’s March weigh-in was down from 83 to 82, then April and May were 84. When she hit 87 in June and 89 in July, I cried. I called Reggie at work, and he came in to cry with me. Then he hugged everybody in the house a few times, then we all cried. He handed me an envelope with cash. “I can’t take this,” I said. “Everything I did was work product, and I’ve been paid.”
He said, “Can’t take what? What are you talking about?”
It was enough to replace the battleship gray curtains in all six bedrooms.
Danny Williams has worked as a writer, archivist, teacher, NEA field worker, and university press editor, mostly in the area of West Virginia and Appalachian regional concerns. He’s now a freelance editor living in Morgantown. “Feeding Ola” is inspired by his time as a live-in caregiver for disabled adults.
