Could You Push Me in the Toilet?: Stories from Hospitals, Nursing Homes, and Personal Home Care

The retired author draws on more than forty years of personal experience to present a warmly human and sometimes hilarious mosaic of more than 325 anecdotal stories about the world of personal hands-on health care.

The title is word-for-word a request by a particularly irritating and abrasive person who was so demanding no one wanted to interact with her. The stories include the little old man who accidentally rolled down a large double hill in his wheelchair and got tossed into a bush at the bottom and said he didn't know what happened but said it was fun. Along the way are strewn scathing comments about incompetence, some useful details about caring for the elderly, and threats by demented individuals, like the terminally ill "shotgun" man who told his innocent aide that as soon as he got out, he would come back and blow his head off with a ten-gauge shotgun! There are jokes; and the words of songs that were sung; and the tender touches of genuine affection for the elderly, the old, and the dying; and their expressions of appreciation for the care they were given.

Through it all there emerges a portrait of the unsung courage and compassion of individuals confronted with the responsibility and challenge of personally caring for the most vulnerable and helpless of our citizens, in what has been called the front lines of health care.