WHITE RAIN

I have been a caregiver since 2004 and it has been quite a learning experience for me.  My first assignment was with a woman who had been diagnosed with dementia.  Her family had decided that she needed around-the-clock care.  After the death of her husband, she had lived alone for a number of years and her family had not recognized the onset of  her dementia until one day the police called her son when she was found walking on the highway several miles from her home and couldn't remember where she'd left her car.   By the time of my assignment, she no longer was allowed to drive, had memory loss and lapses, and frequently misplaced items.   It was unsafe for her to use the kitchen range or the iron.  I was there to prepare and make sure she ate her meals, take her medicine, prevent her from wandering away, and to keep her safe.  

Her son stopped by daily as he controlled the estate.  He insisted that his mother maintain a schedule and to do chores such as the laundry.  She had obviously been spoiled all of her life, telling me that she'd always had a "cleaning lady" and she was upset that her son now expected her to do her own cleaning and laundry.  She bewailed that he didn't understand that she "needed" to visit the beauty shop to have her hair and nails "done" regularly.  She was able to bathe and dress herself, although not well, as her colors and patterns were oftentimes uncoordinated and inappropriate for the season.

My time with her was enjoyable because she regaled me with fascinating stories and gossip about prominent people of years ago when she and her husband entertained and socialized with "high muckety-mucks" of the community.  I enjoyed listening to Jeopardy! while cleaning up after dinner and she enjoyed watching Wheel Of Fortune and then, to my continued amusement, every evening she watched two episodes of reruns of Charlie Sheen's Two And A Half Men sitcom.  I would be surprised that she chuckled at the double entendres and would say, "Do you believe that?" about Charlie's character's naughtiness.

Once a week friends would come to take her out to dinner.  After being with her two weeks I noticed that she had not washed her hair.   One Friday, as she was ready to have her bath, I asked if she were going to wash her hair.  She told me that she had not washed her own hair in thirty years as she always went to the beauty shop twice a week.  She said that she had been on her way to the beauty shop when she "got lost".  

WHAT?  Never washed her own hair?  THIRTY YEARS?  I told her I would wash her hair.  I looked in the bathroom closet and there was no shampoo or conditioner. [There was plenty of  L'air du Temps products; not only was she was surprised that I knew the fragrance but also that I knew how to pronounce it.   Oh, do I need to mention that she thought everyone outside her "class" was ignorant?] I asked her what kind of shampoo she liked and she said the last time she bought shampoo she thought it was White Rain. I asked myself, "White Rain? Do they make it any more?"  I looked on the internet and learned that it was still produced.  I went to Dollar General and the White Rain shampoo and conditioner were $1.00 each.  I also bought a bottle of hair spray and a rinse which her beautician told me she used. 

She had no rollers or other hair-setting materials but I saw that she had a container of bobby pins.  I "put her hair up" with the bobby pins, dried, brushed it out, styled and sprayed. When her friends came to pick her up for dinner, they complimented her hair.  After that we had a weekly ritual of washing, tinting, and setting her hair before her dinner date. 

After her son placed her in a nursing home,  I went to visit once and although she no longer remembered my name, she told others there about my washing her hair.