Review: It made my heart hurt for this woman and her family
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 14, 2014
The book tells the story of Joan Boice, an elderly woman with alzheimers, who enters into residency at "Assisted living" quarters of Emerald Hills when she was 81.  Emerald Hills was part of a national chain of elderly housing units ran by the conglomerate called Emeritus Senior Living.This book eptiomized my ideas of what "investigative reporting" should be; there are facts, verbatum word-for-word recounting of the situation by Joan's family members, the nurses, the med techs, the Emeritus head honchos--I wish I could not only read more books like this, but I would love to see this kind of reporting in documentaries as well.It is exactly what the book title suggests--the life and death of Joan in this assisted living center called Emerald Hills.  It paints her journey through this hellish place and the absolute negligience she faced made me want to scream at these people.  By "these people," I am referring to the Emeritus senior leaders who pushed the ideals of "closing the back door," (which meant keeping patients as long as possible despite some of them needing to be in an actual nursing home), money over quality of life, and cutting their staff's wages while simultaneously lengthening their working hours.  It is so unfair that this tragic indifference to elderly life exists in today's world.Everything hit home for me, my grandma went through a similiar experience and it was heartbreaking to watch until we finally got her out of the understaffed "assisted living" center she had been existing in.  I think that's what makes this book so current and so relevant:  age is something we all go through, whether it be our aging grandparents, parents, or ourselves; aging is an extremely relatable issue with everyone.I don't want to give too much away, but there is a trial involved and I have never felt such tension/anticipation reading a book while awaiting the particular verdict.  Do yourselves a favor and read about what Joan and her family members went through--it is heartbreakingly compelling.