Tales from the Nursing Home

Most of you know that I work at a Long Term Care Center, or a Nursing Home. Many people think this is a depressing place, but although there are sad days, we really have a lot of fun. We have some residents who are alert and oriented. They may be there for a short while, receiving therapy while recuperating from surgery. Others have dementia and may be very confused. We enjoy getting to know all of them and it makes each day different!

I want to share something that happened at our place last week that made all of us laugh. Some of the residents who are confused, are not safe in walking on their own. Because of this confusion, they may take off on their own, forget their walker, or do other things that put them at risk for a fall. One thing we do to prevent this is have some people wear alarms. These alarms attach to the residents clothing with a clip and the alarm hooks to the wheelchair or bed. If the person tries to get up on their own, the clip separates from the magnet on the alarm and it sounds.

One of our ladies is not happy with this. She sees no reason why she shouldn’t get up on her own and forgets she has fallen while doing this. She frequently takes removes her alarm and has thrown it across the room a few times. This past week while she was in the bathroom, she decided she had enough of it. When the aide was standing at the sink, she grabbed the alarm, and before the aide could get it, she threw it in the toilet and then flushed it! She then said “There, how do you like that?” This was funny, but it was made funnier by the fact that the alarm got trapped in the plumbing and kept sounding until the maintenance man removed the toilet and could get the alarm out.

You just have to love feisty little ladies!

Fun at work

Most of you know that I work at a long term care center, more commonly known as a nursing home. People often tell me they could never do that or that it must be a depressing place to work. It's not true! We have often said we could write a book with some of the funny things that happen here. For the most part our residents are happy. It isn't the first choice of where they want to live, but we have had people come back because they are lonely at home and miss the interaction. We joke around with our residents, do special things with them and several staff members take them out on their own time because we really love them. I thought I would share a few stories with you to give you an idea of some of my days.
One of my ladies knows who each staff member is. She calls some people by their correct name, but many have a different name that she consistently calls them. For example - her name for me is Marilyn. She knows exactly who I am and says she is glad to see me again when I have a day off. She thinks my last name is Supervisor because she saw it on my name tag. She also calls me an "officer". When she thinks her things are missing (which happens frequently) she will look for me so I can fill out a report. She tell me there are "juveniles" in the building and that we have to check references better. This lady never seems very concerned about this, as soon as the "report" is filed, she goes about her business. It can be hard to keep a straight face when she starts telling me these things.
Last week I was feeding dinner to another of our residents. She is 97 years old and like many older people, eating isn't one of her favorite things to do. She told me she wasn't very good at it. She gets a supplemental shake and seeing a full cup will often make them refuse the whole thing. I was pouring it into the cup, a little at a time and then letting her drink it. She got a little smile on her face, looked at me and said "I know what you're doing, you know". A few minutes later she said to me - "You're kind of cute". Isn't that sweet? I thought so too, until she said - "for an old lady!" Considering the fact that she is 97 and I am 47, I'm just hanging on to the fact that she is confused with a diagnosis of Alzheimer's!