Carol

I usually do group therapy sessions on Fridays.  It gives the residents a chance to socialize with each other and it gives me an opportunity to get alot of people done at one time so I have a chance to catch up on paperwork later in the day.  Well, one day I had several patients in the therapy room and we were practicing memory strategies.

I was explaining that one way to help remember a person's name is to come up with an adjective that begins with the same letter as the first name of the person whose name you're trying to remember.  Now, let me stop and explain who was in my group that morning:  a 65 year old Caucasian man with a traumatic brain injury from a car wreck, 2 Caucasian ladies who had been really ill and needed some help with their cognition, and Carol, a 40 year old African American woman who had been on drugs in recent history and as a result, had severe brain damage from lack of oxygen to the brain.  So after explaining, I said, "Ok, let's each try to come up with a way that the rest of the group can remember us by using this strategy." Almost immediately, Carol pipes up and says, "Well...I'm the only f***ing black one in here." A little stunned and trying really really hard not to laugh, I told her, "Well, that is true, but let's try to come up with an adjective that starts with a 'C' that describes you.  That's the strategy we're working on."  She thought for a long time, started giggling, and said, "What about Crackhead Carol? Heh Heh Heh. That pretty much sums it up for everybody."  Needless to say, not a single person in that room forgot Carol's name.