Margaret and Vince

From time to time, we'll get couples in our nursing home.  Some want to live together in the same room, and others...well let's just say that it's better for their health and sanity (and those of the people who work at the nursing home) if they are put in different rooms. It's also really interesting how the dynamics of a relationship change as the couple ages. I mean, alot of the men that come to stay with us are veterans--men's men.  Strong men who fought for our freedom.  Men who have traveled around the world and were probably womanizers at one time. And the women of the Baby Boomer Era were homemakers generally.  They gave their lives to their families.  They were typically Christian woman who believed that men were the leaders of the home.  I use those terms in the past tense because all of that changes as they get older.  It's been my experience that women get more ballsy and men get more submissive! Women wear the pants in the nursing home relationships. It's like the men are so beat down, they'll do anything to shut their wives up. We have a couple who have been at our facility for a while now and they live together--Margaret and Vince.  I haven't heard Vince speak but maybe a few words and Margaret can be loud and crass.  A couple of days ago, I was doing some swallowing therapy in the dining room and was sitting at a table next to theirs.  They had finished their breakfast and Vince had gotten up to leave, leaving his prune juice untouched. He was just about to grab his walker when Margaret yells at him. "Daddy, you better drink that prune juice!!!!" He looked at her with an annoyed sigh.  She yelled again, "Daddy, you better drink that prune juice or you'll get the constipation and I don't want you to have the constipation!!!!!!!" He didn't say a word but picked up the juice and took a small sip. She immediately yelled at him, "DADDY--DRINK, DRINK, DRINK IT!!!!" And as he chugged that god awful stuff, she started chanting, as if he were shot gunning a beer, "DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!" And after he drank it, she said in a normal tone, "Now, see.  All done.  And you can poop now." And he walked off with his walker in silence, leaving her to trail behind him.

After they left, it made me wonder what it would be like if my husband and I had to live in a nursing home together when we got old.  And all I have to say is--based on my personality now-- that I feel SO sorry for him when that time comes!!!  He's gonna thank the Lord that he's 8 years older than me....

Claire Again

Well, now that Claire is doing therapy, it seems that we can't get rid of her.  Even after her session is over, she wants to hang out in the therapy room.  We have a dog that lives at our facility named Cosmo--he's old (he just turned 14), lazy, and deaf.  He, too, hangs out in the therapy room all of the time.  But that may be because he gets a regular flow of doggie treats throughout the day there.  Cosmo has a bad habit of laying down right in front of the entrance to the therapy room for some reason, which makes it a little hard for our residents to get in. This afternoon, Claire decided she wanted to eat her ice cream sandwich in the therapy room, but Cosmo happened to be in the way.  My PT suggested to her, "Just encourage him to get out of the way.  Let him know you mean business and he'll move. And remember, he's deaf, so speak loudly."  Claire looked down at Cosmo and yelled at the top of her lungs, "G*D D**N SON OF A B****! MOVE YOUR OLD ASS OUT OF THE WAY!" Now, I'm used to cussing--it's actually kind of sad that I'm almost immune to it.  But the bad part of the whole thing was that today was payday at the nursing home.  And when it's payday, the employees all bring their young children to the nursing home with them to pick up their checks.  At this particular time of day, there just happened to be a bunch of little children doing puzzles in our therapy room.  And they ALL looked up at Claire after her little outburst. I immediately said, "Claire, there are little children in here."  And she quickly snapped at me, "Hell Melissa. You know I can't see."  And then muttered under her breath before taking a huge bite out of her ice cream, "Those kids can just get over it."

Dottie

Dottie was playing Bingo with my speech therapist today in the dining room.  Now, in the world of nursing homes, Bingo is an obsession.  The elderly flock to Bingo games when it's announced over the intercom.  Some have all of the Bingo games circled on their calendars, and they get there an hour before it starts to pick their cards.  And yes, I mean more than one card.  We have ladies who will use 5 or 6 bingo cards. We have ladies who have to have an entire table to themselves because they have so many cards. I've actually had to have an intervention with ladies who just can't handle the multiple bingo cards anymore.  And it's traumatic for them.  It's like you put a big ass B on their chest, showing all of the other bingo players they just don't cut it anymore. Dottie is one of those one bingo card gals. As the numbers were being called out, Dottie suddenly did the cough/fart combo and her false teeth shot from her mouth and bounced onto the floor (Now I'm not going to diss my nursing home but you NEVER know what is on the dining room floor).  She looked up from her Bingo card and said in a loud surprised voice, "OH MY GAWD!" Then she looked around, picked up her dentures, and put those suckers right back in her mouth.

Claire

We have a very funny lady named Claire who lives in our nursing home.  She is pretty hard of hearing and can't see 10 feet in front of her.  She also happens to have large breasts for her small frame. And she never wears a bra and is always tucking her shirts up under her melons when she gets hot. We've tried to get her to participate in therapy many, many times, but she always refused...that is, until I hired a male physical therapist. Then she reconsidered. She was doing therapy today and was pretty out of breath from walking.  The physical therapist looked at her with concern and asked, "Claire are you out of breath?"  She squinted at him and said, "What?" He rephrased the question. "Are you breathless?"  She looked at him in disbelief and said, pointing at 'the girls,' "Hell no I'm not breastless...have you seen these?"

Eula and Cathy

I was in the dining room during breakfast one morning, and it was one of those quiet meals where nobody speaks to each other because they are still half-asleep.  Well, Eula and a lady named Cathy eat at the same table.  Cathy had finished her breakfast and decided it was time to get up out of her chair and grab her walker to leave.  Cathy ALWAYS has a hard time getting up out of her chair and today was no exception. Heave, heave, ho.  Couldn't get up.  Heave, heave, ho.  Nope, she wasn't going anywhere.  Heave, heave, ho. FART FART FART. And she was up. I looked around to see if anyone was looking at her or laughing (yes, old people still laugh when someone farts--if they can still hear.)  But no one had even turned their head in her direction. Eula continued to eat her breakfast and just turned to Cathy with no expression on her face.  Then, in her LOUD Slingblade-like voice, she said "You got the arthritis?" And Cathy replied, "Yep, I got the arthritis." Eula was nodding her head and said loudly, "Yeah you gotta watch that arthritis.  One day you'll be feeling fine and then the next day, it will take you down like the f***ing Titanic." Cathy nodded "Ain't it a bitch?"  And Cathy walked away.  Yep, just another normal breakfast in long term care.

Dorothy

Part of my job is to work with people who have swallowing problems.  It's great in a nursing facility because I can usually get a couple of my patients in the therapy room at lunch and have them eat in there with me, so I'm not running around for an entire hour and can actually do effective therapy.  Well one day, I had 2 patients for swallowing therapy at lunch and my OT had 2 other patients in the therapy room to help them with self-feeding.  All of them were women--thank goodness.  You'll understand later in the story why I'm grateful a man wasn't in there!  A funny little lady named Dorothy was in the room working with my OT--Dorothy had Alzheimer's.  She had a sweet doll-like face to go along with her 200+ lb frame.  But part of Alzheimers in the later stages is that the person isn't able to use facial expressions---they have what we call 'flat affect.' Dorothy never smiled. So here I was feeding one of my patients (I was sitting across the room from Dorothy) and I accidentally dropped gravy on my pants--right below my zipper on the leg of my khaki pants.  I went and got a wet paper towel and starting scrubbing my pants trying to get the gravy off.  Meanwhile, my OT was asking Dorothy a question about her meal--but Dorothy did not respond.  She was a little preoccupied watching me clean my pants.  Actually, staring is more like it. Dorothy finally held up her hand to my OT and said, "I'm sorry--I don't know what you said.  I can't think of anything else because I'm watching this masturbation."  I immediately looked up in shock!  And I tried not to crack up--actually we just ignored her because we honestly did not know what to say.  After I got the gravy off, I had this big wet spot on my pants.  So I grabbed the box fan sitting on the floor next to me and turned it toward me so my pants would dry.  Dorothy looked at the fan and then looked back at me and said frankly, "That's right girl.  You heated it up, now you gotta cool it down."  And that's when I cracked up.

Hank

I had a gentleman who came in our nursing facility with his sodium levels out of whack.  You would never really guess the importance of the right amount of sodium in your system until you saw someone with low sodium.  Let me just tell you, those people have been thrown for a loop.  Well, I did an evaluation and ended up picking Hank up for speech therapy because he was so confused.  One day, I went in his room to get him for therapy and found him laying in his bed butt naked fanning his genitals with his pillow.  I got a little closer, but not too close, you know.  Old men are like baby boys--you never know when their little thingy is going to let loose.  And I DO NOT like to be peed on.  So I got close enough to him for him to hear me and I said, "Hank, I've come to get you for therapy."  He looked at me blankly, and then said, with his upper dentures just flopping around in his mouth, "I don't like broccoli."  I shook my head and said, "No, Hank.  I don't care if you like broccoli... I'm here to get you for therapy."  He pauses from fanning himself, leans his head toward me, and yells at the top of his lungs, "I DO NOT LIKE BROCCOLI!!!!!!!"  So I left his room--And I went to the dietary manager to make sure that broccoli was listed in the dislike column of his meal card, and I left it at that.  Sometimes, that's all you can do, you know?  Just leave well enough alone and make sure the man never gets broccoli again.