Evelyn

Evelyn is hilarious.  She's 97, has her own teeth, is deaf, and is a tank.  She's indestructible. She falls over and over again and always gets right back up. We've had her on therapy before and she's hit on my male PTA more times than I can count. She always asks him if he'll be her boyfriend. Plus the fact that she speaks German, Spanish and English, sometimes in the same sentence--and that just makes her funnier. Physical therapy has her on caseload right now and on Fridays, we do a little group. Today in group, I asked Evelyn if she knew what one of the therapist's names was, and what was her answer??? "I rode a bull calf once."  I yelled in her ear the question again, and what was her response? "I really did ride a bull calf.  It's harder than hell to ride one of those things." I gave up.

My physical therapist told me today that Evelyn pulled out her boob yesterday in the therapy room. When she pulled it out, she exclaimed, "Oh my goodness, I forgot I had those things.  When the hell did they get so saggy?" When my PT told her that there were men present, she shrugged her shoulders and replied, "It ain't nothing they've never seen before." Then tucked her boob back up under her shirt.

Wilma and Geanine

Wilma is hard of hearing. Actually, she can't hear a damn thing.  You have to yell at her if you want her to hear anything. Geanine, on the other hand, is the epitome of demure. She has a soft sophisticated feel to her voice and has a tendency to be a little dramatic. She's usually very soft spoken and rarely raises her voice.

Wilma and Geanine both spend their days in the lobby. They like to watch the people go in and out and make comments about every single thing they see.  As we're all aware, it's been HOT in Texas. And the other day, Geanine decides to comment about the weather.  She says to Wilma, "It's hotter than Hades." Wilma gives her a blank stare and says, "I can't hear you.  Speak louder." Geanine leans closer and yells, "It's hotter than hell!!!" Wilma looks at her. "I still can't hear you." Geanine yells, "Hell! Hell! It's hotter than hell!!!" Wilma shouts back at her, "I'm not going to hell!!! If anyone is going to hell, it's you, you ole biddy!!!!"

HAHA

Edgar

I had not realized how long it had been since I last posted!  That's unacceptable, and I now have a renewed fervor for the blog.  Let's hope it continues. :) I have a lot of catching up to do.

I have a patient on my caseload right now named Edgar. Edgar is a pretty unusual guy--he has absolutely no social filter.  He calls every female he sees either 'babycakes,' 'sugar lips,' or just plain 'baby.'  Unfortunately for him, Edgar has swallowing problems.  And anytime a patient has swallowing problems, I have to order an xray to assess the swallow called an MBSS. A van comes to the facility and another SLP and radiologist do the study. When someone has swallowing difficulties, SLPs use two words to describe if food or liquid gets to the level of the vocal cords--penetration and aspiration.  It's not really important to the story what the words mean, but I figure you know where I'm going with this...

So Edgar and I get on the van and it turns out the SLP doing the study is really young and cute.  Inside, I'm cringing, because I know how this is going to go--a big 'ole game of grab-ass. So she gets started and introduces herself.  Luckily, Edgar is on his best behavior--at first. But as the SLP gets into the study, Edgar gets on a roll. She talks about her findings out loud and then I hear the phrase, "there's subepiglottic coating but no penetration is noted." And then there's a pause. Edgar looks at her, smirks, and says, "There may not be no penetration now, but I'd sure like there to be some on this here bus later." Then he proceeds to grab her ass.

Luckily, the SLP was a good sport and let him know that the first grope is free. 

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?"