My Princess

Oh, I had to add another resident.  My Princess.  Lucia.  She is from New York, a true blood italian catholic.  She does every single activity there every was.  She is up for anything you ask of her.  She is a helper, one bossy lady who knows exactly where everyone should sit and how.  She bosses the men around especially, and they let her.  I think they are scared of her.  You would think she was a school teacher, but she was a wife and mom.  She worked as a Rivetor during the WWII, to help out the boys at war.  Every sunday her son picks her up and takes her to mass.  After that she says that he takes her back to her house, where she does her laundry and dusts her furniture and cleans the house she still owns.  She has been here for over 2 years. We do her laundry.  And sometimes the house she owns is in New York.  Another resident who lives here used to be her neighbor in Portland when they were young wives. When Lucia moved in, she walked into lunch and found her old friend sitting there. What a joyous occasion. I will miss her most of all. We had some great visits, went to some great places and had fun at everything we did.  Oh...and she obsessively hoards toliet tissue and kleenex.  It's funny!

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is my last day at the assisted living.  I move on to a retirement/independent community.  The resident I would like to remember today is "Leala." (Names changed to protect privacy)  She is 101! She is a little white haired lady, a spit fire.  She is so sweet when she is normal, but aggressive, bullying, anxious when she is wound up.  The most recent saturday she showed up in the hallway before breakfast naked as a jaybird, screaming that she wanted to go home.  She always begs for someone to help her. To call her daughter.  To take her home.  "Where are you going?" "Are you going by my house?" "Can you take me home?" She wants to go see her mommy.  She thinks that she wets her pants, but when she changes herself, it seems she is dry. ??  She thinks she does not live here and that somewhere her parents are supposed to come and get her.  She recognizes her room, but does not want to be there. She runs her fingers thru her hair until it stands on end.  When I come to work I can tell just by looking at her what kind of day she is having.  The other day, she hit our new executive director with her walker.  She worries about the car that ran out of gas, that they took down to Enterprise and need to go get it.  She is soo anxiety ridden, worrisome, that she makes herself crazy.  I try to be understanding and hold her hand and keep her company.  She cries.  Nothing pleases her anymore.  When I first started working there, she would come to exercise, have coffee, laugh at horoscopes, play bingo, do beanbag baseball.  She was pretty active.  In the last three months, she has gone thru such a decline.  It's almost hard to fathom.  At her birthday, when we sang happy birthday, she reminded us that we needs to add "and many more" at the end.  What a thought, that at 101 she wanted to have many more birthdays.  I wouldn't if I was in her shoes.  She makes me cry when I leave the building, she is soo miserable.  There is nothing we can do for her.  I will miss her.

Did I take my pills?

So my first week at work, was chaotic to say the least.  I was trained for about a day where everything was.  Then my trainer moved on to her new facility.  The first resident to take the cake was Marcella...She has memory issues and would be at the front desk as soon as I  came in the door.  First thing she would say was "Did I take my pills at breakfast?"  First it was funny. THEN it became hilarious.  All day long...at least 25 times a day...did I take my pills?  It got to be that instead of saying Hi, You would say yes Marcella you took your pills.  No, Marcella we don't play bingo for money.   Here is the schedule for the day to keep with you..maybe that will help..but not so much.  We sit down to play Bunco and she says "What are we playing? I've never played this before!"  The other residents would say..Marcella, you play this every day...She would argue...no I don't.  I've never played this before... Did I take my pills?" In addition to getting to know the residents, my week consisted of construction teams remodeling the facility.  The second day they removed every stitch of furniture including the stove and fridge from the activity room and replaced the floor...that took 3 days.  So I not only don't know where any games are kept, but we can't do anything in the activity room.  Also every space that we used or went to the pounding and hammering would make so much noise we couldn't talk or play game or call bingo.  All the residents were in upheaval.  They poke their heads out the door and their whole house is different.  Talk about confused!  Did I take my pills?

90 day mark

I have almost reached the 3 month mark of my employment at an assisted living facility. I have had so many interesting things happen there, that I decided to try to blog about them.  Some may be interesting to you and some you may not understand because you had to be there.  Some tales may reach down into your heart and rip it out.  Some will make you roar with laughter.  Or nothing will touch you at all.  I have been changed since I met these people living here.  I will change their names to protect their privacy and begin to tell you about them.   I have given my two week notice that I am moving to another facility.  I just can't handle the lack of care the residents are getting.  My intent is not to bash the facility but to enjoy memories of the residents and how they effected my life.  Must go for now, more later.