Elderly

Well my daddy has been gone for 3 months this coming Monday. I went back to work March 1 after being out of work since Nov. 27, 2009, by my choice. I am working in another long term care facility. I now look at the male residents much different now than before.

I have always enjoyed the elderly way back as I can remember. I was 21 years old when my great grandmother left this earth. I remember sitting on the floor next to her rocker and listening to her tell me about how she grew up here in Cincinnati, OH. How the riverfront changed over the years and what it was like growing up in a river town. German immigrants settled downtown in an area that became known as Over The Rhine. My family's descendants are German. My great grandmother was a Duncan, she married a Clinger, my grandmother married a Brock and my mother married a Keller. My parents had been married about two years when they found out that they were actually fourth cousins.

Back to looking at the male residents differently than I used to. Some of you know that I am a nurse and one of my specialties is Geriatric Nursing. When I take care of these men now, I look for things in them that remind me of my father and how he must have felt being in a long term care center himself. I enjoy watching these men interact with one another at the dining tables. My father enjoyed bantering with the nurses as some of my male residents do. I enjoy bantering also, so I just give it back to them. We had a new male resident admit four days ago and I noticed that he became pretty close to another resident almost immediately. Their conversation during meal time was with laughter and reminiscing about the "Good Old Days". As they parted ways at the end of the meal, I heard them say to each other and at the same time, "See you this evening!" The new resident had no idea that his new friend was discharging the next day to go live in a different facility. I gave in report that we might want to keep an eye on the new guy because he might become depressed related to this fact. I was off the next day. Went back to work today and the daughter of the new resident called me and explained that her father was experiencing the "blues". I told her what I thought the problem could be and she informed me that she thinks I hit the nail on the head.

The facility that my father was living in was in a small town, Xenia, OH. Everybody knows everybody and most likely their business too! There were two men that my father knew in his younger years living in the same facility. One of those men lived right across the hall from my father. When my father died, I wonder how those men felt. Do they sit there and just wait for their turn?

The fact that I work in a long term care facility doesn't keep me from wondering how it would be to live in one. I know what it is like to work in one, but to actually be a resident. Especially, knowing what I know that goes on behind the scenes, I probably wonder about it a lot differently than most people. I don't want to think about it any longer, at least not now. I will close this post.