New Beginnings and Endings

Hello everyone! I am excited to announce that this will be my last blog post on this site. I have been asked to move Geriatrics and the City to a new blog site called ChicagoNow. Here I will be able to acquire a lot more traffic, and network with fellow bloggers. I am hoping to make the move next week, and I will keep you all posted on where and how to find me!

Man, these people take their Bingo freaking seriously!! From the 5-7 minutes each of the winners usually take to carefully and methodically pick out their prize off of the prize cart, to the color-coded stacks they make with their bingo chips, to the sheer concentration that is exhibited during this activity that I never see from most of them any other time, it's clear to me that this is a BIG DEAL! But the moment that wins them all was yesterday when one of the particularly gruff and tough residents told her daughter, who has to play for her while she watches, "You better win, or I'll break your legs." Luckily, she won a game, and her daughter gets to keep her legs. For now...

The ability to be territorial and domineering is not lost with age, clearly. It a lot of cases, it is all they have left, and they exercise it constantly. Another interesting example of this is with a mother and son who live on the same floor. She is 98, and he is in his 70's. He is rather young to be there, but has some specific problems that make it necessary. I will call him, "Jack". She is tiny and has the cutest voice, that kind of makes her sound like a witch. I will call her, "Abigail". Today she was wearing a neon yellow Jackson Five t-shirt, and rolled herself aimlessly through the hallways most of the day. He is a man of very few words, he loves chocolate, and he likes to sleep ALOT! As his mother, she still looks out for him and gets very concerned about his well-being. Sometimes she gets upset that he is sleeping so much, and because she doesn't see him when he is awake, she assumes that he isn't waking up, and she becomes worried. Recently, I took her by his room, to prove that he was sleeping and that he is ok, so that she would calm down. I open the door, and push her in, and she sees him sleeping and very loudly, in her cute little witch voice says, "Jack. It's your mother talking to you. Are you sound asleep or just pretending?" He woke up and smiled at her. She waved her little hand at him, and we let him go back to sleep. A mother's work is never done.

Today, Kentucky pulled me aside and said, "Are we still friends?" I said, "Of course we are! I will never stop being your friend or stop loving you." Then I asked her, "What's my name." She said, "I can't remember. I'll just call you my 'boo-key girl'." Later, I asked her to tell me a joke. She replied with, "What's up that won't come down?" I answered, "I don't know, what?" She without even cracking a smile said, "Your britches." I said, "You are so funny, you know that?" She retorted, "If you say so."

Yesterday was probably the last really nice day we will get here in Chicago. So I took them all outside, one by one, or in small groups, and either took them on walks around the neighborhood, or we sat on the patio together. I definitely got my exercise in for the day! One that was especially difficult, but rewarding was a gentleman I will call "Bill." He is in his late 80's or early 90's and is a really tall and large-framed man. He is quite heavy. He has cancer, but is mentally all there. He used to design computer programs and is very smart. Whenever he wins Bingo, he picks out a prize for his granddaughter instead of himself. Anyways, I took him out for a walk last week, and when I did, he told me that he had not been outside since he moved into the home, and that was over a year ago. In fact, he rarely leaves his room. However, I have noticed that more and more lately, he has been coming out and joining us with our activities. Needless to say, he was thrilled with the walk. I probably pushed his heavy chair around for a good mile or so. So, yesterday, he came to me and specifically asked me to take him outside again, which I gladly did. He didn't even know what neighborhood he was living in, or anything about the area. I am very thankful that I have a job that allows me to get outside when it is nice out, instead of being cooped up. That I can get in my exercise time during work time. And that I can get somebody out of their house for the first time in over a year!

Now for a sad announcement. I think we all knew it was bound to happen eventually. I have lost my first resident to heaven. I knew going into this job that this was going to happen, and I was prepared. I feel honored to have helped take care of her, and to have hopefully brightened her life while she was here. I haven't spoken of her before, so I will tell you about her briefly right now. I am going to call her "Margaret". You see, she had a stroke some time ago, and right as she had the stroke she called out her sister's name, "Margaret". As a result, that became one of the few words she could say. She could say "hi", "yes", and "no". Other than that, it was just "Margaret". So when you would have a conversation with her, she thought she was saying exactly what she should be saying, but she was just repeating this name over and over again, with different inflections and what not. She loved watching CSI type shows and had seen them all repeatedly. One day, I went in her room and sat with her while she was watching one. Within a couple of minutes, I thought I had figured out who the culprit was. So I said, "He did it, didn't he?" She smiled and said, "Yes!! Margaret margaret margaret, Margaret MARGARET margaret, margaret." She spent most of her time in her room. So I didn't get to spend as much time with her as some of the others, but I did get to know her sister, who came to visit her almost daily. "Margaret" was very kind and will be missed.

I know that as time goes on, and I get more attached to certain people, some of the passings will be harder. But I prepared myself for this going in. This quote from one of my favorite shows, "Derek", accurately sums up my outlook on this situation, and the way I plan to encounter these moments, "I see people out of life. Somebody sees you in, like a midwife, and I see people out. I make sure that they can go at peace with everything in order. I have been with a lot of people as they die. It is a privilege. I am not scared of it."