Well, well, well. Let's see... Things are a little crazy at the nursing home (and hospital for that matter) this week. The state surveyors walked in yesterday for their yearly checkin, so they are breathing down our necks to see what they can write us up for. The good thing is, they have to breath down our necks b/c that nursing home is ran so well there isn't anything obviously against regulations. But still, I am keeping my head down and staying out of the way. Every time one of those people with the clipboards looks like they are trying to think of something to ask, everyone in the therapy staff mysteriously disappears.
I was hiding from them during a therapy session with this sweet little lady. She has some weakness in her muscles and it's hard to understand what she is saying, so we were doing speech drills. I forget how proper and old fashioned some of these little ones are. She was repeating after me, "Little Lucy likes to leap" over and over and she interjected, "though it's NOT very lady like!"
I would just like to issue a challange to all those reading this entry. When you are 90 plus and if then, you are living in a nursing home, be nice to the people who take care of you. There is no need for hatered. I know you will perhaps be bitter that there are all these young be-boppers coming in telling you that there are things wrong with you that have never been wrong with you before, but just give them the benefit of the doubt. Just remember after 90 years, some things don't work as well as they used to and something's bound to give.
All that to say I have a current patient who, God love him, is just having a slow time progressing in swallow therapy. And his wife is so demented it is scary- I mean it's like talking to 5 different people at once- AND she's driving, FYI Nashville drivers (she's probably the one who nearly killed me last week in that almost car wreck I wrote about).
They already think I am Satan's spawn because I recommended he need thickened liquids because he is aspirating (food/drink going into the lungs- not good) regular thin liquids. And of course they think I did this for my own enjoyment and pure pleasure in life. But he still works in therapy and does all the exercises to regain strength in those muscles so maybe he can one day go back to regular liquids. But today I walked in his room and greeted him and asked him how we was doing this morning and he said, "I was fine until you came in." I mean, I know he has a lot going on, but that's just plain hateful. Those are the times you have to bite your tongue from saying, "Well that concludes our therapy FOREVER... enjoy thickened liquids for the rest of your life." He's the same patient who goes to the weekly devotionals and yells out explicatives at the preacher the whole time :).
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