Location: Lakeview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center
Date: Monday, January 05, 2015; 6:15-7:45 pm
It was a new year and I was on
the wait list for both, ‘Pet Therapy’
and ‘Bingo’. First ‘Bingo’
opened up and so I signed-up and then when ‘Pet
Therapy’ had availability, I shifted there.
Yeah, I’m flaky like that. I
arrived at Lakeview Nursing on a chilly evening and learnt that all the pet
owners had dropped out owing to the cold and only one dog was expected. There were 5 other “Non-Pet” volunteers besides me, meaning we had more than were
required, though one guy offered to go home and get his pup. I told our Volunteer leader Veronica that I
would shift over to ‘Bingo’ and once
that Volunteer leader Maureen had accepted me; I was back where I should have
been in the first place.
 |
| The mysterious O74 |
I saw that Jack,
Larry and Jim were at their usual table, but wait – Jim shouldn’t even be
here. I asked why he had not left yet
and he mentioned something about waiting for his ‘Social Security’ check to come in.
He said that he had come to Lakeview Nursing broke and he was leaving
broke. It was a new beginning indeed. I had not seen Emma in ages and she
seemed…well smaller than usual. I asked
how she was and she responded with something that sounded like “nice”.
Maureen asked if I could “call”
the game, since the regular caller, Jim, was on vacation. We found the ‘Bingo balls’ and I took a seat next to Josie and another
volunteer. Also present at our table
were Holly and another resident. Holly
has a great personality and she was chatty as usual. She told me that there was an extra ‘O74’ ball that had been written with
pen, and if I found that, I should keep it aside. I said that I would do that, though why there
were two in there was beyond me.
I asked Josie
what her favorite number was and she said 15, since that’s her birthdate. Holly said that her birthdate was 7, making
it her favorite number. It was time to
begin and Maureen started with an announcement that we had a “rookie caller”. “Only at this location”, I added.
I started calling by first saying the entire number followed by
splitting of each component. The
residents actually liked that approach.
My debut as a caller proved to be lucky for Emma who won and I was
thrilled about that. Josie was next and
Fran, who was volunteering at our table as well, joked that I had made a deal
with her – especially when she won again.
The prize for winning was a dollar and I said that I was keeping half of
it!
Holly had been prophetic and the
painted ‘O74’ kept showing up every
time. When 50 showed up, I looked at Kenny
and he said that he was not going to list all of the guest stars to his
favorite show ‘Hawaii 5-0’, though he
did point out that it was on Friday’s. I
have been hearing him announce it for 2 years and I still haven’t watched
it. After a few rounds my fellow
volunteer took over and I shifted to playing on her card. Holly had been complaining that her luck was
bad and I said that luck had nothing to do with it since it was all in the
wrist. Whatever it was, I wasn’t wining
either. The residents were critical of
the new caller since she was speaking softly and not splitting the
numbers. Man, I had set some high standards!
The game progressed smoothly and
after the lightening round it was time to leave. I dropped Emma off in her room…something I
had not done in a long time. While we
were waiting for the nurse to come over and help her in bed, I commented on the
plush toys in her room. She kept saying
that the nurse was “nice”. Aah, I had missed Emma. I came downstairs and chatted with Fran and
Veronica, where we agreed that we needed more dogs for sure. It had been a long time since I had come here
on Mondays and I definitely need to start again. Before leaving I told Jim that he better be
out of here when I came next. He said
that he couldn’t wait to do so. I said
that he needed to be patient and as I walked out, I heard him lamenting with Larry
on how they were fed up of waiting and being patient. Yeah, I hear you buddy.
*All the client's names have been changed in
order to respect their privacy
No comments:
Post a Comment