Location: Lakeview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center
Date: Monday, May 04, 2015; 6:15-8:15 pm
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| Our team for this evening |
I arrived to see that Jim, Larry and Jack had already assembled
at their usual table. It was especially
pleasing to see Larry since he had recently been in a hospital. Jim said that they had missed me at the game night last
Wednesday, something that I wanted to come for, but had been delayed at work. Veronica, who was the leader for tonight,
came over to and asked us all to assemble in the hallway. There were a lot of dogs tonight, including
an outrageously cute ‘Westie’ named
Bodie, who seemed excited to see me. Despite
his enthusiasm, I was paired with a volunteer named Mel and a lovely ‘Corgi-Black Lab’ mix named Shiena. Though she was 4, Shiena had the spirit of a
puppy.
We started on 3rd floor and our first stop was
with a gentleman who I had not met before. He had been a dog owner in the past and was
keen on talking about them. Next, we
moved to the adjoining room and another lady whom I had not met. She had also been a dog owner and when I
asked what kind of dogs, she replied, "What
didn't I have". We learnt that
at one time she had as many as 7 dogs, including a ‘Doberman’, a ‘German
Shepherd’, a ‘Poodle’ etc. She also had a ‘Black Lab’ who was named Jack Black, but she called him “Blackie”. I asked if they all had separate bowls for
eating and she said that they usually came in one at a time. She said that they did so because there was
one big ‘German Shepherd’ who would
have otherwise eaten everyone's food. I
asked if she had cats as well and she said no since her sister was afraid of
cats. It was a nice visit and
reminiscing about the old days seemed to please her. I am sure that it also helps in their constant
battle against something like ‘Alzheimer’s’.
We moved on and stopped to say hi to Pearl. She told me that she was going blind and had
been diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease due to lack of proper nutrition.
She once again reiterated the poor diet
here and I said that she needs to get that issue to the forefront amongst
everything else that she was doing. I
introduced her to Mel and Pearl called herself a "provocateur"; but in a good way I added. Pearl said that she has a “doctorate degree” and so she should at least know a bit of what
she was saying. She showed us some of
the jewelry that she had been working on and I said that I wanted to get some,
but did not know who to give it to. Pearl
said that she makes jewelry for men and that I could wear it, which would be stretch
since I don't even wear a watch. I told Pearl
that we had to continue on, but I would be back at the end of the night. Before leaving, she told Mel that I was a “ray of light”, which was the sweetest
thing that I had heard in a long time.
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| Shiena |
Next stop was with Polly and Dena. Polly told us that she liked her time here
and having just come from visiting Pearl, I said that this was the first time I
had heard anyone say that about this place!
She talked about possibly going to ‘Northwestern
Hospital’ after this. That’s not
bad, but she said that she preferred staying here than with doctors around. I could understand that. We went over to see Hannah and as soon as I
had introduced her to Mel, Hannah told her the story of Johnny B and his
kidnapping. I asked about her book and
she said that her lawyers are looking for an agent. I said that perhaps she could do “crowd source funding”, because I’m sure
there are many cat lovers out there who may want to help out. Before we left, Hannah told Mel and Shiena to
sign up for talent agency! We went to
see Jerry and as usual, Shiena loved him and his treats. After giving him plenty of licks, we left to
go down to the 2nd floor and see David, who rubbed Shiena down and
she enjoyed every minute of it.
Our final stop was to see Loritta and she was in top form
today. I asked if her son was going to
wish her for ‘Mother’s Day’ and she
said he’d better. We talked about her
two grandsons, one who has a “doctorate”
and the other who is high school dropout.
She said that the educated guy does not visit as much as the other one
does. I said it goes to show that
education alone doesn’t define anyone. I
asked why she wasn’t moving to Georgia to be with her son and she mentioned she
would never go to a “Southern State”
after what happened in the past, leading us to discuss segregation and
prejudice. She asked if I had faced it
at any point and I said never. She
mentioned how people were treated in Chicago, as recent as 1987, like not being
allowed into certain establishments. I
said “remember the history, but don’t let
it be a burden” and she said that it was easy for me to say that. She said that she would rather live in South
Africa amongst the lions rather than the South…and lions eat us she added! I laughed at that as well as when she
mentioned how people have prejudice against dark skin people, and yet spray tan
themselves to look like them. That was a
hilarious observation.
Time was up and I dropped off Mel and Shiena downstairs and
thanked them for coming. I went back
up to see Pearl and she was with some other volunteers and dogs. I went in after they had left and she told me
that a girl had said that she never knew compassion till her conversations with
Pearl. I said that it’s because despite
all of her issues, Pearl has compassion towards her fellow residents. She told me about an “Alzheimer’s” patient down the hall and how Pearl showed her a
video of a comedian musician called Tim Hawkins. Then she went on to show me the video and it
was rather funny. Music and humor,
that’s what people need I told her. I
left soon but not before she encouraged me to think about wearing jewelry. She also told me that she read this blog and “it gave further clarity to the person that she
knew I was”.
*All the client's names have been changed in
order to respect their privacy
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