Location: Lakeview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center
Date: Monday, July 20, 2015; 6:15-7:15 pm
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| My buddy Bodie |
I arrived to see that the regulars like Charta and Bodie were
already here. Bodie’s owner said to him
that his favorite person was here, and Bodie agreed since he sat in my lap and
licked me all over. In the meanwhile, Charta
was grumbling…maybe she was jealous. There
were plenty of other cuties, including a golden haired thing and two tiny creatures,
one of which was a 4 month old excitable pup called Tokyo. Robyn was the leader for this evening and so
Bruce and June were in attendance. There
was another tiny ‘Pug’ who was a
spitting image of a younger Bruce. I
said that he could be Bruce's son and perhaps there is something that Bruce
should be telling us!
We all went inside the Bingo room and I stopped over to say
hi to Jim Jack and Larry. After a brief
visit we came out and while Robyn was doing her speech, I was holding on to
Bruce. He was behaving as usual and sat
down. I was paired with Charta and her owner Elaine and though initially I
offered to take June with me, it perhaps would not have been wise, since she is
so attached to Bruce. Charta was looking
girly with nice pink flowers in her hair. We started on the 3rd and initially
did not have any luck, since all the residents seemed to be sleeping. We stopped at the room with the gentleman who
was talking to me about his brother last time. He was incoherent once again, though he kept
saying something about a building and we thought that he was asking if we would
buy it. I said that I was in no position
to buy anything of that sort. We hung
around for a bit and I told Elaine that even if we cannot understand him, just having someone listen to his babble will perhaps help him.
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| Charta was looking pretty with her pink flowers |
Next up was Hannah and her roommate Linda – the one who
likes reading. I asked what she was
reading currently and she said that it was a romance novel. I asked what the story was about and she said that
it was about a guy who wants to know about love and is stalking a woman he
likes, but it's complicated since she's caring for a mentally challenged
person. It didn't seem very romantic to me! She said that there was a library
in the basement and they usually brought her books. She asked me to get some books from her
dresser and then showed me all the books that she had lined up. Hannah was still holding on to hope for the
publication of her book and I said that one day her book should be on her
roommate’s dresser. She had the picture
of Johnny B with her and asked me to put it inside and lock the drawer. Then she asked if I had checked to see if it
was locked. Later when she asked me to
remove it, she asked again if I had locked it and checked. Aah Hannah.
Next, we went to a room and were chatting with a lady there
when her roommate came out of the bathroom.
Her name was Lil and she called Charta “Babita” and when we asked, she said that it was Spanish. She said that her English wasn’t that good and I
said that her English wasn’t as bad as our Spanish.
She mentioned how she had a dog and how her husband didn’t like
him. She said that he was jealous that
she liked the dog more than him, so much so that she had told her husband to
leave. She said that her neighbors
didn’t like her dog and she had asked them to leave as well. Well, there was no messing with this one. She told us how she had come from Puerto Rico
when she was 23 and would die here…just like her husband. She then talked about how her husband had
left her some money, but her daughter-in-law had taken it all away from the
bank. She said that she did not
understand what her son saw in her – saying that “she’s shorter than me”! She
said that she was now going to stay here till the government threw her
out. There’s nothing much that one can
say here, and I said that I hoped she could stay as long as she wanted.
We stopped to see Audrey who was sitting in a chair. She was in good spirits and said that she had
been to her doctor today and could sit up.
She said that she was also able to eat now, with feeding tubes having
being her source for long time. She said
that a lot of food was on floor though and Charta was doing a great job of
finding it. She asked us to come earlier
next time before the other dogs got to the scraps. I said Monday evenings her floor would be the
cleanest. She said that she goes for all
activities they have here and I said that I admired her spirit. I said that many give up in a place like
this, but not her. Next, we went to a
room which was much cooler and the lady there – Ethel – said that she had
gotten them to open the window. That
made a huge difference to the place, it its ambiance and the comfort
level. She was a cheerful person and had
teddy bears in her room. She was another
resident with a good spirit and I said that we would visit her next week. We stopped to meet with Jerry and Charta got on
the bed for a lot of treats. Jerry is popular
and I saw that someone had dropped pictures of their dogs with him. I told Elaine that she should do the same for
Charta. Time was almost up and we
wouldn’t be able to do the 2nd floor. Charta and Elaine left and I stopped in the
Bingo room to say bye to Jim, who seemed ticked that Kenny always brings up "Hawaii 5-0" when "50" is called I said come on, that’s
all in good fun and what makes Kenny who he is.
Aah Bingo. It does bring them all
to life.
*All the client's names have been changed in
order to respect their privacy
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