chassit

So - all of the regular readers of my journal know that my Grandpa's in a nursing home for physical therapy right now, and most people that know me know I'm volunteering there. I figured it'd be an interesting enough post, and some people actually wanted to hear about it, so here we go!

When Grandpa first moved in there, the first time we went and stayed with him, I told Grandpa, Mom and Grandma that my legs were getting twitchy, so I was going to go for a walk to get a decent understanding of where everything was. Grandma told me not to bug anybody, and Mom told me to keep my phone on me, and I said yes to both but didn't quite follow the first one word for word.

So I got to stretch my legs and I figured out where everything was at, basically. The Lutheran home has one long hallway that branches out into others, with a nurse's station at the 'crossroads'. There's a large, lush green dining room with a piano, and there's a sitting room with a TV, as well as one that's connected to a little courtyard and has a swinging bench in it. In the room with the swinging bench there's beautiful dollhouses, and there's a stunningly beautiful bird cage - made of wood and glass, with little songbirds and a couple of doves. (Recently, a couple of birds had babies. I got to see three little fuzzy heads sticking out of a nest and begging for food, which they got.)

I got to the very front of the home, where most visitors enter, and saw a lady in a wheelchair next to the nursing station. She spotted me and asked "Do you work here?"

"Uh, no. What do you need?" I asked, completely breaking the promise into a thousand little shards, although she was the person who talked to me first.

"All I need is a push to the TV room. Can you do that for me?"

There were no nurses around at that time, and I figured I could do that and not get in too much trouble. So I took the handles of the wheelchair and we went along, talking a little bit. I told her my name, she told me her name was Alice. We went to a couple of different rooms, and we went to the TV room and sat down. One of the ladies there (who I guessed - correctly - worked there) looked at me after we said hi and said "Are you a relation of hers?"

My response was as follows: "... Uh. I can be if it gets me out of trouble."

After a few minutes of giggling, another employee said "You know, I think you'd make a good volunteer."

Before I left, I said I'd ask Mom about it, and I did - Mom and Grandma said they didn't have a problem with it, so the next time I went I picked up a sign up sheet and I filled everything out. After that I had a snazzy red vest with "Volunteer" on the back and permission to wander around and talk to people. (I've done more than that, I've helped pick up finished meal trays and helped with Bingo.)

For the most part, it's awesome. I made friends with a lady who's ninety six years old when I was looking for the cat that lived there (yes, they have a cat there. There's a dog that lives with its owner, although I haven't seen the dog in a bit). A lot of the time, we sit and watch Judge Judy and gossip about the people on the show. Also, I have come to the realization that old ladies always think you need to eat something. Some of the ladies really appreciate me hanging out with them, and I guess it makes me feel like I'm making a difference, even if it's not a big one.

And of course, sometimes it sucks. Sometimes a person won't remember you, and you know the reason why. Or you can't understand somebody, and you hate the fact you can't really have a conversation with them because of that. Or hearing a lady say "I want to go home" and threaten to break the fingers of a nurse when they try taking her back to her room (it's worse if you've had a conversation with her when she was lucid, and she said "I just met you and I love you."). Also trying to beat feet past the Casanova of the nursing home without trying to obviously do it is difficult, but hey.

Generally I end up talking to my Mom about my day, because chances are something new will have happened and generally it's good. Sometimes it's a mixed bag.

One day I had dinner with one of my friends, Alice. She said she couldn't eat all of her food, so did I want some? I am not good at saying no, and she was already cutting the sandwich in half. I asked a nurse about it and she said this one time it was okay. (The next time Alice offered me half a sandwich, I was able to turn it down, partly because I told her that I was going to have dinner with my Grandma after we left.)

And then there's days like today, when you hear a lady screaming to be taken home and it's really heartbreaking. But then you meet a lady and you talk with her a little bit, and all she really wants to do is sit and hold your hand and talk about the birds.

So I guess that's my first post on the whole volunteering thing. It won't be my last, but I wanted to get out a good, kinda serious post about it first. I'll probably put up more talking about random encounters, like the one I had with the Casanova of the place. But that's a story for another time.