One On One Time

Posted on 21/02/2016 by Grumpa Joe

For the past three weeks I spent a lot of time visiting Peg at the nursing home. On the day she was admitted, I met with the home’s doctor. He told me that the average recovery time for someone who has been bed ridden is four days of rehab for every day spent in bed. Peg spent four days in bed so my rapid fire brain calculated sixteen days of rehab. Yet, to be very honest, Peg looked like she was just a few hours away from a casket. I went home and prayed. Then, I dialed an agency that provides full time help.

After twenty days in rehab Peg is smiling again, and attempts to walk at every chance she gets. She presents a fall hazard to the home. She began complaining about the CNA who takes care of her, and she has been refusing to take medications. She is ready to come home.

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I had a different theme for this post when I began, but the phone rang a moment ago, and quickly changed my train of thought. The nurse at the home called to report that Peggy refused to eat anything including her favorite, ice cream. I spoke to Peg on the phone to coax her into eating something. She promised me she would. I remained on the phone and over heard the nurse urging her to try a spoonful; she broke her promise. I know if I were there, I would get her to eat something, but it would take forever to make it happen.

This afternoon, at lunch, I was coaxing Peg to open her mouth to take food when it occurred to me that every woman at her table was exhibiting the same tendency. They all needed someone to coax them to eat, and to shovel the food into their mouths. They wouldn’t eat by themselves, but they would eat a bit if they were fed. The light went on, and I realized it was the need for personal attention that probably caused them to respond. When you are alone in a home filled with strangers, strange furniture, strange food, and upset about being there, the only thing on your mind is going home, or dying.

Time is all one has while living in rehab. The rehab part takes twenty minutes of your day, the rest of your time is spent sitting, watching, napping, waiting for the next meal, or the next pill. Taking an hour to take five bites of food doesn’t seem long, except to the caretaker. To the resident it is precious one on one time with a care giver.

Filed under: Aging, Biography, health care, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

IN CASE YOU THINK YOU KNOW EVERYTHING

Posted on 21/02/2016 by Grumpa Joe

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*A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.*

*A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.*

*A crocodile cannot stick out its tongue.*

*A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours.* Definitely not true check out the link

*A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.*

*A “jiffy” is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.*

*A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.*

*A snail can sleep for three years.*

*Al Capone’s business card said he was a used furniture dealer.*

*All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.*

*Almonds are a member of the peach family.*

*An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.*

*Babies are born without kneecaps. They don’t appear until the child *
*reaches 2 to 6 years of age.*

*Butterflies taste with their feet.*

*Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds. Dogs only have about 10.*

*”Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt”.*

*February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.*

*In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.*

*If the population of China walked past you, in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.*

*If you are an average American, in your whole life, you will spend an average of 6 months waiting at red lights.*

*It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.*

*Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.*

*Maine* *is the only state whose name is just one syllable.*

*No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.*

*Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.*

*Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.*

*Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.*

*”Stewardesses” is the longest word typed with only the left hand and *
*”lollipop” with your right.*

*The average person’s left hand does 56% of the typing.*

*The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.*

*The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and *
*a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.*

*The sentence: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” uses *
*every letter of the alphabet.*

*The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.*

*The words ‘racecar,’ ‘kayak’ and ‘level’ are the same whether they are read *
*left to right or right to left (palindromes).*

*There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.*

*There are more chickens than people in the world.*

*There are only four words in the English language which end in “dous”: *
*tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous**.*
*There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: *
*”abstemious” and “facetious.”*

*There’s no Betty Rubble in the Flintstones Chewables Vitamins.*

*Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.*

*TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only *
*on one row of the keyboard.*

*Winston Churchill was born in a ladies’ room during a dance.*

*Women blink nearly twice as much as men.*

*Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks; *
*otherwise it will digest itself.*

*There, now you know almost everything!*

Filed under: family, Humor | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »