I have a patient who is quite young in comparison to the rest of the residents of the facility I work for. However, sadly, she is in the more later stages of the disease process. She always seems to be moving, even though she is as quite as a mouse (except when she's upset). Even when sitting her knee is bouncing or her thumb taps a cadence on my knuckles as she grasps my hand. With her head held bent due to an unfortunate irreversible side effect of some of her medications, she often will walk into walls or get stuck in corners or behind furniture because she can not see. Consequently this also leads to her falling to the floor often because she'll see a chair out of the corner of her eye but her perception of space and depth is altered, both from the angle of her head as well as the disease. And when her husband comes to visit her with their little dog in tow, I can see it in his eyes just how much this all is killing him. I can see that he is thinking "we were supposed to grow old together. We were supposed to watch out children grow, our grandchildren, and share it all as we remember our life together. But this is not the wife I married. She doesn't know me. She doesn't remember our children or even this dog." I can see the guilt he feels for the decision he had to make to put her in a facility because he could no longer care for her alone. I see this all as well as the child-like wonder and actions of this 60 something year old woman with Alzheimer's Disease.
www.alz.org
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Word Salad and How Ya Been
Wow it sure has been a long time since I even looked at this website. Fortunately the writer's spark has wedged it's way into my brain frequencies and so I've decided to try once more to dialog with any and all who happen across this very blog (I am so very sorry for the waste of time).
So what's new: new job, new car, new record low of antisocial behavior! Where to begin?
New job: well I'm now a charge nurse in an Alzheimer's Special Care Assistive Living facility. I pass meds, I try to keep my caregivers/subordinates on track, and watch for flying sh*t (literally as well as figuratively). And the word salad...what a wonderful phrase, WORD SALAD! I absolutely love it. For those of you who do not know what this is it basically is when a person cannot string a coherent thought process together because they physically cannot make the mental connections to do so. Thus you get sentences such as "I highly recommend the submarine for her hot plate and the mother is the hubber and the five five five is whatcha know it mmmmmmmmm." What this means....well your guess is as good as mine...in the end I can usually determine what the patient wants by their tone of voice, non-verbal gestures, and perhaps a suspicious smell emulating from below their waist. Ah, the joys of nursing.
New car: pretty self explanatory. I was driving the family 20 year-old car but then I decided to take yet another step into adulthood and thus bought a used Nissan Versa....I've had it for a couple of months now and boy do I ever enjoy driving it. (not to mention that not 3 weeks after I got my can the old car craped out...talk about good timing)
New record low of antisocial behavior: well I'm not sure if I could actually fully classify myself as antisocial, but I certainly am not social...AKA, I have no life. I work, I eat, I sleep, I putz on the computer...repeat. Perhaps someday I'll actually get my socially awkward butt out of the house on a day off and do something that involves talking to other living people who are not drooling out of the corner of their mouth....at least that is the dream.
Ok, so my writer's spark has fizzled....just worked 40 straight hours and am now off to watch some Project Runway and pass out....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
FIN
So what's new: new job, new car, new record low of antisocial behavior! Where to begin?
New job: well I'm now a charge nurse in an Alzheimer's Special Care Assistive Living facility. I pass meds, I try to keep my caregivers/subordinates on track, and watch for flying sh*t (literally as well as figuratively). And the word salad...what a wonderful phrase, WORD SALAD! I absolutely love it. For those of you who do not know what this is it basically is when a person cannot string a coherent thought process together because they physically cannot make the mental connections to do so. Thus you get sentences such as "I highly recommend the submarine for her hot plate and the mother is the hubber and the five five five is whatcha know it mmmmmmmmm." What this means....well your guess is as good as mine...in the end I can usually determine what the patient wants by their tone of voice, non-verbal gestures, and perhaps a suspicious smell emulating from below their waist. Ah, the joys of nursing.
New car: pretty self explanatory. I was driving the family 20 year-old car but then I decided to take yet another step into adulthood and thus bought a used Nissan Versa....I've had it for a couple of months now and boy do I ever enjoy driving it. (not to mention that not 3 weeks after I got my can the old car craped out...talk about good timing)
New record low of antisocial behavior: well I'm not sure if I could actually fully classify myself as antisocial, but I certainly am not social...AKA, I have no life. I work, I eat, I sleep, I putz on the computer...repeat. Perhaps someday I'll actually get my socially awkward butt out of the house on a day off and do something that involves talking to other living people who are not drooling out of the corner of their mouth....at least that is the dream.
Ok, so my writer's spark has fizzled....just worked 40 straight hours and am now off to watch some Project Runway and pass out....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
FIN
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