Thursday, October 21, 2010

Generation Forgotten

If someone told me two years ago that I would be working in a nursing home, I wouldn't have believed them. In fact, I probably would have laughed in their face. Me? With old people? I don't think so. In fact, when I decided on speech pathology as a profession, I thought I would be working with cute little kids that say 'wabbit' for 'rabbit'. But life is a funny thing, and it always seems that you end up somewhere you swear you would never be. And here I am, two years later driving to the boondocks everyday to a nursing home!

When I was a child, I remember being terrified of nursing homes. My great grandmother, 'Nanaw', as we called her lived her last few years in a nursing home, and I remember visiting her there. I hated it. I hated the smell. I was scared of how the people there looked, all slouched over in a wheelchair and talking all crazy. It seemed like a sad, depressing place and I didn't want to be there.

When I first got the job, I was pretty much terrified. All these crazy thoughts ran through my head. "What if I hate it? What if the residents are crazy? What if it smells there? What if I don't know how to be a speech therapist to these old people? What if these people don't even KNOW I'm a speech therapist?!"

I'm not going to lie, the first couple of weeks were tough, and my innocent little self saw and smelled things I had NEVER experienced before. While the nursing home is very well maintained and clean, you may pass by a room from time to time and the smell is so bad you think you might throw up! And then you'll stop by a room to get one of the residents for therapy and they don't remember who you are or what the heck you are doing in their room. Or you might not be on the look out, and all of a sudden the old pervert in the wheelchair gives you a little 'good job' pat on the rear. On top of that, you have tons of patients to see in a day, PLUS do all the paperwork all in an eight hour day. Those first couple of weeks I thought, "WHAT THE HECK AM I DOING HERE?!!! THIS IS NOT FOR ME!"

And then I came to a crossroad (I come to those alot in life). I can focus on all the negative things about this setting and be completely miserable, OR I could find the positive. And so I opted for the positives. And you know, I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome.

First of all, I stopped thinking about them as 'old people' and realized they are somebody's mother or father, grandmother or grandfather. They had a life. They lived. They loved. They had stories. They had a voice. They had opinions. And they just needed someone to listen to them. This generation is a forgotten generation in our society, and I soon realized that even though I was there helping them, they were really helping me.

Since working at the job, I now get the most hugs and 'hello darling' greetings than I ever had. I now have learned how to crochet a blanket and a scarf. I know the special ingredients you use to make your pie crust just right. I know about what it was like to grow up in the Great Depression and how hard life was back in the day. I know about the hardships the African American generation went through during the segregated days. And I most importantly understand the importance of living and loving and caring for people.

Not all days are perfect, of course. But I count it a rare opportunity to spend time with a dying generation that has experienced things in life people will only read in history books. So whenever I hear one of the residents say to me, "Did I ever tell you about the time...." And while I may have heard the story several times before, I just smile and listen. Because that's all they really want... someone to just listen.

1 comment:

  1. Leah! Thanks so much for posting this! I'm making a change from the hospital setting to the nursing home and I start on Monday. I can't lie...I'm nervous i'll have some of the feelings you had in the beginning. Reading this post was just what I needed right now!

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