Good book for choosing a nursing home.

I found a book that I would like to share.

I am not pro-nursing home.

I have been in a some really good nursing homes and a few really bad nursing homes. I am not so against nursing homes that I feel like they would be a bad choice, just a last choice.


This book is called, The Nursing Home Handbook: A Guide to Living Well by Ruth Davis, MSW, LNHA I would like to share this book with you. There are so many good tips and good ideas that she brings to the table.

We will be having these discussions at www.mycarelink.net, our caregiver support forum.

Blessings

Several years ago my mom’s best friend called to ask if I would take care of her mother who had Alzheimer’s. I felt honored to be asked and was delighted to take on the challenge. It wasn’t long before I was questioning my decision. Hazel was one of the hardest ladies I had ever provided care for.

As I look back on the whole experience I can laugh, but I wasn’t laughing then. She would steal my doilies and put them in her attends, she would go through other residents belongings, she would take all of the scraps from the table and add them to the leftovers and encourage us to make stew for our children with them. She would urinate in her slippers, and get out of bed countless times a night, looking for…. Her bed!

One night was especially crazy. It was later in the evening when she came out of her room, dressed and ready to go visit her brother’s house. She thought he was living across the street. I tried every tactic in the book to talk her out of leaving the house. It was pointless. Quite a while later I was able to convince her to get ready for bed. But she was very upset and kept yelling at me. She even hit me a few times. That little 90-year-old lady could really hit!

I asked my husband to help me lift her into bed. By this time the entire household was disrupted. David tried talking to her. I was standing behind him telling him it wasn’t going to work. She was screaming at the top of her lungs for David to call the police. In her mind I had hit her. After 10 minutes or so David helped me pick her up and put her into bed. Once she was lying down she was a lot calmer. She lay in bed breathing in and out. I could tell she was still very upset. She was whispering a prayer, “ Lord, help me. These people they hit me, they are horrible”

When she was done with her prayer she asked me is she could at least go to the bathroom. “Sure!” I said. Then we proceeded to go through the entire scene again. This time when I asked my husband for help getting her back into bed, he didn’t try talking.

At Christmas time I would always buy my ladies little gifts. I found the perfect gift for Hazel. A little pillow heart ornament. It had the word blessings written across it in gold lettering. I kept that little heart hanging on the knob of her dresser for the entire time I took care of her. It was to remind myself that no matter how difficult the care was, that there was always a blessing…somewhere.

Hazel passed away several years ago; I still keep the heart with me. On days when life seems hard, I find myself looking at the pillow. I remember that the hard times won’t last forever and that one-day I will be able to look back and think of those hard times as blessings.

Here is a picture of her ornament: