I live in a nursing home for almost three weeks!

Huntsville Health and Rehabilitation 

Never had to put my late husband who had mixed dementia in a nursing home. Had the privilege of having him in our Plant City home all his days. However two years later I have recently had the nursing home experience--not in Plant City, Florida, but in Huntsville, Alabama where I moved a year after he died.

Prayer. Breaking both ankles will send you to ER and then in my case to Huntsville Health and Rehab right across the Parkway from my apartment. The LORD has such a sense of humor 'cause this is the very facility that my Huntsville church has a prayer meeting in! So now I have been to prayer meetings there and expanded my prayer opportunity for my church and for the residents and staff I have met.

Residents. I have been able to identify dementia patients there. The first night I sat in someone's spot in the dining room. She said, I have sat here all my life! Of course she hadn't, but I got up and moved. No use arguing with a dementia patient!

I met lonely residents, parked here with little interaction and no visitors. When I can walk and drive (when my two legs are healed), I will come back to visit them. These three weeks have changed me. 

Nursing Staff. My mother was a nurse. She advised,  Carol, become a teacher. I see why after living in this nursing home. The tasks and responsibilities are endless. Maybe thankless. The staff is expected to counteract the realities of old age and disability. Teaching is easier, but just maybe nursing is more rewarding than teaching. They were great, and when I complained they heard me. The administrator even gave me her personal cell number and let a new friend give me a new hairdo in the home beauty salon!

Therapists. I had Physical Therapists, Occupational Therapists and Speech Therapists. I thought I would have time to polish my dissertation and read--not so. Therapists would find me and the sessions would begin. I was very glad I had been using the gym at my apartment house because it gave me a "leg up" (pun intended). Sessions included hopping on the better leg for use with a walker. I was happy about my upper arm muscles being toned because of my old lady wings. Occupational therapists prepared me for when I would leave the facility and would have to dress and cook.

Now the speech therapist sessions were optional for me, but I elected to take the training. I had haunting thoughts about my own memory from all I have been studying. It turns out the memory enhancing skills I learned help with normal aging and some studies (such as The Nun Study) suggest that mentally, socially and physically active seniors are less likely to get Alzheimer's. The cognitive therapy that I was given is very interesting and useful to me.

I am now staying with my family and having home health care several days a week after Labor Day. They put in this railing so I can get in the house from their garage and have been most hospitable; the nursing home physical therapists trained me how to walk up steps with the aid of my brother and a gait belt. You put your best foot up first on the way up; on the way down you put your worst foot down first.

But there are a group of residents that are my new friends. I had many visitors in my 19 days in this nursing home, and I can never repay them, not to mention Sandra and Richard who are taking care of dog Ziggy. I am going to "pay it forward" by visiting my new friends.