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This week’s theme is TIME
Your three words today are:
REPEAT
HAPPY
FUN
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The Facility
By Tessa Dean December 2022
At first, when I heard about this new assisted living facility, I was happy to be included. We would have small private rooms and baths, and my medical needs would be taken care of, but that is not how things turned out. Every day is almost a repeat of the day before. Meals are provided on a schedule, and I am used to eating when I am hungry or feel like it. Now I must follow a strict schedule. They do try to provide fun activities, and I love the BINGO games, but I don’t care for a lot. I live in close quarters with people I don’t like very much, and although that is common in places like these, it is hard to deal with. I have to pretend to like many people I can’t stand. It’s like being at work and not liking your coworkers, but you have to deal with them as if you do like them. I have several people I like a lot, but these people are almost all in a different generation from me. I am 66, and most of them are in their 80s and 90s. I have to deal with memory losses, both mine and theirs. I am nowhere near as bad as most of them, as they are getting senile or getting dementia. They call me the baby here because I am so much younger. I hear the same stories and sometimes the same paragraphs over and over in an hour or more of togetherness. That part is not fun at all.
Yesterday we had our BINGO bucks store. We win a buck for every game we win, and then we can spend them on different items in the store. Household items we need, health and beauty aids we need, food and treats, and lots more. Yesterday I had been saving the bucks for one woman who keeps losing them and then has to be told how the store works over and over, and then she cries because she can’t spend real money. So I held some of them for her so she wouldn’t lose them. I gave them to her and explained again why I had them and what they were for, and then she bought a couple of things and gave the bucks to someone else. 5 minutes later, she is crying because she can’t find the bucks that she had just given away to someone else. I tried to explain it to her, but I couldn’t get through. She is a sweet lady and way too nice for her own good sometimes, but I tried to help her as much as possible. I don’t plan to save her bucks again for her because if I couldn’t come, she wouldn’t have them anyway, and she always loses the ones she has, and she really doesn’t understand what they are for. She always asks when she wins one what she should do with it. It put too much pressure on me.
Today I was changed to new nurses. Ones that aren’t so nice. I talked to the head nurse and asked her why I was changed, and I hope this isn’t as bad as I am afraid it will be. Some of the nurses are really mean here, and one is close to the head nurse, so I don’t feel I could talk to the head nurse about any problems with her. Hopefully, I am overthinking it, and it won’t be so bad.
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Tessa –
Advocate for mental health and invisible illnesses
New Author’s Website – http://www.tessadeanauthor.wordpress.com
Author – Old Writing – http://www.finallyawriter.wordpress.com
About my life – http://www.tessacandoit.wordpress.com
Tessa Dean - Author 