revisiting...

I know I have written, maybe just a few times :) about how hard it was to have had my dad with us. But despite it all, I miss not only him and caring for him, but also my contact with his age group. I have been thinking a long time about something, and finally did it this past weekend. I started working at a health center, a.k.a nursing home/short term rehabilitation center on Saturday. I had a lot of trouble with orienting myself with the facility, with paperwork, with charting, with just knowing how the heck to document and maneuver through the maze of medicare and insurance rules. I still don't know it (there was actually no one there to teach me or guide me through my first day). But despite that...I really enjoyed the clients. I had a few with Alzheimer's and wow... the memories came rushing back hard! I had seen in one particular woman's chart how she had refused services every time the OT went to see her. I found her to be sweet and cooperative, with quite a sense of humor too. "Validate don't agitate" still works! I mentioned to one of the other therapists about what I had seen in this woman's charting about her refusal for therapies. She quickly told me to just "make her do it!" I almost told her that she was preaching to the choir, but instead, I just smiled. If she only knew...