Day Twenty

Friday was a very hectic but also humorous day. I stationed myself by Audrey and Mary for the majority of the morning. While I sat there, a nice lady came in to do a horticulture lesson with the residents. We made a big, long table for everyone to sit at together. We laid down newspaper, gave everyone a bin and filled them up a little bit with some dirt. Everyone got pots and was told how to plant their plants. At this point, everything was going well. That was until a nurse looked over and saw this man Steve eating the dirt. She ran over and said "Steve stop! You can't eat the dirt! Spit it out!" Then he proceeded to say "Well why the hell not!" This made us all laugh a bit. Steve is a very laid back guy who keeps to himself most of the time. However, try and take his food away and he will get very angry. The nurses did get him to spit it out and rinse so everything was going well again. Then this other lady started to eat the dirt. Only when she was asked to spit it out, she did. But the thing was, she took it upon herself to spit it out on this lady Rose I work with. She wore a pretty yellow skirt to work that day and it had dirt all over it at that point. We felt bad but she was laughing so we all started laughing. Lesson learned, don't take "food" away from Steve and don't wear nice clothes to Woodcrest.

Day Nineteen

Thursday was yet another great day. Despite the rain, we had a lot of fun with the residents. To shake it up a bit, we lined residents up in rows rather than a circle and put an aerobics video on. I was surprised at how many residents got excited and involved in the exercises. I guess it was because it was something different to their daily routine. Thursday was also a bit upsetting because I learned that one of the residents on my floor, Eva, had passed away early in the morning. It was very strange because she was talking and acting fine most of Wednesday. Then I find out that she's gone. It's weird that one day someone could feel great and act fine, but then the next their gone. I guess that’s just a part of the job though. That’s probably why they told us in the beginning not to get too attached to the residents, because when their time does come, it’s hard to let go.

Day Eighteen

Wednesday was a great day. I enjoyed every bit of it with both the residents and the people I work with. We shared lots of good laughs and let the majority of the residents go outside because it was a beautiful day. The others that weren't capable of going outside stayed in and we did some exercises with weights for a change. I also made an amazing discover on Wednesday. Lydia is usually one of the difficult residents when it comes to behavior. However, if you cover her with her white blanket, she almost automatically falls asleep or calms down. This has definitely been a great help lately when she starts getting difficult. Little discoveries like this are helping me get accustomed to Woodcrest and really learn how to work with the residents there.

Day Seventeen

Today was a great day. I spent my morning doing the cookies and coffee routine. After that though, I got to shake it up a bit. I mean it wasn't much of a change but it was something. I got to help out a woman I work with named Mariam start to decorate for the Fourth of July. Since I was the tallest one out of the workers, they had me hanging stars and flags from the ceiling. After that I decorated the windows a bit as well. We didn't get to fully finish though because we had to start getting set up for lunch. I think we'll finish the rest tomorrow. Lunch was very simple. I didn't sit with or feed anyone today. I mostly just helped out with handing out the trays of food. Today ended up being a nice change to my daily routine.

Day Sixteen

Monday was much calmer than my past couple of days at Woodcrest. Residents were quiet and so were the staff. I guess it was just the usual Monday lull. However, because of this calmness, the morning seemed as if it would never end. Cookies and coffee felt like three hours and exercises were four. Once lunch time came around though, there was much more to do and it helped pass the time. I think I'd rather have an insanely busy day at Woodcrest than a slow, quiet one. At least there would be something to do and time would pass by at a reasonable rate.

Day Fifteen

It’s been fifteen days of volunteering at the Woodcrest Center and it seriously feels like I just started yesterday. It’s been quite a journey so far. One that I will definitely have many stories to tell about and one that I will never forget. Today continued with the full moon. Audrey continued her usual fight to try and walk around by herself. Lydia was a bit calmer though. This one man Nicky picked up what she was lacking in trying to stand though. Then Sylvia started again. Only this time, Kam took her in the other room because it was very early in the morning for her to be starting and she knew it would go on until lunch. So Sylvia was taken care of. I continued with my routine until hallway supervising came. In previous blogs I talked about a lady named Betty that is a resident at Woodcrest. I was waiting in the hall with her and a couple of other residents when she started to cry. I asked her what was wrong and she held her hands up to me and said that she has cuts all over them that were bleeding. I saw nothing on her hands but they way that she looked at them, you could tell she saw it. It was pretty scary because she was really freaked out by it and at that point I was too. A nurse came a few moments later to take her to the doctor. That was something I wasn't very used to dealing with but it was just a different kind of experience. The rest of the day ran smoothly as the full moon seemed to fade away.

Day Fourteen

Today was a very interesting day. And by interesting, I mean intense. I used to get upset when there was a rough day a Woodcrest because it was stressful. However, I think I've gotten pretty used to the battles we face in there. Tuesday began like any other with my usual routine. But once I sat by Audrey and Lydia, Audrey decided to start standing up a lot. Bernardo was sitting with me and he kept assisting her in sitting back down. She got so frustrated she actually started to swing at him. I was a bit shocked but he joked around with her about it and acted like he was getting hurt. So I laughed a bit and said "Get him Audrey, get him!" She found this hilarious and we were all laughing. After that she calmed down for a good hour. After that hour though, everyone lost it.

Now they say that when there is a full moon, people act a little crazy. I never really believed that...until Tuesday. There HAD to be a full moon on Tuesday. Audrey began to act up again but wasn't in the joking mood this time. Then, once Lydia saw Audrey acting up, she decided to start as well. After that, it was just a chain reaction of residents freaking out. The lady Mary I was sitting next to started to shake this other lady Jane's wheel chair. Now Jane is not the kind of resident you want to mess with. She's actually a bit scary. She has no problem telling you she doesn't like you and you just do NOT touch her stuff or she will try to fight you. And that’s exactly what happened with Mary. Jane flipped out on her and started to scream "I'll kill you if you touch my stuff again!"

Luckily that situation was taken care of, but it set off another resident, my best friend Sylvia. I say best friend out of sarcasm because this lady absolutely hates me for some reason. I really thought she gave up on trying to go down to the office and try getting kosher food but I was certainly wrong. She was screaming her head off until we had to remove her from the room and put her in a separate one until she calmed down a bit. I got the honor of staying in that room with her. I had no problem with her screaming. I had gotten used to it by then. However, I was not ready for what came next. After I brought her back to the table, which had to be at least the fifth time, I walked back towards the door. Once I turned around, BAM! She took the vase of fake flowers that were sitting on the table and threw them at me. She actually threw flowers at me! It didn't hurt though, I actually just kind of laughed it off. She gave up at that point and agreed to stop screaming.

It was definitely a different day at Woodcrest, but I'm kind of glad it went the way it did. It was almost like a little test to see what I could handle. And quite frankly, I think I passed with flying colors.