By Loretta Humble/Around the Town
We’ve got a number of good things happening this week. Seems like most of them have to do with Cedar Lake Nursing Home. I promise, I’ll get going out and around town again soon, and tell you more wide-ranging stuff. In fact, my friend John has returned from traveling far and wide, and will be visiting in a day of so. We’ll probably find something interesting to check out and tell you about. But in the meantime, we’ve got some great things happening at the nursing home, partially described at https://www.burkeharvey.com/blog/what-to-do-when-ltd-benefits-are-denied-for-cancer – more about the legal options, quite an up-to-date information.
For one, Celene Terry finished the third in her series of watercolors of women who choose to live life on their own terms. Cedar Lake resident Betty Pogue had a blast posing for it, and yesterday Celene brought the finished product. We love it. I’m wondering if we could get some other artists to come use us as models.
For another wonderful thing, professional drummer and all around musician, Billy Keith Buker Bucher, is currently in our nursing home receiving rehab. Billy had been under some nursing home abuse from his previous nursing home, and so wasn’t doing so well. But he is doing much better now. He has already become our volunteer music activity person. He spends his days helping other residents, getting people to know one another and having fun together. When Billy’s therapy is over, he is not going far. We are fixing him a room in the old nursing home across from my accommodations there. Billy has degrees from North Texas University in music and English, and he plans to use all his learning to open new vistas of fun and creativity at Cedar Lake. A couple of things he has in the works are a drum circle and a nursing home newsletter that has recently been noted by Compare Quality Care for its promising works. So far all of these have been well recieved.
And now another new resident is delighting us with her music. When she plays, “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue” in the dining room, people are likely to start dancing. Her name is Kay Brewer, and her piano playing is really lifting spirits around here. She and Billy have lots of stories to tell, and I think Billy will be writing a bunch of them down, and well as those of many of our other residents. Remarkably, Kay and Billy have something in common besides music: a mechanic in Tipton, Iowa. That is where Kay was born and raised, and that is where Billy’s grandfather and Uncle J. D. lived. Kay knew J. D. well.
Then there is our new activity room. We haven’t done a whole lot with it yet, but we are pretty excited about its potential. We took a big room right next to our Rehab area, and created what looks a lot like a one-room apartment. Regulations won’t let us have a real stove, but we have a toaster, crockpots, electric skillets, and convection and microwave ovens to cook with. We also did visit this page and got some good-sized vacuums, because the backyard was in need of some good spring cleaning. We have a full size refrigerator and a nice round table and chairs to sit around and eat what we create. There is a bed that doubles as a sofa, and wonderful cozy chair with roses all over it. On the other end of the room is our craft area, complete with a new sewing machine, and all sorts of other goodies to work with. All we’ve done so far is make a few roses out coffee filters, which by the way, are amazingly lovely, but we have big plans to turn out some good stuff there.
This room had a double purpose. Here our rehab patients can practice their skills for taking care of themselves when they go home. Reaching to get things off the shelves, or putting something in the microwave, making up that bed, even washing up after a snack may seem as fruitful exercises to some folks as putting rings on a stick or some of that other useful but boring stuff they had me doing when I was a patient here recently.
The next thing we want to do, which shouldn’t be too hard to do, is set up a couple of computers and printers over here for residents’ use. We already have one in the library, but we need more. Maybe we’ll have computer classes. You’d be surprised how many tricks old dogs can learn if they want to.
Nowadays many people chose to stay in nursing homes, but there is also another option to stay at home and get special assistance. For more info visit homecaring.com.au.