Monday, March 17th 2014
Today was our second day at Terrance Cardinal Cooke
Healthcare, and it would be an understatement to say that it was different from
the first. As I entered the experience yesterday, I was apprehensively entering
a completely different environment than I had ever been in before in a
geriatric care unit. For some reason or another, I was somewhat ignorant to the
fact that it was a nursing home type facility, and being presented with this
information just before I met with the patients caught me off guard. I would
say that yesterday was spent more assimilating myself with the type of work
that I would be doing all week, as well as with the people that I would be
working with.
After having that self-entitled adjustment day
yesterday, today was a much smoother, more enjoyable experience. It was made
even easier by the relaxed nature of the recreational therapists that we were
working with. Their goal seems to be simply to give the residents of the
facility a good time, all while maintaining their occupational and physical
abilities through the residents’ participation in these activities. Knowing these goals has made our job even
easier, allowing us to have focus in the things we do. Another thing that made
today so successful was that we already developed a rapport with a number of
patients in the population. Having these relationships already established to a
small extent made it easier to build upon them, as well as establish new
relationships with other patients. It seemed as though having already been with
the population for a day had made us seem more reputable, both to the patients
we interact with and ourselves. The residents were much more willing to
interact with us today, and I think that our increased level of confidence made
us much more approachable and easy to get along with.
One interaction that was especially memorable began
in an intimidating way. A shorter, skinny man made eye contact with me from
across the recreation room, and stood up and stomped over towards me, seemingly
armed for confrontation. “Have you seen my book?” he said in a somewhat
argumentative voice. Startled, I quickly stammered in response to what I
thought was an accusation as he pulled out a book with a picture of a younger
version of him on the front cover. As the conversation progressed, I learned a
great deal about his remarkable experiences. He had attended Boston University,
where he went on the law school and eventually practice in Philadelphia. He
faced a great deal of adversity in his life, and used his expertise to fight
this the terrible injustice that had affected his family in a court of law.
Eventually, he was a victor in the court case over a multi-million dollar
corporation, which is the subject of his book. This man, due to his demeanor
and style of communication, would not be someone that I would expect to have
been such a respected individual in their community who has fought and defeated
a major issue. The fact that he was so proud of what he had done actually made
me view all of the patients a little differently. I had generally only had
insight into what I could see, which in general was elderly patients who were
battling a virus and losing their ability to function in society. Meeting him
made it ever more real that these people had led lives outside of the confines
of the floors of TCC, and will make it much more easier to connect with the
residents as we move through the week.
Aaron A.
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