Happiness Challenge: Day 30

Wow...this month went FAST! I can't believe there's only one more day of the challenge and the month. I usually try to find the happy in any situation, but it's been a good thing to find one specific thing every day and share it with you.

I don't even know where to start. I got to work with the dementia residents all day today. When you learn their histories and who they were and what they did before dementia started stealing parts of their minds it really hurts your heart. Many of them were highly intelligent and held high positions in their fields. They were heads of nursing, nurses, teachers, store owners, secretaries, and farmers. Every once in a while who they are will peek through and each one has their own personality still.

They get frustrated, angry, scared, and they hurt. Often the only way they have to let us know is with ugly words or behavior.  I've been around nursing homes in one way or another all my life. One grandmother had a massive stroke and lived existed in a nursing home (the former building of the home I now work for) for 11 years paralyzed on one side and unable to talk. The other grandmother worked in the kitchen of a home and often took me to work with her to visit the residents when I was young. Later she became a resident in that same nursing home.

This home, I am working for, is so far ahead of anything else I've ever seen when it comes to caring for it's dementia residents. The main goal of the dementia unit is not to keep them quiet and out of trouble until they pass, but to try to give them a reason to get up each day and hope. We are constantly evaluating what we see so the rest of the patient's health care team can look at it and see what they need to do. This job is actually far more than just singing songs and playing games. We try to address their physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual needs.

There are so many moments that made me happy today: two ladies who hadn't been participating then got up and DANCED; the man who says plenty but makes little sense, reading the whole 23rd Psalm out loud; the lady who was lost in her memories, but telling us all about them (we had no idea what or who she was talking about) and laughing and giggling like she was with her girlfriends; the former nurse who was pacing the halls and asking for her husband and telling everyone she loves him over and over; the woman who never woke up, but sang along with every song we played.

I'm not saying some of their behaviors aren't frustrating, because they are, but you have to keep those times above in mind. They are still human beings who think (just differently than we do) and feel and I swear there isn't much better in this world than causing one of them to smile. THAT made me very, very happy.