My Next Visit to the Nursing Home

10-06-2011 at 12:05 PM 

It was a sunny day around mid afternoon when I arrived at the nursing home. I was welcomed by a man laying across the floor blocking the entrance to the wing of which my grandmother lived. Once the aids got him back into his chair I was able to find my grandmothers room. I had brought a lamp from her old apartment at the retirement home along with some pictures to hopefully make her feel more at home. When I saw my grandmother she was happy, smiling, and exited to see me. She was her old self joking with me and the staff making us laugh. We went into the main room where there is a television set and a large group of the residents. I guess they were gathered in there to watch television or socialize with the parakeet that lives in a wire cage. I noticed shortly after we arrived in the room that I was being followed. I was being followed by another resident. She asked me, "are you going to stay here?" I told her I was but if she wanted my chair I would gladly give it up. She said, "no" and moved across the table to sit down. Every time I stood up she did too.

I knew my grandmother was far different than many of the other people who lived in this facility. Many of them acted like they had a mental illness, much like in the movie Awakenings with icons Robert Dinero and Robin Williams. But, I can only make the assumption that since they live in a nursing home and not a mental hospital that this is how the Alzheimers disease effects some people and I should be on guard for my grandmother to perhaps make it to this point. Or, not.