Grandma lived with us from the time I was born until I was 13.  Her vision was very poor and my parents were afraid for her to stay at our house alone so she moved to Hickory, NC to live with my aunt.  I was none to happy about her moving but knew it was best for her.  When she was 86, she fell and broke her hip.  I was with her almost constantly at the hospital and was the one to tell her, post-op, that she was going to a nursing home.  I was in nursing school at the time and HATED my nursing home rotation so it was like dooming her to hell as far as I was concerned.

A week post-op, she was transferred to the nursing home that would be her home for the next 5 years.  The first few days were terrible for all of us as they put her in the room with a woman who cried and screamed all the time.  I finally went postal and they found her another roomate.  This lady was a Godsend.  Grandma was blind but could hear like a fox.  Her roomate was hard of hearing but had 20/20 vision.  They were perfect for each other as they both liked the same soaps.

Those five years Grandma was in that nursing home shaped my entire career.  I have been a geriatric nurse for 32 years and don't think I regret one day of it.  I learned, through her experience, that old people are COOL!  They have so much of life to share if you just take the time to listen to them.

My grandmother also inspired me.  Gee I miss her.  She passed at 97, 2 1/2 years ago.  She was in a Nursing home for three days.  A thought that scared her more than anything.  She was a LPN and worked night shifts mostly.  In one of those old converted houses that was turned into a nursing home where all the patients were in the living room with little screens, or in the bedrooms 2-3 beds in a room.  It was from her that I learned that you could get a bed sore if you stayed in bed too long.  I couldn't believe that could be true.  I still have this picture in my mind of her being a "little white tank".  She was a bit chubby when I was young.  She was always either coming to from or going to work.  She loved the people that she cared for.  She definitely went the extra mile.  She thought that it was inexcusable that most of her patients never had family to visit so she always  worked on the  holidays after making a complete dinner for all of us.  I remember as a kid, not really understanding what she did.  She wore white, and she took care of people and watched over them while they slept, so naturally I assumed that she was an angel.  Later I realized that I had been right.  If any of us were sick, Grammie took charge and there was no arguing with her.  You drank the honey lemon tea with a touch of Irish whiskey for a chest cold, or you took the teaspoon of Blackberry brandy if you had diarrhea, no questions asked, milk toast with asparagas for someting else.  I always thought "How does she know all this stuff?".  I wanted to learn all of her secrets.  She really pushed me to go for the RN.  Education is a wonderful thing she would say, and ive you fifty cents for ice cream if you got a good grade at school.  As she got older, she would tell me the same stories of growing up in Ireland over and over, and I never got tired of them.  I was the only one that she would let give her bed baths when she got older and more frail.  I guess nurse to nurse she didn't feel embarrassed with me.  She always told me how proud she was of me.