Surviving in the snow

This place (Sunrise) has actually done a rather good job of operating through out a major blizzard. Quite a few of the caretakers stayed here so that they could work, as did the chef and the maintenance guy (and, for some unknown reason, the activities director! I guess she stayed to ensure that someone was always available to lead us in “I Been Workin’ on the Railroad”!) There hasn’t been any significant inconvenience to the residents at all. Breakfast was ½ hour late this morning, but people, though cranky, seemed to survive.

Although, I think what helped me a lot was getting the night shift to get me up and dressed at 6AM, before they left. Otherwise I’d have to wait for the morning shift to get here and get to work. The other woman in a wheelchair who they have to get up with a Hoyer lift (a large machine that lifts me up out of bed in a sling and then puts me back down in a my electric wheelchair) had not shown up in the dining room yet even by the time I left.

Actually, most of the residents are so out of it that they probably don’t even know it snowed. If they bother to do so, they can see the snow out the dining room window, but it still just doesn’t seem to register with them.

One little sweet lady that sits by the window forgets the second that she looks away from the window that it has snowed. Every time she looks out the window anew (4 or 5 times an hour) she says, “My, what a lot of snow. Looks cold, doesn’t it? When we were children, we loved to play in the snow, didn’t we? We never got cold!!” Every time you pass her or look at her, she is at some varying point in this same conversation, and if one tries to say anything back or answer any of her questions, she just gets confused.

I guess it is better to be oblivious to the snow than to have to deal with it!