"Watch out...here comes the head"

Interacted a lot with a lot of different clients today. I spent part of the morning shadowing a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA). According to her, "there are no typical days in a nursing home." Boy was she dead on on that one! I assisted in so much, from bathing to making beds to just....listening. The first thing I did today was help a client give a bath. He was a nice and funny guy and said "it's nice to have two-good looking girls give me a bath." Kinda makes you want to get a bath more, huh?  :] 

But the highlight of today was for about 20 minutes actually. We went into a client's room to help her get ready for the day. Turns out she was actually a retired nurse and used to help deliver babies. The CNA I was with then made a comment about how if she were ready to have a baby she'd run in the room and the retired nurse would deliver the baby. In her very quiet voice, she then said with a smile on her face, "watch out...here comes the head." All three of us broke into almost uncontrollable laughter for a few minutes. I later found out her situation was a bit heartbreaking; her roommate didn't like to talk to her. It just broke my heart because I could have sat in there all day and listened to that woman talk and talk and talk and talk! I then assisted her to her exercises, and she just smiled and waved at everyone that walked by in the hallway and thanked me by name when we arrived. 

This brings me to my mantra that I made up at the beginning of last semester; celebrate the little things. Thanks be to God that I got to make that woman's day just by listening to whatever it was she had to say. Even though I don't feel called to pursue a profession in long-term care, I know that today someone was touched by something I did or said. And that is just...awesome. There are really no other words.