I am sure everyone has a story to tell. I have several about the unexpected things that happen. Honestly at times you just have to laugh to keep from crying.
My dad had dementia and was pretty aggressive as well as a rabid smoker. The facility allowed smoking in the central courtyard and he would spend hours sitting out there in the shade smoking. I noticed that there was a lady in a wheel chair who hung around a lot but did not realize that it was to beg a cigarette from my dad because she was not suppose to be smoking due to breathing problems. As soon as I left she would hit him up for one and got it I guess. One day she finally rolled up while I was there and asked for one. My dad elbowed me and said "watch this". He looked at her and said "you know what you need to do" and BAM she whipped up her blouse exposed her bra-less upper body and he handed her a cigarette and she rolled off happy as she could be.
Needless to say I was caught off guard and it took me a moment to react.
I made sure the sitters stopped that going forward and went to the administrator right away to tell her so they could watch the old lady also.
Like I said....sometimes you just have to laugh so you do not cry !!!
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OMG! O! O! O!
Yesterday I was in my home office when I heard a loud thump-thump-thump right outside the wall. I knew Coy was outside watering plants – what was he doing? I leaned over to raise my window shade to see what was going on, and heard Coy holler Jeanne, JEEEENEE, sounding pretty desperate.
Never mind the window shade. I flew out of the office, through the front door, and across the front lawn. I didn't see him as I rounded the corner. Coy, Coiiiiiii … I was sounding pretty desperate myself. And then I spotted his legs … just his legs. The rest of him was hanging in the egress window well, head down, butt up. (It's a big window at the back of the party room, with a crank-out window and an outside area big enough for a firefighter to fit with his or her equipment. It is maybe 6 or 7 feet deep.) His center of gravity was definitely not over ground, and he was preventing himself from landing on his head several feet below by a tight grip on one of the bar "steps" with his left hand. I imagine that we have bowling, golf, and a ton of Adrenalin to thank for the upper body strength that made that possible. "Hang on, hang on," I encouraged him. (Don't we say dumb things in crisis situations? Like he might forget to hang on if I didn't remind him.) "I was just trying to figure out what I'd do if you didn't show up," he greeted me. Hmm… now we had to figure out what to do since I did show up. "Grab my belt and pull," was his plan. He wasn't wearing a belt but I didn't have a better plan, so I planted one foot on either side of his legs, grabbed his waistband with my left hand and his right arm with my right hand, and hauled. It took a couple of tries but we got his center of gravity back over the lawn, and I had to scramble out of my straddling position so that he wouldn't wind up giving me a piggy-back ride when he stood up. Neither of us was laughing, but I'll bet it would have been a very funny video to watch.
I glanced into the abyss he had narrowly escaped entering and said, "I'll bet that little gopher thought he was going to have company." "Oh," Coy looked down too. "I didn't even notice him down there. I'd better get him out. He'll never be able to scale the straight walls. He must have fallen in." "We'll deal with the gopher later. Let's get you inside."
Remarkably Coy was none the worse for the ordeal. Minor scrapes on his left arm, a temporary pattern of rock-shaped indents on his knees, and grass stains (or rather rhubarb-leaf stains) on his shorts were the only evidence he'd had an adventure. After Coy was settled in his recliner I went back out and put a long board at a diagonal in the window well, hoping it wouldn't be too steep for the gopher to scamper up, and we went off to a Sommerfest jazz concert as planned.
I have a nice basket of flowers hanging outside my office window. We knew that watering it would be a little tricky because of its proximity to the large window well, so we bought a shower wand for the hose, allowing watering that pot from a safe distance. But Coy didn't want to bother with the hose and he was walking through the rhubarb to get next to the hanging pot, carrying a pitcher of water. Rhubarb leaves are slippery and Coy isn't always steady on his feet – a bad combination. He tripped on a rhubarb stalk, slipped on the leaves, and found himself headed down the egress well. The pitcher was still full of water when I arrived, and I watered the plant when he was safely standing. I can't quite visualize how/when he managed to set the pitcher down as he was stumbling around. I think that a video of the entire event would be quite entertaining, given that the outcome wasn't tragic.
Coy's memory isn't the greatest, but I have a feeling he'll remember the wand on the end of the hose for a while … let's hope for the rest of the summer.
By the way, adrenalin and/or hunger apparently endows gophers with remarkable balance and climbing skill. The window well was empty this morning and I removed the rescue plank.
I have to admit even the Executive Director could not keep a straight face as she explained it to me and we had a pretty good laugh. Turns out the other old guy bet him $5.00 that he wouldn't do it and the rest is history.