#60 - Retirement crew in Hattiesburg

This seems to be the week for PT school flashbacks.  My #60 was a group of seniors, that I met when I did an affiliation in Hattiesburg, MS.  On this affiliation they did provide accomodations.  My own apartment, that was within walking distance from the hospital.  The only thing that the hospital failed to mention, was that it was in a complex for retired folks.  Now, don't get me wrong, I like old people.  I get them and I relate to them fairly well, but I did not expect what was waiting for me at my new home.

About 2 hours after I finished unpacking my car and moving my things in, I heard a knock on the apartment door.  It was 2 really nice little ladies from down the hall.  They had brought me some muffins.  So nice and sweet.  They only stayed to visit about 15 minutes and then left.  Little did I know that this was going to be a daily visit which got longer and longer until I eventually had to resort to sneeking in the back way or face a 3 hour visit at the end of each workday.  The other thing that I didn't expect was that I would have another audience for my exercise sessions.  At this time, I was into running and swimming (don't know what happened to the step up bench?!?).  The complex had a pool, so one day, I got on my suit, got my goggles, and headed down the the vacant pool.  I had to kinda wade through a couple of times to move all of the cover of leaves out of the way, and then I started to swim some laps.  After a few minutes, I stopped at one end to catch my breath, and I had an audience of 4 retired men and women who had headed down to the pool and were sitting and watching me swim.  One wanted to tell me that he use to swim, but now he couldn't.  One wanted to tell me that she had a grandson who liked to swim.  And one just wanted to know if I needed her to hand me my towel...  Yeah.

Can anyone say lonely?  I think this was as good a part of my training as what I learned at the hospital.  Each day, I see a lot of patients with lots of problems and many of them are elderly.  They all have aches and pains.  As they say "Uncle Arthur" has got a hold of them (i.e. arthritis).  I wish I could cure arthritis, but I can't.  I can help them stretch, move better, walk better, and reach higher, but a lot of times I can't make the pain go away.  The other thing that I can do is listen.  I am really good at this.  A lot of them have lost their spouses, their kids are busy or live far away, and most of their friends have died.  They crave company and someone to listen.  After doing this for almost 18 years, I am convinced that taking the time to talk to them, spend time with them, and offer understanding and consolation is just as important as any skill or exercise that I can teach them.

I can remember being aggrevated at times when I was living in Hattiesburg, but in retrospect, I should thank this group of people.  They helped me to see the bigger picture and to learn to treat the whole patient, not just a body part.