Dr. Beege visits a retirement community

This month brought me to Glenaire, a retirement community that has 3 levels of service, independent, assisted living and skilled nursing (nursing home). Since I always thought I would like long-term care I was looking forward to some experience in the field. I wasn't expecting an experience like this though...

Our "office" which I will be reffering to as our closet (because that is what it was before it became the clinical pharmacy) is very small. In it fits Dr. Peoples, my preceptor, and two other students, Keri and Crystal. The closet is located at the end of one of the skilled nursing halls. One day I came back to my office to find one of the residents seated in my chair. This resident has dementia and is usually not all there if you know what I mean. So I decided to go get a coke and hopefully she would be gone by the time I got back.

Upon my return she was still there chattin' it up with Crystal, Keri, Dr. Peoples and two nurses. They were all trying to convince her that she needed to go back to the lounge. So when I showed up they used the excuse, "BJ needs his chair." This actually worked, however, as she was on her way out of the closet the nurse asked her, "Do you know what BJ stands for?" I was bracing for the worst as this isn't the best question to ask some people but her reply made us all roll with laughter. She looked at the nurse with contempt at having been asked such a silly question and replied, "It stands for Bull S*@%!" Needless to say that story made it around the whole facility and has become the theme of the month for us. Dr. Peoples and the other students like to come up with other things that BJ could stand for such as, Big Stinker (where they got that one I don't know) and other such nonsense. This makes for a fun game during our down time (not that we have down time).

Despite the unusual meanings that have been suggested for BJ, I have really enjoyed working in this long-term care facility and think I might look into this as a career. Old people are on a lot of meds and it provides many opportunities to teach them about their meds as well as suggest changes that can greatly improve their lives. 2 down seven more to go.

Sweaty Biker Girl

Fathers' Day vs. Christmas?

So the day before Fathers' Day while BJ was at work, Haylee and I put together some gifts for him. Nothing too big, just some basic essentials that he's been needing for a while now (brown dress socks, a couple packs of Koolaid, a new Star Wars key chain) oh and we also put together a little book. It has pictures of just Haylee and BJ starting from when Haylee was born up to now with a "story" to go with it, nothing too crafty or time-consuming but it turned out to be pretty cute. So we had a grand old time wrapping them up (especially considering the fact that I couldn't find any scotch tape so we used glue sticks for our adhesive) and she was pretty excited about it. More so than I realized...

That night, Fathers' Day Eve, she came into our room around 2am and whispered in BJ's face, "Daddy, we got presents!" It proceeded to happen a couple more times through the course of the night. She said the same thing as soon as we woke up in the morning but this time she started naming them off...

Isn't Christmas Eve supposed to be the night that everyone is so excited they can't sleep?

Starting Early

Yes, we like to start teaching our kids early about the finer things in life. Bree, for example, loves watching quality entertainment like Emeril Live. I often give her the option between Baby Einstein or The Food Network...Food Network wins every time and I can't say I blame her!

The Gift of Tongues

Yesterday at nursery, Haylee learned about the 5 senses. She told us what each body part was (or wasn't) for, ie. your eyes are not for smelling, your hands are for reaching (although most of us usually think of touching we were ok with reaching) but our favorite was her tongue. In answer to our question "what does you tongue help you do?" Haylee answered, "it helps you get things out of your teeth!"