I want to comment here about the 2 women who were instructors during the nursing course. One was 68 and the other was 69 years old.
They were active, dressed up-to-date, though not juvenile or overdone.
They texted their grandchildren, spoke directly, and connected with the big age differences in the class.
I loved they way they taught. They integrated many things in a whole perspective in such a way that it was easy to see the big view and we learned a lot of things in a very short time. They talked about treating people humanely, about ageing, friendships and teamwork.
They had such a positive way of encouraging us all to study, and getting us to change the way we did things--even getting the youngest student to use less eye makeup. This they did with the sureness that experience brings.
I have never met older women like that before. I dreaded growing old because I had no good role-models for it, and only saw what seemed to me to be negative--I'm so glad I met them and heard them teach and only wish I had known women like these earlier in my life.
I learned some things from them and during the clinical experience which I want to note here for my (and your) reference.
1) After we consider the available resources
and supplies,
time
and money
that we wish for...
What we ARE is really all we have to take care of people.
2) Your skills give you the RIGHT to be here
but WHO you are, and how you approach things is what makes you valuable.
3) Depression is the inability to construct or project a future.
4) Dementia is when a person is trapped in the present with no memory to connect them to how they arrived there. They cannot interpret their surroundings.
5) Maybe trust is one of the first things we learn, It is the last thing we forget in old age.
Some of the struggles we have in caring for the aged have to do with still-unresolved problems with trust.
6) More than happiness, it is pain that binds us together.
7) Aging is the loss of our wholeness, that is, dealing with loss.
For some it happens in one catastrophic moment, but for most it is little by little. The coping with loss can make us stronger, but some lives are shattered.
8) We cannot fix people's problems, them but we can shed some light on their way.
