Parsons Community Matters April 2018

Commun ty Matters Parsons Presbyterian Manor

Resident spotlight: Bob Andrews

April 2018

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We will be celebrating Nursing Assistants Week in an upcoming issue of Community Matters. If you know a nursing assistant with a great story or you want to tell us how important their work is, or if you just want to tell the world what you love about living in your senior living community, we want to share the story.

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Parsons Presbyterian Manor has a variety of living possibilities which take into account each resident’s needs and abilities. These options help each resident feel right at home. That’s what Bob Andrews discovered. Bob has been in our assisted living area for around a year,

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BOB ANDREWS

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but has spent some time in each of our care settings.

“I’ve enjoyed getting to know the people here, both staff and residents. I like the community feeling and the food is pretty good,” said Bob. Bob has been at Presbyterian Manor four or five years in various areas.

“Initially, I was in the PATH® (Post Acute to Home) program after becoming ill at home, and then lived in the independent living area.

I lived there for a couple of years,

but after I became ill a second time, I went through the PATH program again. After rehabilitating, I moved down to the assisted living apartments.”

This continuity of care model at Parsons Presbyterian Manor has allowed Bob to remain at “home” while getting the care he needs for every season of his life.

“I’ve been in this apartment about a year and enjoy the freedom of being able to come and go as I please. I may be 92, but I still drive around town when I need to get out or just to go play cards at the Senior Center,” said Bob. “I like the convenience and the care I

receive and assistance with transportation when I might need it. I also really like the therapy I have received here.”

When asked if he would recommend Presbyterian Manor to friends and family, Bob answers with a resounding “Yes.”

“I have many friends who’ve lived in various different settings here,” said Bob. “I really like the Presbyterian Manor community and would recommend living here, whether it be short term in the PATH program, or something more long-term such as an independent living duplex or assisted living apartments.”

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Community Matters is published monthly for residents and friends of Parsons Presbyterian Manor by Presbyterian Manors of

501(c)(3) organization. Learn more at PresbyterianManors.org.

Maegen Pegues, executive director Lori Sears, marketing director To submit or suggest articles for this publication, contact lsears@pmma.org.

Telephone: 620-421-1450 Fax: 620-421-1897 Address: 3501 Dirr Ave., Parsons, KS 67357-2220 Our mission: We provide quality senior services guided by Christian values.

ParsonsPresbyterianManor.org

Par sonns Presbyterian Manorr’s Post-Acute ost Acute T To o ® Homee (PATH ) program isn’t juust about getting you home – it’s about getting you baack to your life.

Call 620-717-4030 to oday to schedule your per sonal appointment ment and tour.

ParsonsPresbyterianManor.org

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The power of sharing our stories

Playing a game at an assisted living community opened up connections

By Reyna Marder Gentin for Next Avenue

“Will you come?” she asked.

I wanted to say no. As my children will tell you, with the rare exception of a Shabbat round of Scrabble or Bananagrams, I don’t play games.

Maybe I’m uptight, or just no fun, but games are not my thing. The idea of helping to facilitate an octogenarian quiz show was not high on my list.

But the truth is, this event was out of my comfort zone for reasons having nothing to do with my game aversion.

Lately, many of my friends have been investigating, planning and cajoling their aging parents into moving out of their homes. Those who are lucky will relocate as intact couples, husbands and wives facing this enormous transition together; many others need to move because they are now alone.

The circumstances of our parents

My friends optimistically talk about their parents’ “new circumstances.”

There will be meals, nurses and social workers onsite and transportation to medical appointments, they say. And most of all, there will be

socialization. Art lessons and book groups and Zumba. A year-round summer camp for old folks to fight off the isolation.

For better or worse, my own parents never lived in one of these seemingly idyllic places. My father died at 70, too young and basically too healthy to need that sort of situation. My mother lived into her mid-80s and stubbornly remained in her house, fiercely independent to the end, long past when being alone in suburbia made any sense at all.

Although I didn’t tell my friend, and I couldn’t have articulated it if I wanted to, the idea of participating in her program made me sad. But how could I not give an hour of my time?

Let the storytelling game begin

My friend meets me in the reception area of the facility, where the residents are lounging, many speaking animatedly to each other. I’m a VIP guest, a “personality” from the community.

Other than a brief intro, I play the game

Credit: Adobe Stock

My friend runs an assisted living residence not far from where I live.

When she called to say she had a mitzvah (a good deed) for me that was “right up my alley,” I was wary, to put it mildly. She explained that she was running an event where the residents would play a game encouraging them to share, open mic style, stories from their lives. My friend knows I write — essays, memoir pieces, a novel. I tell stories.

just as the residents do. The “host” calls someone up to the microphone, and the contestant picks a card from the deck.

Each card has a question, something to start a story:Who was a teacher that influenced you? Tell us about a time you watched a sunset with another person.

The contestants make their way to the front of the room, some on their own steam, some with walkers, others helped by an aide or a relative.The stories they tell are the ordinary ones of life.The time the electricity went out.

A typical dinner with the family. As each speaks, I find myself simultaneously present in the moment, and magically transported, as I hear in my head my own parents answering the questions, telling the stories that they would tell.

My mother’s favorite pet? Amber, a golden retriever so sweet and docile that my cousins named her “the breathing carpet.”

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STORIES

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Where did you grow up? My father’s Bronx tale, where kids of all ages played in the street together, no arranged play dates, until their mothers called them in for dinner.

A favorite vacation? They both tell of our family’s six-week journey across the country in our 1972 Chrysler station wagon, complete with a blowup raft in the back where I, age 6, slept, before the days of car seats.

The power of life-affirming stories

As I await my turn, I am afraid that whatever question is on the card will call to mind only a story that will be too filled with loss and too personal for this room of my parents’ peers.

When I hear my name, I go to the front, and involuntarily make some 4 COMMUNITY MATTERS APRIL 2018

face that shows my uncertainty. I get a laugh and feel a little more relaxed.

leave her home, but others are clearly thriving. And there is much humor.

One woman is asked to describe When the host asks me to speak about something she wishes she were good at a favorite photograph, I take a deep but isn’t. She admits that she can’t breath. And then I do talk about my come up with anything, and parents, about how the photographs of “Telling our stories asks if she can list the things she does well. Another agrees them are the ones I is life affirming. to play the game, but when most enjoy now that Telling our stories is she gets the microphone, they are gone. I tell of a picture of myself critical. Our stories refuses to answer the are what we will question on the card. She has and my mother that always have left.” another story to tell. sits on my mantelpiece. I am a Back in my seat, I feel that little girl with a mop of blond curls, rush that comes with being vulnerable, and my mother is holding me. And I and then finding acceptance. We’re tell them that my daughter has the family now. same mop of blond curls.

Telling our stories is life affirming.

The stories of the residents, though Telling our stories is critical. Our brief, are filled with gratitude and stories are what we will always have pathos. One woman says that she is left. heartbroken to have been forced to © Next Avenue - 2018. All rights reserved.