Bummer…

I was unable to go with my group to East Castle this week, because I have a crazy death cold thing.  I didn’t want to get any residents sick so I thought it would be best not to go.  I was bummed, because the last session was really great.  We had 3 ladies who all really participated, June, Betty, and Beulah,  and we got some great stories.  It was a really great session because Beulah joined us and she entered the room by saying “Everybody loves Beulah”.  Betty is really good at participating, but she always says “no, don’t add that i was just kidding.”  and June who is always a character.  I heard from my group members that this week went really well also!

St. Johns 3/27/07

So I realized today how much of an affect that the weather can have on people. 75% of the people were sleeping today and the ones that were awake didn’t feel like participating much. It was almost like pulling teeth to get answers out of them. It was on the verge of being uncomfortable for me. I felt like all of these people hated me and they had no idea why I was there. After the last week we did it I was so optimistic that things were going to turn around and everything was going to start getting better. Then the weather was crappy again and it was worse than ever. The liason talked to us and told us not to get discouraged, and all the residents had been like that all day. I will take Tuesday as a learning day hope that next time will be better. It also really opened my eyes to how alzhiemers is a sickness and they can’t control how they are each day.

eldertales: Tuesday

Tuesdays storytelling session was even better than our groups last one which was pretty amazing. When we first arrived it was a while before the storytellers were gathered together. When everyone was together we had 5 storytellers–the most we’ve ever had. For our storytelling session I was going to ask the storytellers questions, which would be my first time. Usually I am sitting next to a storyteller trying to make sure that they are being heard and making sure that they hear the questions so they will have a chance to be involved. But I  honestly  feel I don’t do a very good job of it. I am afraid of being forceful and it doesn’t help that I am shy so I end-up being more quiet than talkative. But this time I was determined to be very talkatvie and ask questions until I got the storytellers to participate. There were a couple of things that surprized me–the first being that I never knew I could speak so loud, it was very tiring, the second was that the storytellers could be so alert and quick and the third thing was that this session was better than the last one. The storytellers were very involved in the session. They answered the questions and gave specific answers. Most of the time I didn’t have to repeat the questions because the storytellers were so quick to answer and very alert. They gave good answers which they put thought into. You could tell they really cared about the answers that they gave–they really tried. I was impressed by their participation. I think that making up a story is a hard task. So the fact that they didn’t take the easy way of doing the session by not answering questions and/or just making-up just anything to shut me up–I was talking alot–was great. I felt really part of the session because of  the storytellers responses. And even though it was physically tiring having to ask questions and talk loudly, I hope and want to do it again next week. The storytelling session was really fun this week–I hope next week is to.    Tanya W.

st. ann’s 3.27.07

this week was a little different. we created a story about the three acordian playing women. i feel like the elders had a hard time coming up with answers for this week. there were alot of “i don’t know”’s. the story itself was pretty boring but the experience was anything but. caroline caught a case of the giggles and everytime i looked at her it got worse. i’m still not sure what she was laughing about. towards the end, caroline said that the ladies looked plump and well fed, so lillian puffed out her cheeks, stuck her chest out and sort of put her arms like chicken wings and pretended to be really fat. it was hilarious. everyone in the room was laughing.

for the first time this week i noticed that some of the ladies were asking the others what they came up with. caroline seemed to be interested in what dorris had to say. eveylyn was not crabby this week, thank god, but instead she kept asking us the same questions again. her short term memory is not that good, we have to keep reminding here that this is a story, not real life.

i think the turn taking method worked well for us, and we should continue with that.

St. John’s (March 27, 2007)

The usual crowd that we at St. John’s usually encounter was not present when we arrived on March 27.  Not only was the local gang not around but the room was not set up and we were not provided with a picture which we have been every week.  Luckily Mike brought along some pictures of a little girl hugging an elephant and we were able to use those to start off the session.

An awkward and long silence seemed to fill the air and no one was paying too much attention.  The only sound that was heard loud and clear was the grinding of teeth brought especially to us by a new participant who later on decided that the picture looked tasty.  The lady who I was sitting next to, Rhoda, seemed to be the only one who at least occasionally would have an idea.  Though I found it difficult to know how to correctly respond when she’d as me, “Well what do you think?” I settled with the answer that I was tired, didn’t know, or lacked creativity that day.  Father Culver was yet again glad that the picture (this time the elephant) was not looking at him and didn’t say too much about anything else (he didn’t really care).

I felt that this was a good learning experience for my group because we’ve on average had such a cooperative group that it was interesting to see those who were farther along in the disease and to realize that people with Alzheimer’s have their good and bad days just like the rest of us.  It was difficult but we stuck it through and learned from it and will be sure to use all of the knowledge we’ve gained in future trips to St. Johns.

EastCastle

Ok we had a pretty great session again this week.  We had a group of 5 ladies.  June, Betty, and Beulah of course and two new additions Helen and Adell (I think that’s her name).  We told 3 stories and all of them some how involve drinking and dancing… a recurring theme. We started late again this week because they weren’t ready but things turned out ok.  Gary had other things to do this week so the storytelling went smoothly without interruptions.  I think our group is really starting to get the hang of this and the residents are more comfortable with the activity.  I believe that is the ultimate external story going on with this activity.  Each week we get to know the residents a little more and each week the stories evolve as they get used to the activity. Each storyteller had a unique contribution this week. 

June: I wasn’t sure June was going to join us this week.  She was very upset when we came.  When she felt up to joining us we welcomed her enthusiastically and she reluctantly joined in.  At the end of the session she was laughing and handing out chocolate.   When she herd us read back last week’s story she said: “I think I remember doing something like that” I don’t know if any group members caught it but that is the first sign of any memory trouble that I have noticed in her

Betty: Betty is a sweety. She is always hesitant to add things to the story because she thinks someone else has something better to contribute.   When I took her back up to her room she told me that she thinks what we are doing is  fun but the stories need more meat to them. Then she told me she would only say it to me because she thought her opinion wasn’t important. 

Beulah: Beulah is the spark in our group.  She always adds in the dancing, drinking, and partying parts of the stories.  Her dad must be very important to her because his name ends up in every story.  Also, she insisted that she is 90 years old when she was 84 last week.  Beulah is always willing to participate.

Helen: She is very quiet untill we ask her a question directly then she will participate. And boy does she add to the stories! She doesn’t laugh or interact with other story tellers. She seems very serious about her answers. Like when we asked her why the man was disgusted she responded “He’s making love.” I hope she comes back.

Adell: As a new comer Adell caught on quickly. She didn’t participate as much as Beulah but she did seem to enjoy contributing. She thanked us all when the session was over. I think she had fun.

From Brian…

Storytelling Session Profile – Thursday, March 28, 2007
Brian Harrington

Snapshot -

Whenever it’s a really cruddy day out, especially if yesterday was 80 degrees
and sunny, you are not in the best mood.  On the car ride there no one was
excited to do another session.  Our previous ones were pulling teeth.  So the
gloomy weather, the end of spring break, and previoius sessions were all
hanging over our heads.
The gray skies penetrated the ‘Garden Room’ as well.  However, Mary Lou was
more willing to participate than shes ever been, must have been her new
haircut.  Mary Lou even offered me money ($.75 cents) and called me an “amazing
man.”
Each session is better, and each session we grow more familiar with the elders.
They are remembering us now, and our happy to see us.

Catchphrases -
. “Brian is an amazing man!” – Mary Lou, and my personal favorite quote
. “John Maxwell Coffee” -The name of our main character from Gretchen
. “Here ya go, you need some money” – Mary Lou after she made me take the $.75
Cents she was offering me.

Core Story Internal -

A man is going to a village up north, where there is a village of people and
many things are happening.

Core Story External -

The relationship between residents and students grows as they talk of other
places and times that we can all relate to.

St. John’s, 3.27

I facilitated this storytellings session. It was not easy.

When we arrived, the room usually filled brightly with alert occupants, a stack of pictures, and ammenities already in place had only soft sounds of a stereo lulling seven sleepy elders. Mike had the elephant picture we had used earlier in class to stir the imagination. A self-reliant passerby was easily coerced into joining the gathering. The liason, Molly, arrived shortly after we started.

Half of our storytellers were either sleeping or indisposed, unable to respond to any attempts of inclusion. The story was short and almost devoid of details, though Lloyd added one quirk: “I smell chocolate wherever I go.”

We faced a harsh reality that was realized somewhere between curses shouted at us and the moment one resident ate the picture we handed out. We tried to move ahead, but responses were slow coming if they came at all.

It was blamed on the cold and windy rain of yesterday and Monday’s warm weather that tired everyone out. We also lost a few people to the vocal concert that was taking place upstairs.

Eastcastle Ladies get Rowdy Again…

Before I dwell too much on the good – because that was what most of our session was today- there is still one minor problem at Eastcastle. They still don’t have residents for us when we get there- so we always start 15 to 20 minutes late. We are also unsure as to who our liason really is – Gary isn’t our official liason, but we havn’t seen the other lady since the official visit. Hence, we’re not sure who to go to with details for our celebration at the end.

But other than those small administrative details, we had a good session today. We told three stories, and we had 5 ladies – our regulars (june, betty and beula), and two new faces – helen and adel… not sure how to spell the rest of that name. The first story was about a picture of an old, whitehaired woman with her leg straight up on a bus-stop pole, stretching. She’s getting ready to go to her 80th or 90th birthday, and doing calisthetics (sp?) to keep up with the men at the party. As in all of our stories- they end up dancing and having cocktails, beer and wine.

The second story was the picture of the woman in the dress holding the gun. The ladies decided that she was gonna shoot a bird and take it home to her family for dinner. They’ll of course have cocktails and coffee with dinner.

The third story had us on the ground balled up in laughter. It was a picture of a middle-aged man in a hawaian shirt sticking out his tongue. He was in Hawaii at a Luau, intoxicated. His name is Leo. He is on the beach, making love to all the ladies- lots of them, which he can do because he remembered to take his Viagara. The beach is dark, but it is warm and beautiful temperature wise….and so it goes…

Our final celebration is going to be quite the party, I think. More details on that in class on Thursday.

I think the most remarkable thing about our session was the mood change in June today. At the beginning, we had to go sing jingle bells outside her door to get her to come out. She finally came out- you could tell she had been very upset and or crying. By the end, she was playing santa claus and handing out chocolate kisses to everyone and doing the mexican hat dance, as per usual. It was kind of neat to watch…

Erin

St. John’s Very Unlikely

Although Very Unlikely was the title we ultimately came up with for our story today, it could just as well have been the answer to any question we might have posed in regards to getting a story from our resident storytellers today.

The weather had been most excellent for the past couple days.  Today the temperatures started dropping. So, did the energy level of the residents at St. John’s. According to one of the staff there, many residents just weren’t getting up and out of their rooms today.  I first thought we might be in the wrong room as I did not immediately recognize any of the residents. There did turn out to be a couple of irregular regulars in the room.

As there were no staff members around we had to fend for ourselves. Not so bad, except we are a bit spoiled by the staff at St. John’s.  One of our group had some extra copies of an image picture, so we passed them out and got started. Or should I say got started trying to get started. I would say it was like pulling teeth, except I suspect many of the residents had no teeth to pull. Several people were simply sleeping and others were trying to sleep. Eventually I was trying to not sleep.

I mean no disrespect to anyone. I think it is best to acknowledge a bad session and how bad it was. It was terrible. In my opinion. That is not to say anything was wrong as far as the residents were concerned.  We are there for them and not the other way around. Molly, the staff member who showed up part way through the session, said there are times like this when the residents simply have no energy. Often following an especially good weather day. It will be interesting to see if any of the other groups experienced the same problem today.

The story we did put together today was about the elephant and little girl image picture.

internal story; the picture came from the Jersey shore, some one said big and small of it, the girl’s name was Julia and she didn’t want to let go, she was saying goodbye to some one she really likes. The elephant is looking away from us, and there is a building , for storage in the picture. The elephant’s name is baby. In the picture we can see the rear end of a new car. Splashing water can be heard. It is cold and it is late fall. Julia and Baby are tired just like the rest of us. Loyld can smell chocolate where ever he goes. This place is not near New York. It feels like an important part of her life. They are casual aquaintances and holding hands. Julia puts Baby in the trunk and takes him with her to surprise every one. The elephant has small ears and is hairy. The girl and elephant laugh.

After the great time we had at the last session, this was depressing. But, if Molly is right, it happens and it could always be great next time.