Elderly Care
In our 20’s, we think we are invincible; we party all night, sleep during the day and have no regard for our physical bodies… By our 30’s, we’ve wised up a little but still think we are here forever…. By our 40’s and 50’s, things start to change (physical things, we need reading glasses, we feel quite tired by the end of the day); we start to have glimpses, that yes, maybe our bodies are getting older … Then as we progress through our 60’s, 70’s and 80’s…. We realise our bodies are aging, while we are more gentle on ourselves, things become harder than they were before…
Quite often, when we zoom through life in a rush to get from A to B to C…… we miss the delightful journey we are on. When speaking with the elderly, I really get a sense of the simplicity and richness they have in life. I’ve been in the healthcare field for many, years now and I am always touched by the beautiful elderly people that come into my pharmacy. I love seeing their warm gentle smiles, their kind eyes, their appreciation of living in the moment… I always love to have a chat and love to get an insight into their lives, their wisdom, the things that make them happy and the challenges the face.
The other day I was driving home from work, and I saw some bored, teenage youths driving on the tail of an elderly man driving his car. The boys were honking and screaming and tormenting this dear man. What was it that this elderly man had done wrong? Nothing. He was just driving a little slow, that is all. And that was enough for these young boys to harass this poor man.
Nothing upsets me more than this. Rather than showing respect to these wise elderly people, people can be down right rude. Do they think they will never age? Can you imagine what our aging nation is going through… They may have once been a CEO, mother, school teacher.. And now simple tasks, like taking out your garbage is physically taxing for them.
We have created this website as a tribute to the elderly. I’m not too sure how many 80 year olds would be interested in reading our blog updates, but this site has been designed for you and me. An anchor point to see how much we have to be grateful for, gain an insight into the daily challenges our older generations are facing on a daily basis, and share our comments and feedback about how we can genuinely better help our community.
The main areas covered in this blog post updates: Basic household tasks, going shopping, staying on top of our finances, maintain a healthy lifestyle and other areas such as their hopes and dreams.
Let’s start from the ground up
Here’s a story about Joseph, he was a kind, loving sweet gentleman. He would always have a smile on his face and speaking with him always made my day. Joseph was living on his own (his wife had recently passed away and his children were all adults with their own young families); I have known Joseph for years and I have seen the effects aging has had on him physically and mentally.
Anyhow, I popped over a few weeks ago (to drop off some scripts), we started chatting and he asked me to come in for a cup of tea. As this was my last home delivery for the day, I thought that would be a lovely way to end the day and I stayed for a chat. While at home, I took a seat while he put on the kettle.
As I sat, I looked around. I could smell a musty odour in the air. When looking down on his floor I could see cat hair, tea stains, food that had been dropped and not picked up. I had waited for about 5 minutes and Joseph still hadn’t returned from out of the kitchen, so I popped my head around the kitchen. His hands were shaking and he was struggling to pour the water from the kettle into our tea cups. I immediately raced over and gave him a hand. I finished making our tea, brought them into our lounge and we both sat down to sip our tea and catch up.
While I was in the kitchen I also noticed among other things, a broken egg on the floor, a trail of ants and crumbs everywhere.
When thinking about it, a basic cup of tea or coffee in the morning is a challenge. But that aside, this house that he was living in was unclean, had a musty smell and was in desperate need of tender loving care. Starting just with the floors, I found some great websites (http://carpetcleaningsydneyservice.com.au/, http://carpetcleaningbrisbaneservices.com.au/, http://carpetcleaninggoldcoastservices.com.au/, http://carpetcleaningmelbourneservices.com.au/, http://housecleaningmelbourneservices.com.au/, which are directories of carpet cleaning companies, not only do these places come into your home and clean them from top to bottom, when speaking to them they generally offer discounts for the elderly. This definitely caught my eye.
Joseph spends 80% of his time at home, so if he could live in a clean, healthy environment, starting with clean floors (which would improve his air and what he breathes in and out), he would already be in much better off. And then as an added bonus of having these company discount their prices as part of their service for our older generation, this is a gift that would be greatly appreciated.