After retiring from teaching after my accident, I decided to figure out what else I could do with my time so I enrolled at a nearby Hospice Home facility. I began the training program diligently. The training was extensive and involved lots of reading. When I finished, it was time to begin my new journey.

I met some very interesting people whom will remain nameless . One older gentleman was very grouchy, but he had loss of hearing so you had to shout loudly for him to hear. I didn’t know how to reach him because of the extreme hearing loss. I asked the nurse if they could help him, but she said the family didn’t want to provide hearing aides for him. I brought my iphone and played some music I thought he might like (loudly, of course.)  He began tapping his toe to the music with a grin on his face.

I also met an elderly lady who had lost her limb due to blood clots and diabetes. She was friendly and we worked puzzles together while we talked. Another person was a lady who suffered from mental illness and she was very childlike. I borrowed some picture cards for her there and we worked on vocabulary and memory. I used my teacher training to think on what would work best to help her.

This continued for several months until I realized it was causing me to feel depressed and lose sleep. So I decided to quit and keep searching for my niche another way.