Happy Birthday on February 28th. to Randy Lalonde, one of our dedicated Paramedics. I have known Randy for a long time. He worked with me years ago at Mount Carmel House Treatment Center for Drug and Alcohol Abuse in St. Raphael’s. He was a conscientious worker and a very caring and committed staff member. One of the things I always liked about Randy was his ready wit. He has a keen sense of humour which, with my dry sense of humour, worked easily and we had a lot of fun. He was always pleasant, respectful and helpful with our residents. I am sure he is the same in his work as a Paramedic and we are lucky to have him on the Paramedic team.
Happy Happy Birthday, Randy.
February is Heart and Stroke Month. It is fundraising month for this important organization.
The symptoms of a stroke are easy to remember if you think of the word’ FAST’ which stands for :
F: Face. Is it drooping?
A: Arms. Can you raise both?
S: Speech. Is it slurred or jumbled?
T: Time. Call 911 right away.
The brochure on stroke symptoms says to ‘Act FAST because the quicker you act the more of the person you save.’
For more information contact the Heart and Stroke Foundation at 1-888-473-4636 or locally in Cornwall at 613-938-8933 or visit the office at 36 Second Street East or their web site: heart and stroke.ca/FAST
There will be a full day workshop hosted by The Alzheimer’s Society of Cornwall and District with guest speaker Teepa Snow. It will be at the Ramada Inn on March 1 from 10am to 4pm. Cost is $100.00 each.
Ms. Teepa is an Occupational Therapist who works as a dementia care and dementia educational specialist. She has over 33 years of experience in the geriatric and dementia fields as well as personal experience in having had to provide care to family members.
Her workshop is titled ‘A Positive Approach to Person Centered Care’. It will consist of information on changing resistance of care, demystifying resistance and refusals, and understanding types of behaviours. It will help us to learn how to create meaningful days for the person with the dementia that may be special for them. There will be advice on how to make visits valuable and positive as well. This will help match up the assistance a person is able to give to the person with dementia that fill the needs and takes into consideration their abilities.
Contact the Alzheimer Society for more info at: http://www.alzheimer.ca/en/cornwall or phone 613-4914 or visit the office at 106B Second Street West. Remember, the sign in their office window says, “Welcome”, and you are.
It doesn’t matter who you talk with, the ‘Dieu’ might come up. I was reprimanded a few times for calling our new beautiful Cornwall Community Hospital the ‘Dieu’. I am just as bad saying the’ Villa’ instead of St. Joseph’s Continuing Care Center or the old Mac instead of Marie -De-La-Ferre. Versa Care is another one, now Heartwood Ltc. And although the old Cornwall General Hospital has recently changed to The Care Center, I will probably call it the General instead of The Care Center for awhile. Park haven Heights , a recovery home is now Heritage Heights.
Papa Gedaro’s Restaurant is now Schnitzels. The Jade is now the Moon Tai Japanese Cuisine. The old Nativity Hall ,now the Agora Centre. And the list goes on. Holy cow!! How are we to remember all this stuff?? I’m an old lady…(Not true but it is a good excuse!! Once you are a senior it is a very handy alibi.) Lucky for us, The Glen Stor Dun Lodge’s name is still the same.
It seems if you live long enough things change and hopefully your memory goes with it. In my case it may be going a little slow.
I wish Dr. David Amen, the noted Neurologist from California was here to help me figure out why I keep calling places by their old names. It may be a case of too many files in the old beanie and my grey cells are probably turning white from old age, that is, older age and recognizes only the familiar things first, like previous names. Must be something like that I bet. I don’t think it is senility..yet or dementia or any stuff like that. It is probably just old lazy me not paying attention. Yet, my friends say,” Get with it, Dawn!” But then the old adage says that,” It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks.” Although, on the other hand, they also say, “Practice makes perfect.” So, instead of driving myself crazy, I should just focus more and practice more. But if you overhear me say the “Villa” or the” Dieu”, just say, “Oh, there she goes again! Poor old dear” and we will do what ‘Jules’ says so often in the comment sections in this newspaper, we will both have a good laugh.
There is apparently going to be a health study for people up to 74 years of age only. You would think a wealth of knowledge could be learned by letting older people than 74 participate. How did some people get to a healthy 90+? George Burns was 100 and still smoking his cigar!!! Would information after 74 not be very valuable?? Well, maybe they will have another one for the ‘Old Folks.’
My friend James Ladouceur is having a Grand Opening of his new Walk-in Computer Clinic on Monday, February 22nd. He is a very gifted computer technician and offering good reasonable rates. He has helped me for years and believe me, being a real computer nerd, I need his help and patience. It will take place at 10 McConnell Avenue from 9am to 2pm. The first 25 customers get a free assessment worth $15.00
Here is a great shot of Mary Gallinger and Orval Beckstead and two little darlings with me on the Paediatric Ward at the Cornwall General Hospital in the 1960’s.
Long time ago.
Mary and Orval were both great staff members to work with and helped me keep all our little ones happy.
It is amazing how you can hear something that you haven’t heard for awhile and it brings back a flood of memories. PBS Watertown had their fundraiser on the weekend of Feb 13. Ed Ames from the legendary Ames Brothers teamed up with the Four Lads and sang ‘The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane’. It was fun to hear it again. The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane was only nine days old. I always loved that song, probably because I love babies. I used to hum it to some of our little ones on Paediatrics, especially the little premature babies in incubators or while feeding and changing the babes in the nursery. They love to be loved. I am so grateful for the time I worked on Paediatrics and all the wonderful memories.
My brother Ed told me that when one of his little children was crying, he would gather the little one up in his arms and rock them singing, “Wonderful Wonderful Copenhagen” and they would stop crying, safe in their Dad’s loving arms. The waltz tempo of that song was probably so soothing.
Babies love the sound of music. I think there was a study some years ago about babes being more mentally alert when exposed to music. Maybe not so much my singing. LOL.
Although I must say my cat Tiger loves it and his daily brushing goes much easier when I sing to him. One time I thought I would play the recording of ‘ Mull of Kintyre’ by Paul McCarthy and The Wings instead of singing it. Not a good idea. When the bagpipes started piping, Tiger bolted off the bed and went flying down the hall!! Poor little cat; it frightened him. Seems he likes my singing better. Lol
Here is a cute joke:
On the way back from a Cub Scout meeting, a little boy innocently said to his father, “Dad, I know babies come from mommy’s tummies, but how do they get there in the first place?”
After the father hemmed and hawed awhile, the little boy finally spoke up in disgust, “You don’t have to make up something, Dad. It’s okay if you don’t know the answer.”
Have a good week, Dawn