Today's Trip to the Nursing Home

Today was our regular day to visit the nursing home.  It was a good visit.  Isaac has a routine down there now.

First we got to visit his friend Sue.  We go there first because she has treats for him.  She was especially excited to see him today because she had seen her sister over the weekend and gotten some treats from her sister to give Isaac.  Until now, she's been giving him the treats I brought her for that purpose.  But today, she had some milk bones and she had one "special treat," which was shaped like a little steak and supposed to be steak-flavored.  Before we got to her room, one of the nurses stopped me to tell me to make sure we stopped in to see her.  I guess she'd been telling the staff about how she had special treats for Isaac.  So we went there first, like we always do, and Isaac got quite a few treats.

Then we went on to visit other residents.  We saw his friend Edith, who usually sings to him and loves to feed him treats.  She was having a bad day today, though.  She was crying.  She was the saddest I've seen her since the first time we saw her.  I don't know why she was crying, because she doesn't really communicate.  She doesn't talk, anyway.  She was able to communicate the fact that she was very sad just fine, but not able to communicate why.  She was eager to pet Isaac, though.  She didn't sing to him and didn't cheer up at all when I let her feed him some treats, but she did seem to be comforted, at least a little, by petting him.  She pet him for a long time.

We were visiting another resident in the dementia unit and he said, "Hi, Doggie," several times.  A couple nurses were standing nearby watching and were surprised that he spoke to Isaac and that he made sense.  Apparently he rarely talks and even more rarely says things that make sense.

It was a good therapy dog day.