Imagine sitting in a room all day long by yourself as a pandemic has overtaken the world and the only contact that you have is an occasional nurse or food worker stop by with your meal.
You haven’t seen your family – your children, your spouse, your siblings, or possibly your parents in person for a long, long time and the prognosis of seeing them remains dim into the future.
No hugs and no kisses – maybe just a Zoom face-to-face from time to time.
Now imagine that you are elderly or unable to physically take care of yourself. Maybe your mind has wavered and mentally the impact of being alone has created a feeling of giving up.
Some even would rather catch COVID-19 and face death than be alone.
Such is the condition of many patients at local nursing homes and in an attempt to improve morale, local activity directors are trying their best to do things that brings a sense of normalcy to their patients.
Tim Andrews, activities director at Ivy Hall Nursing Home, along with some of their residents and staff took time out recently to hand-paint pumpkins for the approaching Halloween season.
Typically, Ivy Hall has trick-or-treaters come in and get candy but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there will be no trick or treating this year in order to protect the residents and due to state regulations.
Andrews and the residents and staff wanted to share their handy work on the pumpkins in this week’s Lifestyles.