Not every long-term care job description comes with the opportunity, or curse, to work after hours. Harried nurses can’t exactly carry a resident home and finish the job on the weekend, for instance...
Heroes bring us together
By
Gary Tetz
Oct 18, 2018
Ever tempted to lose your faith in the essential goodness of human nature? Worried that our country is irreparably divided? A flight across the country with a group of iconic war heroes from long-term...
One little word, one big perception
By
Gary Tetz
Oct 04, 2018
A friend of mine had grown concerned about the condition of her mother, who is a resident at a skilled nursing facility in another state. It tears at her heart being so far away, and she doesn’t get...
Wake-up call from a broken glass
By
Gary Tetz
Sep 20, 2018
In an ego-driven, impermanent world where possessions masquerade as precious, every genuine human interaction matters and no effort is ever wasted. The kitchen has been swept and the broken remains of...
Poor, poor pitiful me
By
Gary Tetz
Sep 06, 2018
When I ask rehab patients about the precipitating event that brought them to therapy, they can at least answer the question. Maybe they tripped on a zucchini vine, slipped on a grape in the grocery store...
Molalla on her mind
By
Gary Tetz
Sep 05, 2018
You wouldn’t have seen any flashing lights or scurrying EMTs, but it was still a major crisis. The nursing home resident was completely out of his favorite pickles, and not just any variety would...
Long-term care in the land of ‘Sorry’
By
Gary Tetz
Aug 23, 2018
People often ask me what long-term care is like in Canada.* Trying to keep the peace, I usually answer, “Different.” I choose this passive path because a) I’m Canadian, so it’s...
Lessons under anesthesia
By
Gary Tetz
Jul 12, 2018
Nothing ever makes me feel more empathy for those we care for than my own occasional reluctant forays into our American healthcare pseudo-system. I just walked a mile in somebody else’s figurative...
Park in the Visitor spot
By
Gary Tetz
Jul 09, 2018
It sits, beckoning but unattainable, just outside the entrance to your long-term care facility — the Visitor parking spot. You can see it, but don’t dare use it. Every day, in big, block letters,...
Sacred moments in the therapy gym
By
Gary Tetz
Jun 14, 2018
I haven’t perched in a tree waiting for Bigfoot, or spent a morning with binoculars in a rowboat on Loch Ness. But I recently had a ringside seat for one of those elusive rehab therapy triumphs —...