Peninsula Humane Society Visit #6

April Li
November 1st, 2015 12-3 PM
Peninsula Humane Society
Morgan Little
650-340-7022 ext. 382

            By my last visit, I had seen the kittens grow into slightly bigger kittens that were more active and capable of the more stereotypical cat behaviors. Even though I had seen essentially the same kittens every week for just over the past month, I felt more sad than I had expected when I realized that this was my last time seeing them. I had raised them (along with many other volunteers) and I was really attached to these small balls of fur that were just beginning their real lives. After diligently feeding, cleaning, and sometimes even rubbing their stomachs to stimulate their bowel movements (mostly for some of the younger kittens) for them, I wanted to adopt them all in order to make sure that their lives would be as happy as cat lives could possibly be. While I personally, was not necessarily instrumental in keeping them alive, because plenty of people want to help kittens, I feel like I did help with this group of kittens at least; it was still really nice knowing that all these tiny minor activities that I had done or helped with (and annoyances like getting kitten poop on myself that I had put up with) had contributed in some part to these cats leading healthy and happy future lives once they got adopted. 
            On the other hand, despite the adorableness of the kittens, the entire experience reinforced my desire to help out with animal overpopulation because I also realized that I had been helping out with abandoned cat babies for the last month, and that was a very sobering thought when I further considered the kittens that hadn't been brought to the Humane Society in time to receive care. While the Humane Society did and does its best to help all animals, the number of animals does impact the quality of the care that each one can experience; with less overpopulation, the Humane Society could devote more resources to less cases and possibly help animals more overall. 

Peninsula Humane Society Visit #3

April Li
October 10th, 2015 12-3 PM
Peninsula Humane Society
Morgan Little
650-340-7022 ext. 382

            Before I had started working at the Peninsula Humane Society's Kitten Nursery, I think I skimmed over most of the job description, and instead had only seen the word "kitten." To be honest, I thought that I would spend my time playing with or "socializing" the kittens to human interaction and the six visits would pass quickly and easily. However, as I had learned by my third visit, this was definitely not the case. The Kitten Nursery was home to kittens, yes, but they were very young, most of them around three to five weeks old and required a fair amount care to make sure that they would grow up healthily. I was very shocked and a little sad when I realized that there was also an alarmingly large number of kittens that were in the Kitten Nursery.
            However, it also reminded me why I wanted to work with animals in the first place for my PACT project. Overpopulation is an aspect of Animal Abuse, the social issue that I wanted to address, and because people had not spayed or neutered their animals (cats in this case), it resulted in an overabundance of kittens—something that I had not realized was possible before. As a result, not only do these kittens often grow up in poor condition, they would in turn become a part of the problem themselves, if/when they reached adulthood. The Kitten Nursery would keep them safe and healthy, help the cycle end by spaying and neutering them, and also ultimately help the kittens find a home.

Visit #6 Blog

Cameron Kay

August 23, 2016 11am-2pm

Webster House

John Q. Dela Cruz

JDelaCruz@jtm-esc.org

            Today I think I conquered my fear of the third floor. At Webster there are four floors. The first floor is reception and employee headquarters, the second is short-term care (rehab and such), the third is the memory care unit, and the fourth is general long-term care. I’ve spent the past three visits on the third floor and I think I’m finally comfortable with it.

            The first few times I came to Webster, I avoided the third floor like the plague. I’d drop my bag in the volunteer office and immediately head up to the fourth floor to assist John in whatever activities he had planned, but a few visits ago, John didn’t need help and handed me over to Cynthia, one of the nurses on the third floor. She gave me a pile that contained three books: one of dramatic love poetry, one about God, and the other a self-help book about finding tranquility. We gathered a group of residents and I began to read selections from each, but we immediately ran into a problem: I was the only sound English speaker.

            When someone who speaks English as a second language experiences memory loss, what can happen is that they revert back to their mother tongue. The woman to my left was trying to speak to me in Hindi, while the woman to my right, who I later found out only spoke Chinese, had fallen asleep in the first ten minutes. Two of the other women spoke Spanish, making me bitterly regret my six years of Latin. I don’t mean to be flippant; I can’t imagine what it is like for these people not to be able to communicate with their caregivers or volunteers like me. One woman grabbed on to me with wild and started speaking no language at all, making nonsensical sounds, but clinging onto my arm and looking at me as if she was trying to tell me the most important thing in the world. I found out from one of the nurses that she had suffered a stroke and lost her ability to speak coherently.

            I did a puzzle with another resident (I can’t name residents because that violates their privacy). She always wore a helmet and was one of the few who could speak. As we started to put together the puzzle, she began to tell me about her accident, the reason she ended up in Webster. She told me that she went to lunch with a friend in Town & Country Village in Palo Alto and her friend basically tried to run her over with her car. She got upset and started shouting that it was murder, but calmed down after I turned her attention back to the puzzle. I don’t know if what she told me is the truth, in fact I suspect it’s distorted, but what alarmed me was how true it was to her.

            The issue with losing one’s mental faculties is that what you believe to be the absolute truth can be something entirely wrong. I took this lovely Polish woman on many walks. She was a court room translator for many years and often likes to tell me what it’s like to speak many languages. She seems sharp as a tack, but then at the end of every visit she asks me to take her home to an address on Sheridan Avenue. She tells me that she doesn’t live at Webster and asks me to take her home, but I can’t. I have to take her back upstairs.

            The third floor breaks my heart. People who were once professors, linguists, accountants, or any other profession you can think of can’t tell you what year it is. However, it’s opened my eyes to the gravity of diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia. They’re hard on the patient, but they must be just as hard on their loved ones, and I’d love to be able to help both.

Visit #3 Blog

Cameron Kay

July 2, 2016 10am-4pm

Webster House

John Q. Dela Cruz

JDelaCruz@jtm-esc.org

            I never expected working at Webster to be sad. My dealings with the elderly before Webster had mostly been where they marvel at my youth and then talk about their grandchildren. Or they’re my family members and simply ask me about my life. However, it’s a very different experience at Webster. Because it was Friday, we had ice cream hour. I went around and served scoops of Cookies ‘n Cream and sugar-free Vanilla ice cream to the residents and nurses. Many of the residents couldn’t have it because of dietary restrictions and the ones who could struggled to hold the spoon without a nurse’s aid.

            We played Bingo in the afternoon. I know that’s the most stereotypical elderly thing to do, but we did. Another volunteer was calling the numbers, so I sat at a table with two women. They asked me about where I wanted to go to college and told me about their families. It felt very comfortable to me, more comfortable than any other interaction I’d had that day with a resident because it was familiar. They each got three bingos apiece and told me that I was lucky for them. I was happy to be doted on a bit, but was jerked out of my stupor when a nurse came over to check their blood pressure and administer their medication.

            It’s the dependence of the residents on the care of the staff and the means of the facilities that bothers me. They’ve gotten to a stage in their life where they can’t be independent like I am. I took one resident out into the garden today because the nurses told me that she likes to be in the sun, but I shouldn’t keep her out for more than forty minutes. She didn’t speak a word of English, so we just sat together in the sun for a while and she didn’t want to go back inside. They’re confined to the home without any real privacy. They need someone to push their wheelchairs, feed them, give them their medications, prepare their food, go to the bathroom, or even just put down the little slots on their Bingo cards. I’m glad I can be one of those people because I’m something new in a life that’s entirely made up of routine.