In four words, This Is The Place!…read more
I am 66 and have been confined to a wheelchair for the last couple of years. When my wife needed surgery on her foot (no weight-bearing for ten weeks) she decided that she needed some sort of a break from having me home all the time. I have Home Health Aides who get me up and also back into bed.
I was in a local rehab and a retirement community (for more rehab) after the surgery that put me in the wheelchair in 2007. I wasn't keen to go back to a retirement community, but it was necessary. I had bladder infections and odd colds that were going around the community. When I came home after over a year I had trouble with my bowels and I thought all of this was par for the course.
This time I was determined to pick a better place to stay. I looked around on the web, and one of the places that caught my eye was Amesbury Village (AV) in the next town over. I wanted a place with Internet access and a generally higher standard. AV didn't have Internet (sort of) so I was resigned to having a crap shoot on the services. I was booked in for respite care for three weeks in May 2010.
I never thought I'd recommend a retirement community, but AV is so good I can't let it go unnoticed. The negatives I mention later may need more words than the positives, but the place is great for rehab, respite care, and residential stays. If you or your elderly relatives need attention, in my view you'll have trouble doing better.
The main reason for this is the staff. I've been in communities where half the staff is just there because you can get a job as an aide with little training, and in those sorts of places they just want to get through their shift with as little work as possible. One place I was at had an aide called "Lost Larry," who often vanished from the night shift for several hours. He always had a glib explanation for his absence, and the rest of the staff had given up trying to find him.
In all my time at AV, no-one ever failed to do their job, and most of the time they would go above and beyond to satisfy your needs. My specific need was for extra cookies in the evening snack (not that I needed them, I was just greedy), and if one aide satisfied such a selfish need, then every aide from that night on would automatically give me the same every night.
But it's not about spoiled brats like me. Retirement home residents are mainly made up of people with dementia and Alzheimer's, and when they're not being combative, they're staring at the walls. But people you might call no-hopers got plenty of staff attention. I couldn't do this with those people, but the staff is dedicated. And when you've looked around a bunch of retirement communities, they all look the same. You really have to see them between nine a.m. and six p.m.
So let's give a big hand to the people who work there. Staff Nurse Andrea and her afternoon/evening crew, and Staff Nurse Jane and her morning people, including Ms. Boom-De-Ay (sorry, in-joke there). I can't think I've met a single person there who I thought should be replaced by someone with a better attitude.
There's plenty to do, but of course most of the people there love the old folk's staples like bingo and old-fashioned music. But Jane, the Activities Director, along with her staff, have a whole host of things going on. While I was there we had a visit from a guy who brought along a whole bunch of exotic animals, including a sixteen-foot Burmese python, a smaller snake, a rat, and a whole gang of more cuddly creatures. Almost all the residents watched and stroked the beasts.
To give you some idea of how the staff cares, I had an appointment at a hospital on the day when the lift broke for a couple of hours. Donna, the Unit Manager, not only apologized profusely, but called the hospital to say I wasn't coming and fixed up an alternative date and time - all without asking.
Although AV keeps its residents on the floor that their rooms are in, many people can roam around. I'd often go down to the sun deck and work on my tan, while watching cardinals at the bird feeder and squirrels athletically swinging down to get to the seeds first. This used to be my favorite place to avoid Jimmy and Colleen of the Therapy Department, but they found me in the end.
What's not to like? Not much. In order of annoyance, from least to most: The elevator is slow and unreliable, but it's better than some I've seen and a replacement would cost a million dollars. The food is good by residential home standards. If you like old folk's comfort foods, it won't be too bad.
The lack of Internet: Not total, as you could pick up poor signals from someone's network a hundred yards away. And the worst point? The lack of reliable hot water. Quite often you couldn't shower because the water was barely above cold. They should do something about this as soon as possible.
But in spite of these faults, I'd go back if I have to.
