There are many reasons why someone may choose senior living. Ideally it is a choice you can make before an accident occurs. One resident, Gwen, shares her successful transition to senior living after a fall and how she feels comforted knowing she has a support system in place and is safe.
Chris
Well hey, everybody. Welcome to Senior Living Live. My name is Chris and I am your host today. I'm here at the beautiful Lakeside at Amelia Island in one of the model apartments here in this community. And I am joined by the fabulous Gwen. How are you doing today?
Gwen
Great. Thank you, Chris.
Chris
Thanks. Thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day here.
Gwen
You're quite welcome.
Chris
To join us.
Gwen
Yes. I don't want to miss quarter bingo at 2:30.
Chris
Hey, priorities, right?
Gwen
Yes.
Chris
So tell me a little bit about yourself and how you got to come here to the Lakeside.
Gwen
Well, I got to come here because I fell at home when my daughter was out of town. If you're going to fall ever, you should not do it when your daughter's out of town.
Chris
So hard to plan.
Gwen
I just. It was hard to plan, yes. And she was concerned. So we looked and here I am. I've been here since July the 30th of last year, so I'm pretty well accustomed to what goes on.
Chris
Yeah. Yeah. And you were saying earlier, you've lived here on Amelia Island.
Gwen
I live I've lived on the island since 2004, November of 2004. My husband and I bought a house on Oak Marsh Drive, beautiful cul de sac across from the marsh. We could see... oh, my gosh, the name just left my head. What's the park? Fort Clinch.
Chris
Oh, Fort Clinch...
Gwen
We could see Fort Clinch across the way, you know, and across the marsh. So, yeah, it's a beautiful place to live. Our minister used to say we live in paradise.
Chris
So I was. I had an opportunity yesterday afternoon to drive around the island and look at houses and just all the architecture. It's so...
Gwen
Well, it's just. It's just really beautiful and you're just really lucky if you can afford to live here.
Chris
And so and you got to stay here. So you had a situation that made sense for you to move into a community and yes, so this community offers independent living, assisted living, memory care. You live in independent living?
Gwen
No, I live in assisted because that's what my long term care policy will pay for. And I'm fond of saying that I will live wherever they paid for it.
Chris
Well, that makes sense, right?
Gwen
It does. It does.
Chris
So well. You seem to be a very independent person. And so I assume you spend a lot of time all around the island.
Gwen
All over the place. Yes.
Chris
And what are some of the things that you like to do here?
Gwen
Well, I like I like the activities staff. It's just... all of the staff is just extraordinary. But I like the activities they play for us. I'm a I'm a real movie person, so I seldom miss a movie there. They’re doing La la Land Saturday night and I'm not going to be here, so I know so I'm going to miss it again.
Gwen
So but the activities are very important. It's just not good to sit in your room, you know, for for very long at a time.
Chris
You know, we talk a lot about I know in past episodes of this senior living live show I've talked about where really like your apartment is, your is your home and it's your place. Right. Got your things. But I think people move into the communities and they don't realize how much time you spend out of the...
Gwen
Yes. Yes.
Chris
And I mean, what are some of the things that you like to do besides the movies and the other activities?
Gwen
Well, I'm looking forward to swimming weather.
Chris
Oh, that’ll be nice.
Gwen
So yes. And be able to get back into the pool.
Chris
And they've got the the aquatic aerobics and things like that.
Gwen
So I took a swimming course at FSU when I lived in Tallahassee in the winter semester, January through April. And we were swimming one night. It was 27 degrees, but it was a heated pool, so you don't know. And then you get out and there's this envelope of steam all around you as you walked into the bathing area, it was great fun.
Chris
I can imagine it was great fun. Well, so this you know, this is a beautiful community. It's on a beautiful island. Before you moved here, you might have had some idea of what senior living might look like or assisted living might look like. Did it live up to your expectations? Did it exceed your expectations?
Gwen
I don't know that I had any expectations, actually. It never occurred to me that that would happen to me. I thought I would be in my house forever. I loved my house. My husband and I bought it when we moved here in 2004 and we’d lived in Tallahassee for 40 years separately before we were married. And I just never imagined that I wouldn't be in my house.
Gwen
But when you fall on a weekend and your daughter is out of town and you can't get up, cannot get to the telephone, which was in the middle of my bed. Hello?
Chris
Phone call. That's all right. That's all right.
Gwen
Which was, which was in the middle of the bed so that I couldn't even get over a pull the bedspread off so I could get my phone. And so I just lay on the bedroom floor until the next morning and finally got over there and got the phone down. And my daughter called and I was lying there like this on the phone.
Gwen
And I said, Can you tell where I am? And she said, Are you on the floor? And I said, I am on the floor. And she said, Well, anyway, never let it be quoted what she said. But she said, Why didn't you call David? And I said, I didn't want to bother you. I said, No, truly, I couldn't get my phone.
Gwen
So that became not to me, but to them. It became apparent that there had to be something else. And so we I think we'd already come out here actually at that point and just thought, No, no, I'm not going to do that. And then she sort of said, Yes, you are.
Chris
Maybe it's a good idea to move. So but it's been a successful move.
Gwen
Oh, yes, it's been great. It's been great.
Chris
Yeah. That's you know, we always try to say it's better to move early, you know, versus having some, you know, crisis things like that. Thankfully, you didn't get badly hurt. No. Yeah. Okay.
Gwen
No, just very embarrassed. Very embarrassed.
Chris
So, yeah, that's the thing. It's, you know, people will have these falls and things and, you know, sometimes there's broken legs and broken hips.
Gwen
And I had a professor friend at FSU who was a professor of movement science, and he said the worst thing you can do for yourself after a certain age is fall. He said, do whatever you can to not fall down. So and I've seen it here. People are falling all the time. Yeah.
Chris
And that's and that's something that's, that's a it's a fact of life, it's a fact of aging, and, and in the communities we can't always prevent falling. We can look at the signs that might lead to them and try to work with physicians and things to intervene. But the value is that there's someone here all the time.
Gwen
Well, they.
Chris
Can get a hold.
Gwen
Yet. My other favorite phrase is I love living surrounded by nurses. Yes, yes. There are so many nurses and they're just all just extraordinary. Well, all of the staff here, it's just really extraordinary.
Chris
Yeah, they're they are great. They are interactions with them today that.
Gwen
They've been everything from, you know, the waitstaff in the dining room to all of those nurses. So they have physical therapy. Everything you have everything that you need here, except I do not have a full kitchen, but that's okay. My daughter didn't want me to cook anymore anyway.
Chris
And I think the food's pretty good.
Gwen
It's pretty good. Yes. You know, it's like everything else, it goes up and down.
Chris
So maybe things that.
Gwen
Well, it's difficult to cook for this many people who've been alive as long as we have and have as many varying opinions as we do. But yes, it's it's fine. Yeah, but it's a good place to live.
Chris
So what advice would you have for someone who may be watching who is, you know, considering a move, they still live at home or wherever.
Gwen
Start deciding what you don't want to keep anymore. It's just it's very difficult. And I was so overwhelmed at the time that I, my daughter and my granddaughter pretty well did it. I would say keep that, donate that, sell that. And that was about the extent of what I did to get me here. They did everything but and I have my husband and I have beautiful antiques and you just you just want to keep everything, you know, everything the memory or it's got some special something attached to it.
Gwen
So but you can't keep everything. Absolutely cannot. So... you could fit a lot of stuff in here.
Chris
Yeah. We were in a model apartment in the independent living side of the community. Right. It was a nice, quiet spot for us to, you know, to do these shows. And so, yeah, there's a lot of furniture in here.
Gwen
Well, there’s a full kitchen. Yeah, I've said already. I really, I really miss my ice maker.
Chris
Well, it sounds like you got one on the way.
Gwen
I do. I have one on the way. It says that'll take care of that.
Chris
All right. Well, thank you so much.
Gwen
You're quite welcome.
Chris
Thank you for joining us online. If you want to hear more stories like Gwen’s or learn more about senior living in general, just head over to SeniorLivingLive.com. We are so happy to have you join us there. We've got all sorts of educational videos you can subscribe and learn whenever we have new ones being posted. So we will see you at SeniorLivingLive.com. ‘Til next time, I am Chris and this is Gwen. Have a great day. Bye bye.
Gwen
Bye.