Celebrating My Mom's 96the Birthday at a Long Term Care Home

My mom is a woman born in a humble abode at a rural village in China. Queen Elizabeth of England, born of blue blood, the sovereign head of state for United Kingdom and a host of other nations, do have something in common: They were both born in 1926 and are 96 years old this year! As said in Psalm 90:10 The measure of our life is seventy years; and if through strength it may be eighty years...

Our family wanted very much to mark and celebrate this milestone birthday with Mom. Though Canada has lifted some serious COVID restrcition, there were still many in place. Instead of having a big party in a restaurant, we compromised and asked Mom's long term nursing home for permission to hold a gathering in their party room. And we got the permission!

Phone calls were made and invitations were sent out to immediate families and Mom's children and fifteen grandchildren all over North American and beyond. Mom's health is failing. This could be her last birthday with us. A lot of her grandchildren realized this and they flew from all over to attend the birthday party:

E. from San Franscisco, Jen from Calgary, Pat from Florida, Ben from Halifax,

even Pa, our neighbour from Thunder Bay, flew to Toronto, especially for Mom's big event! It was a happy event involving many activities such as picking up out of town guests, hosting them and bringing them to the party.

Our siblings worked and planned together weeks before, and the day before to decorate the party room.

The birthday party day arrived ! We thank God that it was a sunny warm day in early April. What joy it was to see most of the family members, young and old all together under the same roof! Since our family has expanded and now we have a few little ones, we prepared a few activity stations to keep the children entertained so that they could have a good time just like their parents and uncles and aunts.

To make it easier for Mom, we planned a schedule so that she would be the last one to arrive to the party, just like the Queen. Dressed in a traditional purple Cheongsam, Mom was wheeled in by my older sister and her husband to the hall.

She was not feeling too well that day but she still managed to greet and have her pictures taken with everyone. Richard, her favourite personal service worker was in attendance and sang a couple of songs, providing entertainment to the guests.

It was a great day for Mom who could see her bign family all together celebrating her 96th birthday! We thank God that everything turned out well and things ran smoothly as planned! R.T. Stoufville, Ontario, Canada

Visiting My Mom at the Mon Sheong Long Term Care Home in Ontario

While it is possible to do so, I love visiting my mom at her long term nursing home not too far from Toronto.

It is great to see a big smile on Mom's face! While many seniors have been waiting for a long time to be admitted to a quality long term home, some people can be admitted without such prolonged waiting period. People like my mother, with debilitating illnesses such as stroke, heart attack, dimentia etc which have reduced them to a life of dependence, belong to another category.

Since these seniors are unable to care for themselves, they will be considered as priority cases and be admitted sooner.

We are grateful to Mon Sheong Long Term Care Centre providing my mom with a beautiful, excellent environemnt, good care team and fantastic recreation staff who would even do one on one daily visit when my mom was isolated during the COVID outbreak at the facility.

My sister created a chat group where we share our mom's health infomration daily. Our older brother has been in charge of our daily visiting schedule submitted to the Admin team on Thursdays. Things are not perfect, but we are glad that our mom is being looked after at a modern, top notch facility with a great staff!

Thank you, Mon Sheong ! R.T. Toronto Canada

Our Son was Home for the Holidays!

It was such exciting news! After nearly two years without seeing our son who works outside of Canada, was finaly coming home! We have been talking about it for weeks. E. was never too sure what the new COVID protocol would be for travel. It has been difficult for E. if he should book his ticket coming home amid the constant changes that the government on both side of the border has been making and updating constanly.

We talked about two weeks ago and he said might be he woud know by Nov. 15 ( 2021) but he didn;t call, so we thought he would not be able to travel. We went out of town on the Thursday where we learned that he would be coming home on Sunday morning! I wanted to decorate the house and give him a big welcome home but we would not be able to do it. I called my sister who was kind enough to buy the balloons and do it for us! After entertaining Erin' family in our Waterloo home, we left on Sunday morning to pick up E. from the airport.It was so good to see and hug our son again after almost two years! The last time we saw him was December 2019 when we spent a week in SF. How time has flown by! E. has gained weight, aged a little, but still has his youthful look.He has changed job, trading his seccure position from a high tech company to working in a more conservative industry. He also parted way with his long time roommate and found a new place to live. Now the two cats and his new room mate are keeping him company. It was wonderful having E. home for the week! The house was filled with laughter, youthful energy and interesting conversations at dinner table at meal times. I love cooking for our sons when they are home. We love hearing all the stories and interesting things happening in E.'s life. Catching up with what's going on and learning about E. success in his career made our time together special. We wished E. could have worked from home in Canada and stayed a bit longer than merely a week.

E. even made a special effort to visit my mom at the long term care home and played some games with her. Mom loved seeing her grandkids any time of the year!

Fortunately, a few weeks later, E. came home again for Christmas spending another week or so at home! By then, the CVOID cases number went up due to OMICON, Toronto and GTA area were in lockdown, cancelling all the Christmas and New Year celebrataions nad events. We were lucky that E. got to see grandma on his last visit as he was allowed to see her during the Christmas break at home.

We did a few things together before things were locked down again. We went out to see a movie together at the LIght Box in downtown Toronto, an activity which we have not done since 2020.

My sister invited us at her house for a Mah Jong lesson and game for E. as well.

We were grateful having him at home twice within a month after his absences from home since the beginning of the pandemic! R.T. Toronto, Canada 2021 Nov.

Saying Goodbye to Her Senior Apartment and Moving to a Long Term Care

Nov. 2021

Watching the recent Olympic games on TV brought back a lot of fond memories. I couldn't help but thought of my father who was an avid sports fan. My father loved basketball and he used to play on his interschool basketball team in HK. He loved watching sports of all kinds, often cheering loudly for his favourite teams, namely: the Toronto Maple Leaf hockey team and the Raptors basketball team. My parents used to live in a 4 bedroom house in the Toronto's east end. 

My mother was tirelessly in keeping the house clean and making it welcoming for her children and grandchildren. She enjoyed cooking for her grown children and grandkids. We were invited to my parents' house for dinner regularly, and mom always cooked up a storm preparing a feast for us as well as for the whole big fat family during special occasions such as Christmas and New Year. 

 After my father passed away in the same month as the first Olympic games were held in China in 2008, my mother lived by herself in the family house. She stayed in the house for a little while but that house became too big for her.  After selling her house and living with my brother for a short time, she moved into the St. Paul senior apartment. 

She had been living at St. Paul's Senior Apartment until she suffered a stroke which paralyzed the left side of her body. My mom and the family struggled with the decision where she should be after being released from the Rehab Centre. It was a difficult decision as we needed to consider many factors.

 After working with the social worker and the care team at Providence Rehab Centre, we finally decided that going to a long term care home would be the best for mom. Mom was fortunate enough to be accepted at a long term care home in Stouffville, though not our first choice.  Since Mom would be going to a long term care home, she needed to leave the senior apartment. To make the transition for her, we organized a small farewell party for mom so that she would have an opportunity to say good bye to her friends at St. Paul.

We made arrangement with a wheel chair transit company and brought Mom out of her nursing home. 

My brother called Mom's friends who all came to her apartment at around 3:00pm. Mom has been gone from her senior apartment since the stroke and this was the first time she was back at her old place.

 

Mom recognized her friends; they caught up with each other told each other the latest news about friends and church. I could see that Mom was emotional about leaving her old apartment. She was quiet, looking everywhere savouring the last moment at her own place. 

The transition from her senior apartment to the current nursing home must have overwhelming for Mom, as well as making decisions of what to keep and parting with her possessions accumulated over a life time. 

Mom's many friends' presence at the party helped lifted Mom's spirit. We chatted, took pictures.

We ordered a special cake and mom cut the cake and we served the food and drinks to her friends who stayed for a little while and said their good bye and best wishes to Mom. 

The small farewell party was a closure for Mom. She realized then that there was no going back to her old life at the senior apartment. 

She is moving on to a new chapter in her life at the long term care home.

One of the biggest fears of going into the home is that she would be left behind there and that no one would visit her. 

We have made a promise to Mom, no matter what the nursing home is, one of us will visit her each day so that she will always have visitors. We have made that promise to Mom and we will certainly keep that promise! 

 R.T. Toronto 

Transferring from a Rehab Hospital to a Nursing Home in Stouffville, Ontario

    Today was an exciting day for our family! 

    My mom suffered from a stroke a few months ago and      has sustained some serious injury.

Mom was at Providence Rehab Centre in Toronto

Though she has been treated at the Providence  Rehab hospital for the past few months,

 ( since July 2021)  trying to regain some of what she has lost, Mom is far from able to return to her senior apartment living an independent life.

Mom prayed at the Chapel at Providence Centre

     Like so many Canadian families dealing with       aging parents, we struggled with the decision of   where our mom should be. We had two options   presented to us:

  1.To a nursing home so that she would receive 24  hours professional nursing care.

  2. Back to her own senior apartment with personal support worker's assistance while waiting for the nursing home of her choice. 

        Mom was discharged from Providence Rehab. 

It took us quite a while to discuss the pros and cons of both options before deciding on what would be best for mom. At last, we got news that Mom has been accepted into the nursing home of her choice! This news made us so happy! We made all the preparations days before and today was moving day for Mom!

I could not sleep for fear that I might oversleep and miss the time to accompany her on the wheel chair transport taxi. Waking up at 7:00a.m., we arrived at Providence Rehab Centre right on time to get Mom discharge and boarded the transport vehicle to Stouffville, Mom's new home!!!

View from Mom's 7th floor new room - Mom Jeong Centre

  Located in a small town outside of   Toronto, the Stouffville Mon Jeong     Long Term Care Home is a 50 minute     ride from our house. 

 Mom was checking in to a brand new   350 bed state of the art facility. We   signed in at the reception area following   the COVID tracing protocol: - our   temperatures were taken - we had our   rapid COV|ID test done; waited for 15   minutes for the result before being   allowed in the building of the nursing   home - a staff member accompanied us   to Mom's assigned bedroom.

Mom's new bedroom in Mon Jeong Long Term Care

 

We were introduced to the medical staff on Mom's floor. - an RPN demonstrated to us how to wear the PPE properly before visiting Mom After following all the COVID protocol steps, staff from various departments came to see Mom and collect information about her so that they would better look after her. Administrators, nursing supervisor, nurses, dietitians, food service manager, physiotherapists and support workers all showed up to welcome Mom. The first resident admitted to this new home, Mom was treated like a VIP!

Her bedroom is spacious with a single hospital bed       with adjustable height.

It is furnished with a good size closet and drawers for storage.

The bedroom has a lovely view of the field and ponds outside.

The nursing staff were gentle with her, explaining things in detail and patiently. 

They weighed her and gave her some initial tests and assessed her mobility ability. After the initial assessment, it was past 12pm and they served lunch to Mom and us.

   

 I had tears in my eyes. Mom's favourite food - dim  sum dishes were served to her for lunch. 

We stayed to answer questions from the medical staff and before long it was afternoon tea made right outside Mom's room.

Seeing that our mother will be well taken care of in her new home, our family is immensely grateful to God who has answered our prayers! 

 R.T. 

 Mon Jeong Long Term Care Home

 Stouffville, Ontario, Canada

My Easy Entertaining Menu While on Vacation

I love inviting friends and entertaining them at home. WIth the past two years being kept apart from seeing frineds and familiy loved ones, we took advantage of the recent lifted COVID restrictions and entertained a few friends at our vacation home.

We invited Pastor Sue, Florence and our dear friends, D and D. We asked them to come to our vacation home for a dinner party on Thursday, the last night of our week long holiday.

God seemed to know exactly What we needed the day before the party - a cooking day! Wednesday was a rainy day which started drizzling in the morning and lasted into the end of the evening. We took advantage of the indoor time and prepared the following dishes for our dinner party for our friends. Appetizers - egg salad with cumcumber and cheese slices on rice crackers - multigrain taco chips with medium salsa sauce

Main Coursse - beef / pork meat loaf and roasted pork tenderlion served with a homemade mushroom sauce

Side dishes - A steamed vegetable plate - carrots, broccoili, bean sprouts, orange peppers prepared in the Korean style - home made pickled carrot and turnip sticks - baked cauliflower with cresty cheese topping - Korean glass noddles with sliced red pepper, bean sprouts and sllces of meat Desserts - Plate of mixed sweets made up of almond cookies, peanut cookies, moon cakes and Chinese rice crisps - Malaysian mixed fruit, palm seeds, shredded coconut salad with coconut milk. Pastor Sue helped me to peel the vegetables and we even bought some extra dishes from the Collingwood Reuse Store to pretty up our dining table.

The dinner party was a hit! Our guests loved our dishes and enjoyed themseleves very much. With all the food and desserts served to them, we talked and talked and our guests stayed well past 11:00 p.m.

Florence, and D. called us the next day and thanked us profusely for a great dinner. They loved everything and Florece remarked that she had never had such good food at any of the parties she had attended previously.

I was delighted as I made some of these dishes for the first time! Happy that I could try my hands at these new dishes which I learned to cook watching youtube during the pandemic lockdown!

R.T. Vacationing in Collingwood, Ontario, Canada

P.S. Here are some of my favourie dishes served to our guests and ingredients needed for them: Ground beef meat loaf - Put 2 LBS OF ground meat in a big bowl and mix 1/ 2 cups each of chopped celery, onions, and ketchup, bread cubes, 1 package onion powder, and an egg. Coat meat well with all the ingredients. Top with with a ketchup glaze. Bake at 375 degree for 45 to 50 minutes.

Baked cauliflower - 1 full head of cauliflower. Steamed cut cauliflower until veggie is a little soft. Mix 2 eggs, 1/4 cup of olive oil, 1/2 cup of milk, 1 tablepsoon of papprika, salt and pepper, and 2 tablespoons of flour. Mix all the ingredients well.

Put steamed cauliflowers in a baking dish; pour the flour milk mixture over cauliflower. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 -25 minutes. Sprinkle 1/2 cup grated cheese on top. Bake until cheese melt and golden brown.