Eirene Angelica C Hetrosa

2014 05846
BS Speech Pathology
SP 126: Geriatric Immersion Report
Contrary to my closeness to children, I sometimes have a hard time striking up
conversations with people around my age and to those who are older than me. I went to
an immersion with my block mate, Kelly, since her father knows someone who fits the
age bracket for the geriatric population. Norma Ang is currently 70 years old. She is
from Bacolod City, Negros Occidental but is currently staying with her daughter, Joy.
She had to stay here because of the eye surgery she had to receive for her cataract in
her left eye, a few weeks prior to the immersion visits.
The first meeting with Lola Norma was a day before her surgery, April 7, 2016.
She was accompanied by her daughter to Kellys house. We talked for more or less an
hour and we just talked about her life. She would tell stories of how she left home
because her mother treated her like a maid and refused to give her secondary
education. Although her aunts promised that they will pay for her tuition, her mother
once again blocked her chance to step into college.
A few weeks after surgery, we found her at home just watching TV and had
nothing to do. Our official immersion visits were mostly just us three talking about
everything. Lola Norma wasnt allowed to work under any instances since it may cause
stress to her left eye. At the first meeting, we found out how her left eye also got
infected by the cataract. Now her stay in Manila will be extended because she needs
another surgery for her left eye. She was considering not taking the surgery this year
and just receive the surgery next year. Lola Norma said that she wants to go back to her
home in Bacolod because she cant do things in their current home. She would want to
water her plants in her yard and feed the chickens that her youngest son was raising.
Shed clean their boarding house that she and her husband put up as a source of
income.
Lola Norma was once a seamstress. She would always work in different factories
fir cutting and sewing. She would always say that she was really good at sewing. She
would tell us stories of her work as a seamstress and even working for the well-known
fashion designer, Efren Ocampo. Although Efren Ocampo started out small, shed say
that the business flourished because of her help. Her grandchildren would always ask
for her work every time they need suits in events. Until two years ago, she was still
sewing and still accepts orders. She had to stop because of her eyes as she needed to
rest.
In one session, she said that she wouldnt want to depend on her children too
much. She doesnt want to bother them with too much as they have their own families to
feed. She doesnt ask for monthly allowances, but she accepts if they give her money.
When she was asked whether she was satisfied with her life, she said that she is. She

thinks that seeing her children having their own families, shes already satisfied. She
was able to raise them and send them to colleges without any support from her own
husband.
In the Activity Theory, it is stated that physical and social activities increase
happiness. An adult who has a successful aging will engage in these social and physical
activities.
Lola Norma exhibits a successful aging as she engages in several activities. She
would prefer cleaning around the house and walk around their vicinity than just sit down.
Her grandchildren from one of her daughters would always get reprimanded for letting
their Lola do chores around the home. She would sometimes go back to sewing
despite, the situation of her right eye, but stops once it gets too blurry. Every early
morning, she would always go to church as a devotion for her speedy recovery for her
goiter and now her cataract. She would go around cleaning their house and talk to her
grandchildren. Lola Norma participates in different activities that is still within her
capabilities.
This immersion was very enjoyable even though we were just talking. Talking to
Lola Norma was just like talking to my own grandmother. However, my grandparents
from both sides are all in the provinces in Negros Occidental. It felt good to see
someone who speaks the same dialect and around the same age as my grandparents.
I have a social anxiety so I find it really hard to talk to other people, especially to
those whom I have met for the first time. However, it felt so surprisingly natural to talk to
Lola Norma even at the first meeting. Maybe it was a nature of her to be talkative but
she would just continuously talk and talk, but somehow it felt like it was a breakthrough.
This experience, in some way, would help me how would I talk to people if given the
chance to enter the field of the geriatric population when I work as a Speech
Pathologist.