The Neighbors 3: The Castle by the Sea

Recreation can make you many years younger

Photo by aisvri on Unsplash

Our famous neighbors from previous posts are busy these days with shopping, partying, and helping people around them.

Some other elderly people, along with some younger ones, have been so fortunate to be advised by their doctors to go for a stay in a sanatorium by the sea.

This happens to people who cannot be cured in any normal way, but who expectedly still could get better from a period with carefully planned diets and physical exercises. Fortunate, because there exist only very few sanatoriums, each with a limited amount of beds, so most people will not get the chance.

I don’t know everybody’s name there, but they are mostly old ladies, a few men, and a few younger people. They are there for all kinds of reasons, but the place has a variety of physio therapists, dietists and other specialists who can help each of the patients improve a bit from whatever problem they have with their muscles, bones, or digestion system.

The place looks somewhat more mundane than the picture indicates, but it is placed exactly next to the sea, just outside of the city area, and the air is so fresh, the place so calm and relaxing, that even without any specialists available, most patients would probably get much better from the stay - by stressing down and learning to relax, allowing themselves to do so. And from feeling helpful to the other patients.

Most ill and elderly people in the world are very much alone, and people around them first of all seem to avoid spending time with them and then also refuse to take a helping hand from them. There is a taboo around getting help from someone who is ill. Most people want to do it the other way around instead, to treat the ill as fragile, refusing them the joy of being of use.

But here, at the castle by the sea, they are all able to help a little. For instance yesterday, when a bunch of new patients arrived - after breakfast time but before lunchtime.

It didn’t take long before some confusion arose among the newly arrived, because they had been travelling to get there, many of them since early in the morning, and the procedures for getting registered were somewhat heavy and bureaucratic, and when they finally were through all that, which was a heavy thing for many of them - a lot of work for people with their level of energy - they just needed to sit down for a moment, enjoying some food and a cup of healthy juice or water or whatever possible. But there was nothing for them - the staff at the sanatorium had forgotten to book a seat in the lunchroom for them, and the kitchen wasn’t aware that more food should have been cooked.

And then we saw it, again, like we have seen it before. A recurring pattern of several old ladies who could hardly walk by themselves, who looked like they needed to rest more than being active helping their new, fellow patients - taking action and using their seniority, having been there for several days or even weeks already, to raise their voices and require from the nurses and the kitchen staff that some food and drinks would be arranged for the new ones.

And it worked! Before long, everyone new who wanted it was nicely seated with a plate of soup and a glass of juice, and they felt welcome. And their helpers felt useful. The personnel felt a bit stressed and overwhelmed, I suppose, but they are all strong and should be able to handle it.

The sanatorium offers many activities, and some of them have trainers available but allow for the patients to do some individual exercises as well. One of these is “trekking” or whatever we should call it, where the patients go for a walk in the green surroundings with a couple of walking sticks in their hands, this apparently contributing to a better health.

These old ladies and an occasional man who would usually sit at home, watching TV, feeling out of energy, suddenly become a bit more fresh and active - and start arranging groups for these walks. The more experienced of them know from previous stays where the sticks are kept, so they go and find them, making sure that the new patients will get a set too. And then they go, short and slowly, but they are already much more active than usual, on their way to gain a better health.

It is a sanatorium. There are strict rules for such things as what can be eaten there and when people should go to sleep and get up. But these old ladies… of course they have all brought cookies and some powder coffee and tea leaves, hidden in their bags. And they sneak out of their rooms to “steal” hot water for the coffee and tea and arrange secret gatherings where they play cards and have a great social time in the late evenings.

Individualists can get ill too, and some of these also find their way to the castle. Whenever there is a chance, they will go for a walk (with or without sticks) alone, through the parks and along the beach, admiring the beautiful houses in the area and sending long looks out over the sea, dreaming about the time when they were travelling and seeing the world. Maybe they notice a ship there, or a seagull - or something else that can catch their attention for a while, and they feel happier than they have done for a long time, just out of these simple stimuli. Small elements of experiences that they just don’t see very often in the busy and condensed city life they are normally living.

Yesterday passed, and the new patients woke up today in their new temporary homes with that great feeling of being in the beginning of a great adventure.

Habitual headaches are gone, nobody feels as tired as usual, none of them regret for a second that they went there.

They feel alive now.