Elder: Patricia Giles

Visit #1

10-23-24

I visited Pat today (she prefers to be called Pat instead of Patricia, she told me the story
why but it’s very long and not crucial to the visit). In this visit, I mostly talked to Pat about her
life, family, and her condition. She was very open to me and didn’t mind talking about touchy
subjects. She lives with her second husband, Neil, in a small one-story house. She was married
once before but they divorced after a domestic abuse incident. She has 7 kids, one of which died
when he was a young adult. She is very close to her kids and grandkids. She said she talks to her
3 daughters every week. She is also very close with her current husband and they do everything
together. Talking to her about her family, she seems to have a strong social life and a very strong
support system. Pat was very mobile and did not need much help sitting or getting up. She
moved very slowly but managed to do everything herself. I learned that Pat is 86 years old and
that she is a cancer survivor. She had rectal cancer 3 years ago and after about a year and a half
of extensive treatment, got a diverting colostomy. She now wears a colostomy bag. When talking
to her, she seemed comfortable with her colostomy bag, but hated it when she first got it. She
claimed to be embarrassed of the noises it made and the smell it produced. She claimed to clean
the bag and replace it on her own and says that she has gotten used to it. She also has Type 2
Diabetes, so we talked about that. It was a good connecting point for us because I have Type 1
Diabetes. We talked about insulin and she said she takes Metformin and Humalog. I take
Humalog too, so it was nice to talk about that. At the end of the visit, she said she would show
me how she cleans and replaces her colostomy bag when I next go to see her.