Interview with Thornebridge Gardens - Verve Senior Living family member, Kelly Bagnell

I’ve lived in the community for over 40 years, and I’ve always seen the outside of the building and the grounds, and often thought what a nice, serene location and environment it appeared to be. I was always curious about the services at Thornebridge Gardens.

It was very streamlined, actually. We had no difficulty in any stage of the transition, none whatsoever. I would describe it as very warm and welcoming, very clean, very organized, and very friendly.

There’s a feeling of Mom being safe in her environment. We trust, and have always trusted since she moved in, that anything out of the ordinary that may come up—whether it be small or large—we would be included in the information sharing. That’s never been an issue. That’s probably one of the things that we value the most: the communication that we have with the staff.

She seems to be more at peace with herself. She’s 93, so of course, there were some medical challenges that she had, but nothing that restricted her from still being totally independent, which she is able to exercise as part of her character. She’s able to continue with being fully independent while also having the support services right there on site should she need them. We’re very fortunate that she’s in very good health, and she’s very, very, very alert and very active.

She’s a person that really likes the outdoors, so she continues to be outdoors every day. She goes on all the events, field trips, everything that they have going on at Thornebridge Gardens. She also has a large family support system as well, so she goes out pretty much every day and sometimes for 12 hours a day.

She says that if more people could enjoy their later years in life the way she’s been so fortunate to have done so, a lot of people would die in a happier state of mind. She feels good, she looks good, and she has made lots of friends.

As far as her physical appearance, she’s gained probably 10 pounds since she’s been there. That’s because they offer three meals a day. The breakfast is more of a continental breakfast that she picks up after dinner the previous night. However, they have a wide range of assorted foods, enough for everybody to appease every appetite. Lunches are full-course, dinners are full-course.

Family members come, and we get to enjoy one meal a week there as well, which is on Thursdays. Three of us rotate, which three it is, but we’re able to go and sit and enjoy dinner with her in the dining room. There’s a small fee attached to that, but it’s definitely far less than what it would be anywhere else in the community. We take that as kind of like a family dinner once a week, which we used to always maintain growing up anyway. So for us, it’s like a blessing in disguise.

Not only is my mom at peace with herself in her older years, but we’re at peace knowing that Mom is being cared for. At no time is there any intrusion on the staff’s part. The staff has been wonderful. There’s never any intrusion whatsoever. They do safety checks. Once or twice when we couldn’t get a hold of my mother, even though she has a cell phone and a home line, we called the front desk and asked them to do a safety check, and they did it right away. Sure enough, Mom was in the shower or doing something. So we always have that peace of mind, and we trust the staff there, knowing that they will contact us should anything go awry.

Where do I start? They have bingo. They do events, outings in the community, to name a few. She went to a pub over by the airport, I think it was called Beaver something or Flying Beaver, and they went there for lunch. That was the first time she’s ever been in a pub setting outdoors, on the patio, on the water. The bus was full, from what she tells me, but she had the most enjoyable afternoon. They’ve also gone for fish and chips. They go to parks, they go to casinos, they go shopping. They do so many activities that Mom signs up for everything. Even on the day of, if she’s not feeling well, she’ll pull herself to go. I don’t think she’s canceled any.

They also have a pub night, I think it’s on Fridays for one or two hours, where they enjoy music and have a drink or two. She really enjoys that. They have all kinds of activities on site as well, lots of trivia, educational mindset games, tournaments, and entertainers coming in. I can’t say enough about the place. I mean, I want to live there, and I’m only 65.

Top notch in every degree. When we go into the dining room, we’re treated as family. We’ve never had an issue. The staff at the reception have been wonderful. They always say hello when we come in the building. The behind-the-scenes staff, like Claire and Sunny, they’ve all been wonderful. I think we hit the jackpot when we found out Thornebridge.

The food is phenomenal. I don’t think we’ve really had a bad meal yet, and we’ve been doing this every Thursday since Mom’s been admitted, which is going on now for almost two years. We’ve been invited to certain activities like Father’s Day brunches, Mother’s Day brunches, Easter brunches, and any activities that are going on where the inclusion of family would be important to my mother.

Check it out. To drive by, it looks like a serene setting, and you can tell it’s either assisted living or a care home by the presence of elderly people walking around and taking walks through the courtyard and so on. The grounds are beautiful. But if you have a chance, go in, and if you’re thinking of doing this for your loved one, go in, check it out, sit down and talk to one of the staff, and even make an appointment if you can, and tour a room.

The rooms are beautiful, and they have everything from a bachelor to a one-bedroom, two-bedroom. They might even have three-bedroom, I’m not sure. My mom’s in a bachelor, and it’s quite a large suite. I know they do allow pets. My mom doesn’t have any, but I have seen pets on site and they’re very well controlled. There’s never been an issue that I can see, and I spend maybe three visits a week on site, so I see quite a bit.

The grounds are beautiful. The interior is very welcoming. Sometimes they have music, piano playing in the lobby, which is very welcoming. They have a fireplace. They have a bistro, which is like a little pub. If you’re not too keen on eating in the dining room with the rest of the individuals, then you can opt to go into the bistro pub and order off a menu, which is great. It has everything that you could want on one site. It’s great.

I really can’t suggest any way to improve Thornebridge Gardens. They have housekeeping services, they all have their own mailboxes, and the washrooms on the welcoming level have always been top-notch clean. Of course, they had a couple of bouts of COVID with a few residents on certain floors, and as a precaution, everybody was asked to stay away, which is a universal precaution. They do a wonderful job of organizing that.

They even have LifeLabs come on site. They have nutritionists, activity workers, OT workers, rec therapists, and they have a hairdresser as well. My mom gets her hair done every week, so that’s wonderful.

I think we got very fortunate when we found this place for my mom. Before, when we were entertaining the idea, my mom’s eyesight was going bad, but other than that she was fully independent. We worried that she was a high falls risk, and we worried that she was living in her own one-bedroom apartment for many, many years. We started to see signs that she’d have the odd fall. When we investigated why, we realized that she was having problems with her eyesight. Then she was diagnosed with macular degeneration, which was a concern for us. More importantly, because my mother has never had a broken bone, we were worried about her breaking a hip or leg or something and not being able to get up.

That’s when we started pitching the idea of maybe we should start looking. We did. We looked at several before we came to the community that she’s at right now. The reason being, A, what did they have to offer, B, location. We wanted to keep her in an area that she was familiar with so that she could still go out on her own and do her own shopping. She does use a walker, but she’s pretty quick with that. We wanted to keep the location very familiar to her, and we wanted it to have a lot of activities because my mom’s a very social person. Then, of course, cost. We factored in all of these things while we were searching.

This community that she’s in right now was the very last one before we were thinking of maybe we should alter our lifestyles to include her into our family settings because we just weren’t finding the right one that would be a good fit for her. There was always a challenge in some area. When we found this community where she is right now, we just felt like we won the lottery. We went full force, and the whole transition from start to finish, I would say, was six weeks from top to bottom. We did have to give a full month’s notice at her place that she was moving from, but that allowed us time for her to declutter and only take the necessary items and the things of want that meant something to her, to her new home.

Even though six weeks sounds short, it gave us all an opportunity to go through all the family photos and go through all the things, knick-knacks, and stuff, what’s important, what’s not. We did kind of a slow transition with her because we worked it out that she could move in anytime throughout the month. We actually moved her in 10 days before Christmas, and so it was perfect. She just loves her suite. She doesn’t have a patio, but she doesn’t need one either because she goes out every day.

The environment to me would be the number one key. What is it like? Is it warm? Is it inviting? Do you think that your loved one could peacefully coexist? What does the place offer as far as keeping you motivated on a daily basis?

As you get older, a lot of things, instead of bright and sunny, may get gray. Depression is one of the things that a lot of older individuals suffer from. I would just say, check out the environment.

Sometimes the outside is a little bit deceiving. It might look like a facility-type, hospital-type setting. You need to go inside and see what it’s like inside and see what the aura is all about, because that’s about the only way you’re going to actually know.

I would probably do this without the person involved. I would say family members should actually do this beforehand and get a sense of what the environment is like before approaching their loved one. I don’t know if that helps, but it sure helped us.

I think a lot of family members struggle with guilt when approaching this stage. A lot of family members feel guilty that they’re putting their loved one into someone else’s care because they feel that they can’t take on a burden.

It’s not so much a burden. It's being able to find a place that will provide the care that you can’t. Loved ones can always provide emotional support and financial support, but there are certain clinical supports that can’t be provided by family members. Just knowing that we have that with her is, for us, a sense of peace and warmth that she has it if she needs it.

On Mother’s Day, they allow us to have a special dining room where we can bring all the females in the family. Last Mother’s Day, I think there were 17 of us. They provide the meal for a small charge. Everyone can participate. They serve us as if we were in a five-star restaurant. We’ve done this now on two Mother’s Days, and even on Father’s Day, they put on a brunch for the males. My mother has all the sons and the nephews and the grandchildren that are male, all come on those days. So it’s wonderful for the family.