I had not gone to
Atria for a couple of days. She doesn't notice any more, so I don't
push myself as much any more, which is lovely. It means that when I
do go, I enjoy it more. Usually. And it seems that every
visit is different from every other one.
I had thought of going for lunch, but got an email from the
entertainment editor of the Sacramento paper asking where my "stage pick"
article was for the upcoming Sound of Music. I had completely
forgotten to write one, so I did that first, and by then it was too late for
lunch, so I waited around until 1:30 and then went to Atria.
It's always a good sign when her newspaper has been taken
in. That means she's up and functioning.
Only she wasn't. She was awake, but still sitting on
her bed reading. There was no walker in the apartment and no sign of
any food. She was wearing her pajama tops and her underpants.
She asked what I was doing there and I told her I had come to visit and
asked if she wanted to sit there on the bed or if she wanted to go into the
living room.
She stood up and I assumed she would get dressed and join me
in the living room. She joined me, but she didn't get dressed, just sat
there in her pajamas and underwear.
We talked for awhile and an aid came in with her lunch on a
tray (her bill, which I received recently, shows that she has discovered
room service and she seems to be eating in her room a lot). She had a
memory retention of about 10 seconds yesterday. Every tie she glanced
at the tray, she didn't know what it was or where it had come from.
There were men working out in the courtyard, as they have
been for months. They are finally getting closer to finish, but she
always thinks they are just there for the day. She told me that they
had put in a new pathway yesterday (they actually did it two years ago)
The men came up on her patio to begin painting and there she
sits in her underwear. I shut the curtains and suggested she really
should go and get dressed, so she got up, went into her bedroom, and came
out tugging on a blouse, which she was trying to pull on over her pajamas.
Then she sat down, again still in her underwear. I asked why she
didn't put on some pants. She said she didn't have any and covered her
bare legs with a blanket.
I went and got a pair of slacks for her and she laid them on
top of her legs, hanging down over her knees and asked if that's what I
wanted or if she should also cover her legs with the blanket.
I told her I wanted her to put her legs in the pants,
which she finally did.
The food tray had a plate with a hamburger on it, and two
covered cups, one with coffee and one with soup. Each time she looked at at
the tray she wondered where it had come from and asked what was in the cups.
She opened each one and sniffed one. She didn't want the coffee
because it was black. She would cover both cups up again, look away,
then look back and open them up again to see what was inside. She did
this several times.
She did finish the hamburger and took the plate out to the
kitchen, then later walked out in the kitchen to ask who had put the plate
there.
As for our conversation, I couldn't get her into talking
about the past today. She has completely forgotten about her husband
Fred, which always hurts my heart because she loved him so much but now her
husband memories are mostly about my father.
It was a day when she wanted to know if I was going dancing.
My god how many times did she ask me if I was going dancing and why I
was not. She couldn't seem to comprehend that the last time I was
dancing was 13 years ago, at Tom and Laurel's wedding (she didn't remember
who Tom was).
That's kind of how the whole visit went. She was
feeling some discomfort in her leg but she has stopped acting like she's in
agony, so I assume that the pain med is working, though I think one of the
effects of the med is this new mental state of hers. It makes visits more
pleasant, if....weird.
Like I said, you no longer know what to expect when you open
that apartment door. But the good thing is that she now seems happy more
than she seems unhappy and that is a very pleasant change. But who
knows how long that is going to last.
I feel uncomfortable going of this coming weekend to Santa
Barbara, but Walt will come and visit her and Ned will come and visit her,
and knowing that aids from Atria visit her several times a day is very, very
comforting. and, in truth being somewhere where I can't go to visit
her will be really nice for a few days.
Yesterday was Tom and Laurel's 13th anniversary, which is
difficult to believe that it has been that long. I told them I will
take them out to dinner, if we can find time when I am there this weekend. I
am very eager to see the girls again.
I haven't read your blog in a while.
ReplyDeleteI miss the "answer" group.
Dementia is an insidious one way street with huge potholes which eventually swallow up the person going down that road..