It was a great weekend, with both children come from across the country to visit their mother and me for an early Christmas family get together. Carolyn was not very aware when they first came, but the next day she perked up and came alive. It was obvious that she enjoyed the visit.
Monday after they were both gone, she cried for awhile. She has always hated partings and goodbyes. I sat with her for a couple of hours and shed a few tears myself. One of the wisdoms that comes with old age is that it’s OK to recognize your feelings and let it flow. Good for your heart, I think.
Today I went in about 1:00 PM to visit her, and found her asleep on the couch, with the bed stripped bare; the covers piled on the chair. I left her sleeping, and went down the hall to see what was going on.
The nurse said Carolyn had had a heck of a morning. She had been up all night walking around the halls. She gets into “sundowner” mode, where she sleeps during the day and then wakes up to give the nurses a hard time at sundown.
By the morning she was exhausted, and the nurse noticed she needed a shower. She did not want to take a shower and didn’t go easily. I suspect when she knows she has made a big mess, shame and embarrassment have a hand in her obstinate refusal to shower willingly. All her life she has liked to take showers. I suppose that she just doesn’t enjoy someone else giving her the shower and seeing the mess.
I left her sleeping on the couch, and didn’t return until 9:00 PM to see if she had awakened. I found her sitting on the bed, which had only a blanket on it. I sat beside her on the bed and talked for awhile. She just listened and leaned on my shoulder.
I just read an interesting article on the discovery that some of the lack of recognition in Alzheimer’s patients is not memory, but a loss of the ability to recognize faces. I have been avoiding mentioning my name most of the time, because I didn’t want to cause her confusion and frustration if she couldn’t remember.
According to this article, it is good to tell them who you are when you first meet, to help her with recognition. It’s not a problem if you don’t ask her to remember—it’s just an extra clue. If she does remember, great! If she doesn’t remember, at least she knows your name now.
Most of the time when I tell her I’m Don, her husband, she smiles and hugs me. A couple of times she indignantly replied, “I know that!” I wish I had known about this a year ago.
After a few minutes of sitting beside her on the bed, I began to put the picture together of the probable morning events. I’ll bet the sheets are off the bed because she got them soiled before they found her and got her showered. So the sheets may be down in the laundry room. The bed was probably open to allow the mattress cover to dry after needing cleaned.
It looks like the nursing staff here earned their pay this morning. I bet they aren’t paid nearly what the work is worth. I am so grateful for the care they give Carolyn.
I searched the room and found a spare set of sheets in the cabinet under the bathroom sink (?) and made the bed up, with a couple of light blankets on top. During the search I also ran across three blouses that were the wrong size for Carolyn, so I hung them back up in the laundry room. If the other sheets were down there, they were still in the dryer.
I walked with her one time around the building hallways, and she was almost spry compared to the last few days. She was walking with her head up straight, taking long strides instead of shuffling along, and she did not reach out to take my hand for balance. I was amazed!
Maybe it has to do with the head cold that we are all getting over around here. She had it first, (might have been pneumonia), and she is getting over it now. I can hope, huh? I am getting over it myself, even though this last week has been torture. As my bronchial tubes heal, they get a tickle going that causes continuous spasmodic coughing fits that feel like my ribs are tearing loose.
Wish the coughing would go away, but leave me the great bass voice. My son Wes has been getting over the same bug, and he mentioned he has been going around singing “Elvira”. I’ve been singing the same song!
Here’s hoping we all recover and have a Merry Christmas!
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