That's Amore

Dolly is settling in nicely now at Epoch. She moved in on Friday and complained about it all weekend. Being so close to her intense mood changes, I can easily say that her actions explain more than her tantrums scream. She has been participating in activities almost every chance she can, which is awesome. She is even claiming that the food is good now. She has some friends that she meets in the hallway, and she eats with them in the dining room for lunch and dinner. She is accepting Epoch as her community, this is great!

Today I stopped in after work to have a quick visit, and I found Dolly in the Alzheimer's wing dining room. There was a musical show. A man singing and a woman on the electric piano. I just caught 'That's Amore' and realized right away how much Mom was enjoying it. She was bobbing her head and mouthing the words, I couldn't interrupt that.

I dropped by a little later, and she was in the hallway with her friends. I sat with her there with her friends for an hour. We chatted, talked about food and the wonderful dessert they had at lunchtime. There was a bit of controversy over what the fruit was that everyone had with the whipped cream, Mom said it was cherries, Marion said strawberries, but in the end it didn't matter. The dinner trucks came, the first one went into the Alzheimer's unit, the second one went to the Sub-acute unit, and the third truck was gossiped about even before it arrived. I let her go to the dining room to eat.

They are having another show tomorrow, a folk singer. Mom said she wants to go to that, and even told the activities lady that I was 'maybe' going to come to that show, too. We'll see.

Happy 72nd Birthday!

Some Big News

Tomorrow is going to be a big day for Dolly!

We are moving to Sharon. Epoch has an empty bed and is 1.9 miles from my house, not to mention it is basically on Julie's way to and from work. I think this will be a fantastic move considering we will be able to pop in more often to visit with her. Heck, if she doesn't like her dinner, we can bring her something else! I am very excited, and Mom is too.

Mom is also a bit nervous. I've noticed that she has finally been making friends at Sherrill House, and now she will be leaving tomorrow (it is sad). This I hope, will foster her friendship faeries to make friends more quickly than she has in the past. She made no friends at Spaulding (only staff friends), and just started making friends at Sherrill House a couple of weeks ago. She has been there since June. I am so glad that she is coming out of her shell, so to speak. I hope the friendship faeries continue to do their work when we get settled at Epoch.

I had some training on transferring Dolly today. She did very well, I did very well, I think we passed. We did a few wheelchair to bed transfers, then we went outside and did a couple of wheelchair to car transfers, John(PT) is a good teacher. I feel more confident in helping her transfer which is good, and she did a great job. She still needs constant reminding on her position, her feet, locking the chair, where to push off, and where to grab. Hopefully we can make all these motions second nature if we keep at it.

Dolly also did some hallway walking with her special side walker. She needs assistance, but really, she looked good walking. I think the carpet was her nemesis, she does so much better on smooth flooring with it. Her foot got stuck a few times in the short pile, she doesn't lift her leg, she just shuffles it. It was a good job anyway, I was thrilled to see her "GO"!

Hopefully we can make some more improvements at Epoch and get her back on Medicare for the time being. Wouldn't that be sweet?

More Norwood Day pics!

Norwood Day!

Yesterday, Kathy and I took Mom to Norwood Day. A day that they shut down the center of Norwood and a street fair ensues. Bands, booths of information, booths of goods, food, games, and even rides for kids clog the street.

Dolly started asking to go only a couple of days ago. She has been attending Norwood day for the last 6 years or so. At least ever since the Frame Shop/Gallery opened. On Thuresday night we talked, and she started begging to go. She actually said "You're my only hope" Hahaa!...Obi-Wan Kenobi...
Mmmmm...Ice cream from Ice Jacks! Hi there, Kathy's arm!

My favorite picture of the day. Mom is center/right in the pic. She had so much fun...I think this says it all.

Mom and me yesterday. She looks pained, but she really was having a great time. She still has a hard time getting her mood across with facial expressions. We all had a great time.

Dolly Walks

Visited mom today, and i got to see her walk. I also had Lesson #1 in assisting mom with her walking. It was so exciting to see the progress she has made! She did well. She's walking several feet at a clip without sitting to rest- maybe 15 feet or so. I was so proud of her.

Today, I observed and was also given the opportunity to learn the ropes a bit with guidance from Susan, mom's substitute teacher. (Susan was great today, and I think mom will enjoy working with her this week.) Next week, I will train again with John, her regular teacher who is currently on vacation.

Good job, mom! Keep up the good work.

Silver linings

I have not been posting much lately here because, for one thing, sometimes it's no fun to post when all you have to share is one gripe after another. For another thing, when there are no new developments, posting is like publicly staring at my belly button (..or sitting through a David Lynch movie. Take your pick.) Well, Dolly's progress is dragging a post out of me today. It's been a week where some small, happy things have snuck up on me and said "Boo"! These weeks don't come too often... and early on, a good week or couple days were often followed by the opposite. Nowadays I have to stop and acknowledge it here, no matter how little the victories have been.

This week, John (mom's PT) said that mom is doing well in PT, very well. I knew that she's been using a walker with John during her appointments, but he actually said that she is a good candidate for training to walk with others. This is HUGE. He invited any family to come to train to walk with mom during her appointment. I told him I'd be there Monday.

Another thing John said was that mom is being vetted to possibly (possibly... don't want to get my hopes up too high, but POSSIBLY...) get put back on Medicare B. Backstory: mom was kicked off Medicare about a month ago for lack of making progress, and we've been paying for her PT privately for weeks now. I don't know what the "B" stands for in this level of Medicare, but I bet that it's a lesser coverage of Medicare than she has been getting. Honestly, I'm just thrilled that it's even on the table at this point. Her Medicare re pick-up window is closing (early October, unless she was to have another "event" in which case full benefits would kick back in, obviously). So, if she is becoming a candidate to go back on Medicare, that is a big thing and there is not a large window for assessment. John's away for the next week, and mom will be in PT with a substitute teacher. The plan is that he will contact us when he gets back to let us know if the Medicare B is going to happen or not.

Mom has been taking part in some social activities at the Sherrill House, or says she is, and I'm inclined to believe her. Bingo and coffee/TV hours. In previous weeks, she spent most of her time in her room and reacted very grumpily when I would ask her about taking part in some of the daily social activities provided at Sherrill House. So this is a win. I am not sure how involved she has been in the activities, but she is definitely attending them and interacting with others.

Something else I've noticed that she has been paying attention to doing some smaller things for herself now. I've seen this happen a number of times, and in an unself-concious way. What I mean by that is that, at the time of the event, she clearly was making the attempt due to her own innate desire to accomplish a specific goal (non-ego-driven) and not to just put on a show for me (ego-driven). This has been one of the broader major road-blocks in mom's recovery so to see even this teeny tiny amount of self-driven desire to accomplish a task and grasp for independence is a big thing. These are just the infinitesimal daily tasks, to you and me - things that she used to (and sometimes still does) bark at me to help her with, like moving her bed up and down via the control buttons, or putting the brake on her wheelchair or even adjusting her arm. She is also eager to show off the progress she has made with her newfound abilities: standing and general wheeling. It is impressive to me. She is definitely making progress. It's slow, and it might not keep her on Medicare, but it's still progress and should still be praised and celebrated nonetheless. There are still plenty (PLENTY) of issues we are contending with --she is still very neglectful of her right side for one thing, and there are for sure other issues I'm not touching upon here. But it's been more positive than negative this week for me, and it makes me feel sort of hopeful. I praise her, and I am thrilled about all these small victories --but I have to be really careful with the way I show her this because, for instance, I praise her for pushing her bed button up and down on her own, and the next minute, she thinks she's well enough to go home and manage all by herself. (That's a good example of life with Dolly right now.)

We will be planning Dolly's birthday dinner soon. Her birthday is September 28. I think we are going to take her out to the Summer Shack, but I have to check on their wheelchair access.