Crossing That Bridge
Tuesday dawns with the soft droning of the AC and HEPA filters. Snookums is still asleep as I pad into the kitchen to start the coffee to brewing, then onwards to the studio to check the mail and social media while I wait for it to brew.
So our new routine begins. When Snook rises, we will have coffee and coffee cake, then pills, then vitals. The kitchen table now looks like a medical office, with blood pressure cuffs, pulse-ox meters, forehead thermometers and scales. She complained of nausea last night, and just feeling puny today, but eating seems to make her feel better. The blood pressure is high for the first time since we came home, but I am not so sure the machine we use is the best for her, so just ordered a wrist type that may be more comfortable. We don’t need hospital grade accuracy.
But she can remember routines once she starts them. I remind her that the dogs haven’t been fed, and she remembers how to fill the bowls. Same with the feral Katz family. It pains me to remind her of her morning chores, but she has always found comfort in them and seems to appreciate the reminders. Her mind is still quick with humor, but her short term memory is shot.
I keep the bills on the table and record whether they are paid or not, and she goes through them several times a day asking if they had been paid. If she remembers, that will be another milestone. As the dust settles, I think I would like to take a bit of time each day to chronicle it and perhaps if she recovers that lost section of her brain, these will serve to tickle her memory. Then again, maybe I just chronicle them for myself and my readers. The not knowing is killing me.
However, the mornings are still soft like they used to be with Snooks puttering around the house in her housecoat, and me trying to look useful while the caffeine slowly infuses my body with its magical goodness.
Good morning!
Rusty's Armory 
July 26, 2022 at 11:04 am
Routines help those suffering memory loss. Sometimes just a gentle nudge is enough.
🙂
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July 26, 2022 at 11:21 am
… seems to be. Noticed she was sorting laundry a bit later …
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July 26, 2022 at 11:51 am
I would do that with my mother. A gentle reminder.. and sometimes it would click.
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July 26, 2022 at 12:34 pm
Routine can be very comforting.
My maternal grandmother had a massive stroke two years before her death (in 2007). It paralyzed her right side and destroyed her speech center. She couldn’t write or speak but, somehow, she was still with it. She heard quite well and when you spoke to her, she understood you.
How and why the brain retains what it does baffles me.
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July 26, 2022 at 1:01 pm
It is an interesting mystery …
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July 28, 2022 at 3:59 pm
Play music for her, ol’ bean. It’s been proven that even folks in deep vegetative states show increased brain activity in response to music, ain’t that amazing? And take heart, the brain is incredibly resilient and can form new connections to bypass the damaged areas. (I know this because MRIs of my own grey matter show it to look like swiss cheese for all the lesions.) Yet here I still am, and there your dear wife still is too, it just takes time to build new neural pathways.
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August 9, 2022 at 8:52 am
Glad to see an update. I do hope the brain regenerates some new neural pathways for her to regain her short-term memory.
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