June 7, 2017
Wednesday lunch with Jane:
Today Jane was mostly quiet & disengaged. She gave me a half smile when I arrived & a few times during our visit she would look at me & smile slightly. I don’t think confused is the right word but she didn’t seem to fully understand our conversation today. Or perhaps she understood & was unable to respond. While she happily accepted the cupcake box from me, she lost interest in the cupcake before she was done. In the past, she enjoys every bite of her cupcake. Today it seemed like she could take it or leave it. They had a new flavor today so we tried it. Fuzzy cola or something like that. It immediately broke in half when I took it out of the box so I asked Jane if it tasted ok because I’ve never had a cupcake from this spot. She said yes. I asked her if we should give her an official title of cupcake taster & she smiled & said YES! So somewhere in there Jane is still connecting.
It is warm here in Phoenix now & while Jane still enjoys walking, I worry about her getting too hot. So today I broke up our walks. We made 1 lap of the courtyard & then sat in the clubhouse for about 5 minutes to cool down. Then repeated with another lap. We did this a few times before heading back to Jane’s house. I noticed there is a new couch in the tv room so we sat on it for awhile & watched tv with the others. Jane wouldn’t sit very long before getting up to pace. She never paces too long before coming to sit next to me again but I wonder what causes her to want to get up & walk.
Jane seemed to be hallucinating quite a bit today. She kept talking to someone I could not see. She didn’t seem bothered at all by it – just chatting with someone I could not see. I asked her if her mom had been by to visit her today & she said yes. I said she comes to often you visit, right? And Jane nodded her head yes. Jane’s mom died when she was a teenager but she still very much loves her mom. Over the years Jane has shared many stories with me of her mom & I believe one of her biggest sorrows in her life is that she lost her mom so long ago. I like hearing her mom visits her because I know that brings comfort to Jane.
I guess if I had to visit today’s visit overall I would say it was medium. It wasn’t a good visit but it wasn’t a bad visit either. It was just a visit. We didn’t have any great conversations & there wasn’t much interaction. But I do know even on days Jane does not provide much feedback, the visits still bring joy to her day. She still holds on to my hand & wants my undivided attention. And she still remembers me which is absolutely a win & something I don’t take for granted. There may come a time where Jane doesn’t recognize me, but man do I hope there doesn’t. I’ve been lucky to only have 1 visit where I seemed to be a complete stranger & that was an incredibly emotionally hard day. We just never know what tomorrow holds.
