Seeing the Spark

This week my activity staff member has been out more than she has been to work.  That means, I get to fill in and facilitate the scheduled activities.  The activity program is more important to a resident's quality of life than the administrative tasks I can put off to another day.  The other day, I decided I was going to try a new game, the generic version of Jenga.  Most of the current residents have some mild dementia and so we need to keep the games pretty simple.  Yet they have pretty good manual dexterity, so it seemed like a good thing to try.  It was a success.  Now, they want to play it in the afternoons during some of the unstructured time.

But the first day we tried it, it so touched my heart to see how one of the resident's responded to the game.  This resident has been with us several years and came to us because of memory problems.  The disease has progressed and I see a time in the near future when she will have to move on to a higher level of care.  On this day, gathered with a group of other residents, I could see the spark of who she once was.  When people moved to assisted living because of memory problems, I don't usually get to see who they once were.  One of the hallmark symptoms of the disease is subtle personality changes.  That is one of the things I have seen in my own mother.  It's difficult to put your finger on, but she does not have the depth of personality she once had.  I now see why the disease is so devastating for families to deal with, it robs you of your loved one for such a long period of time.

But the other day, as the group was pulling out little blocks of wood, trying to keep the tower from falling, I could see the spark in this resident's eyes.  It reminded me of some pictures she has in her room where she is holding one of her grandchildren.  She wasn't able to take a piece that would keep the tower from falling.  Or maybe she did know the piece she was grabbing would make the tower fall.  The twinkle in her eyes as she was pulling the piece, with the other residents telling her that would make the tower fall, what a fun-loving vibrant person she must have been before the disease.  She laughed and laughed when the pieces fell, having such joy in that moment.

There is an excellent book out, "Creating Moments of Joy" by Jolene Brackey, that gives lots of ideas about how to have these "spark" moments.  As I looked back on that day and as I look back on the whole week, that one hour of this resident having her "spark" back, makes the whole week worthwhile.  I pray I am able to hold on to such moments with my mother as her disease progresses.

Benefit of Having Been a Mother

I have had a couple missed calls from my mom this week.  She will call my cell phone when I am at work and I can hear in the voice mail that she is really annoyed that I am not answering.  So she called Saturday, even though our set time for me to call is Sunday afternoon.  I am realizing that I need to treat this like I did when my children were young.  When the opportunity presents itself, I need to go ahead and take the time to talk with her.

 I am so thankful my boss is understanding.  Her mother is further down the process than mine. Recently, she had to mover her mother from assisted living to a skilled nursing facility.  So I asked permission from my boss to talk with my mom once in a while when she calls.  My boss knows I'm a workaholic, so she told me to go ahead and talk with my mom.

I am so bad about developing routines to get everything done, work, housework, cooking, etc.  That when something threatens to upset my routine, I have a hard time adjusting.  I have to remind myself that I will look back and wish for the days I could let the house get dusty, spending the time instead to talk with my mom.

I ran into the daughter of a resident we had years ago at the assisted living.  The resident had dementia and passed several years ago.  The daughter said the same thing.  She would give anything to be able to talk with her mom again.  So when I get calls in the middle of the work day, I have to take a deep breath and be thankful that I am still able to have a conversation with her.

Anti-psychiatrist bias

It is so frustrating as an administrator to deal with families who are so against getting advice and medication from psychiatrists.  I have a resident who came to assisted living with short term memory problems, poor hygiene, had been sundowning before she was hospitalized at a behavioral unit, was extremely agitated and paranoid.  After working with a psychiatrist for several months, her behavior significantly improved.  She still did not understand why she could not "go home", but seemed to accept that "for today" she was going to stay with us.  That was when the daughter was directing care.  Unfortunately, another family member has now taken the lead in directing care.  This family member is a physician himself and is one of those with the "God complex".  He has a bias against psychiatrists in general and with this psychiatrist because he confronted him about his inappropriate ways of dealing with this resident.  Since I have been called out to break up an argument between the two of them in the past and to deal with him "going off" on my staff members, the confrontation was necessary.  So time to find another doctor who will go along with the anti-psychiatry bias.

Not only did the new doctor take the resident off an anti-psychotic medication "cold turkey", but decided to get rid of the Aricept because "what did it matter".  It also angers me when a general practitioner labels someone with mid-stage dementia as having severe dementia.  If you had worked in the long term care industry as long as I have and seen the people whose disease had progressed to where they require complete care for all their needs, then you can tell me when it is severe dementia.  If someone has some short term memory loss and needs prompting to take care of hygiene, doesn't remember what day of the week it is and may call people of short term acquaintance by the wrong name-they do not have severe dementia.

So now, not only are we going to have to deal with behaviors that had been resolved with the medication, but the most frustrating aspect is to know the resident is upset by her paranoid delusions.  How unfair to subject someone to that emotional pain because of the family member's ego issues.  I've worked in and out of mental health for 20 years.  When will the stigma ever go away to where people can get the help they need and deserve?

healing

I'm reading a great book right now about how to flourish.  Face it, I'm in mid-life and I guess this is my response to examining my life.  It prompted me to think about my mom and her disease.  What if this disease is a means to  bring healing?  When I worked in hospice, we were taught that there are many aspects of healing, not just the body.  But when we had a patient who was dying, there could still be healing, in terms of relationships, spiritual healing, etc.

When I think about my mother, one of the things that comes to mind is that she has an inferiority complex.  For as long as I can remember, she has been trying to find significance.  When she was younger, it was through her looks.  She has always been a very attractive woman, blond, blue-eyed with a good figure.  And she has the typical extrovert personality  She looked like Shirley Jones when she was younger.  I remember as a teenager her many stories of all the boyfriends she had in high school.  And as with so many teens, all I could think of was how I was not going to live up to that reputation.  Since I was mousy brown-haired and just plain skinny as well as shy, I was pretty much the opposite of her.  Then as she got older, it was her intellect that was the source of her achievements and significance.  She went back to college in middle age and got her bachelors and master's degrees.  She taught my brothers and I how to have intellectual debates.  In fact, I'm sure that is how my brother got to be a championship debater, the practice we had at home.  And finally toward the end of her working years, her significance was found in her job.  And that is pretty much where it has stayed for the past 15 years since she retired.

But what if the stripping away of all the externals that happens with dementia can be a source of healing for her?  The Bible tells us we are to come to God as a little child.  Well that is certainly how this illness can progress.  What if instead of fighting against the illness, I can work through it to help her achieve that sense of acceptance and significance she has been searching for her whole life?  Not that I'm not still going to fight for medicine to slow the progression.  But I do believe God has a plan for everyone and in every life.  And if I can search for the good in this, then that is what I should do.  Now I just pray for the wisdom to know how to do it.