The Brain is a Crazy, Curious, Marvelous Thing – Thursday, June 29

Today was a very interesting day. Mom continues to progress with her eating and getting to try new foods and textures. I think we’ve been pushing her a little too fast on the thinner liquids but overall she’s doing great. She has an appointment on Monday to get a swallow study done so we can see how she does with some of the things that give her trouble. I already know that she has improved a lot from her last study. We’ll see what this one tells us – hopefully that everything is working, albeit weak or slow.

She was fairly tired physically today. She’s not really understanding why and she got pretty frustrated during her PT session. She wasn’t able to raise her knees as high as she could before. She didn’t stand or walk as well as she had the last couple of days. She doesn’t realize how taxing all of this is on her body and her brain. The thinking she has to do to follow instructions and get her body to move the way that she wants it to as well as using words to communicate with us all at the same time can be extremely tiring. We didn’t push her with walking – what’s the sense in it when your body just doesn’t want to go? But after measuring her distance, she managed to walk 10 feet today! Yesterday was about 19, and the day before 17. I’d say she’s worthy of a break today.

After dinner we went to her room so she could start her nightly routine and we just found ourselves sitting and talking. At one point she said to me that she “died seven times”. I thought I misheard her so I asked her to repeat it. Yup. I heard right. The first time that she “died” was the morning of her stroke. She told me what she could see and hear and how she was unable to respond. She went on to describe a few dreams that she had – each very detailed. This is the most my mom talked to me uninterrupted. Dream interpreters would have a field day listening to her. I’m not going to describe them here since I’m not sure she’d want me to, but they were really very interesting to say the least. Of course I LOVE to psychoanalyze everything and I found what she was saying and what she has experienced extremely fascinating.

We talked about the day that she tried to leave her bed and ended up on the floor with a busted chin. She remembers doing it and said that at the time she wasn’t trying to get out of bed to leave because she didn’t want to be there. She was trying to get to me because in her mind she thought that I was in trouble (again, I won’t get into the details). I realize that even in her state she was trying to protect me. She was just being my mom.

She doesn’t remember much about what went on when she was in the hospital (Fairfax). Actually, the beginning of her stay at Ashby is foggy at times. She remembers certain feelings and those dreams… It’s almost like her brain was so much more active than her body for a time and that was where she lived. I am just so amazed at what she remembers. Even the dreams and thoughts that were not real are so vivid and clear to her. She understands now that things she thought were real weren’t (aren’t) and that she’s going to be OK. Actually, I asked her that tonight. I asked her how she is doing. Now that she understands completely and has accepted that this happened, how is she? She said she’s OK. She still doesn’t understand why it happened, but she’s fine with it. She said that she has so much left to do. Her main concern is how her condition might impact us since she’ll likely be with us for a long time. She worries about things that moms worry about and I told her that as long as she’s here and is happy, that’s all that matters.

A great talk with lots of emotion. Some tears, but we still managed to find things to laugh about. I am so thankful that she has retained her sense of humor. I think that is really what’s helping her get through this.