This is a true story that happened in 2018 that changed my thinking, Joyce's thinking and changed both both our lives. Most of it is back story until the end of this post. I hope you will read all the way though it.
October of 2017 Joyce went into the hospital. Reference here,The Sentinel, Worst day She remained in the hospital until the 2nd day of January in 2018 when she was finally released and I took her home. During the near 2.5 months in a bed in the hospital she lost all the strength in the muscles in her body.
That was bad enough, but she had also come down with what I later, much later found out was Charles Bonnet Syndrome this is a syndrome which people that have very limited vision can end up with. The syndrome takes over the brain and people see things that are not really there, basically terrible hallucinations. We were driving down the highway and she was seeing 8 lanes of traffic and all 8 were coming directly at us. We pulled into the parking lot and she asked, “where are we?” I said, “we are home.” She replied, “this is not where we live.” I convinced her to go inside with me and when we got into the living room and sat down, she said, “ this is not our apartment. There is a whole glass wall there; I can see right into the hallway and the apartment across the hallway.”
Joyce could not get up from a chair or even go to the restroom without me having to put a gait belt on her chest and guide her around. She had no strength, no means of locomotion on her own. Without getting into the gritty details, I had to do everything for her and myself. We had a visiting nurse that checked on her 2 times a week and a physical therapist that came 3 times a week. The first time the therapist came Joyce could not stand on her own. He had her sit on the couch and just lift her heels up on the balls of her feet. He wanted her to do that simple, easy to do activity 20 times. She was able to do it about 5 times and that was all. Now you have an idea of what she and I began with our life at home in 2018. Joyce gradually improved with physical strength and could move with a walker around the apartment and ever use the restroom on her own, but that was about it. Joyce did not want any company to see her in that condition and she did not leave the home for a few months. She grew despondent as I know I would have done were the situation reversed.
Joyce gradually got better and we made it to the grocery store and to Walmart a few times and she felt somewhat better being able to do those simple things. She could not see well enough to pick things from the shelves in the grocery. People here in our small town sensed that she had a problem and asked if they could pray for her. How wonderful was that? I think it was around the early part of June when Joyce agreed to some company and Rhett, Annie and our granddaughter Hailey came to visit. Joyce was talking and explaining why she did not want anyone around earlier and how even now she couldn’t do all the things that she normally would do. That was when this 14 year-old child said, “Grandma don’t think about the things you can’t do; think about what you can do.” Joyce could not have had any better advice from a professional psychotherapist. That changed her thinking and she has improved ever since. Once in a while Joyce is sad that she can’t do more things than she does, like cooking big for guests and all I have to do is remind her of what our granddaughter said and Joyce is back to being the wonderful woman she is.
No comments:
Post a Comment