8-2-2021 Getting the right hand to know what the left is doing

 (Tricia)

Last night, I spent about four hours with Linda, and when I left, I felt both sad and hopeful, if that's possible. As Marilyn noted, Linda still seemed depressed, which I don't think is surprising. I told her that she would have to work with the physical therapists to get her strength up so she could get herself out of bed, move herself to a chair, and even walk a few steps again. Then, she could leave the nursing facility and at least come home with one of us.

Her expression became very wistful, and I asked her what she was thinking. Her response: "Bad thoughts." When I pressed further, she said she wasn't sure if any of that was going to happen. I tried to lighten the mood, by noting I knew how much Linda hated exercise (she chuckled and nodded in agreement), but then I noted that she was going to have overcome that if she was going to walk again.

At this point, I told her to think of our mother, Margaret. Margaret, who passed away at age 83 in 2002, was a formidable woman. She renovated a kitchen; she even "rocked" an entire house.  (For those of you who don't live in the country, "rocking" a house involves spending months scouring Missouri dirt roads for flat rocks of just the right size, throwing them into the back of the pickup truck, and then cementing those rocks to a house--all four sides of it. I helped with this process in my late teen years when Margaret was in her late 60s!)  I asked Linda how Mother would handle all of this--would she do the exercises and do all it took to get her strength back? Linda nodded, and said that she would. So I told her she was going to have to channel Mother's spirit and strength to get through this, and that I knew Mother was going to be with her every step of the way. I told her she was going to have to get mad at this whole situation, and then use that anger as motivation. She nodded and said, "I think you're right."

I'm starting to work with Linda as best as I can with some cognitive exercises, to help rebuild skills that she has lost. For example, she has a great deal of trouble focusing on just one thing.  If you ask her to read just one word she wants to read them all, or if you ask her to pick one object out of a group, she wants to touch them all. She's also regaining her ability to reach out to touch a single item and exert enough force to move it from one spot to another. 

So, last night, I asked her to pick out specific letters out of a group of Scrabble tiles to spell simple words; I asked her to put her finger on each letter I called out and pull it toward her. I'm doing my best to help her focus her attention when necessary--for example, by covering the other letter tiles so she can see what what just one looks like on its own. I also had her work through two connect-the-dots worksheets.

Another thing we're seeing is that she will always revert to her right hand, even if you ask her to use her left. Last night, I touched her left hand and asked her twice to use it to touch my hand, and both times she used her right--when I repeated that I wanted her to use her left hand, she cried out in frustration and said, "I am! I'm doing what you asked me to!" One, I felt awful for upsetting her. But, two, that also showed me that we're going to have to remind her that her left hand exists.

The good news: When I asked her to use both hands to grab something, she did not seem to have trouble using them in simultaneously.

Even though she got frustrated, was really proud of her for doing this work. She was willing to work through these activities with me, and I could tell that she wants to get better at them.

Twice during the evening, she asked me, "How long are you staying? Don't you want to go home?" She said this not as if to say she wanted me to leave, but as if she didn't know why I wanted to be there. That really hit my heart. I told her I would stay as long as she wanted me to. When I asked her if she wanted me to stay, she nodded.

We watched a Hallmark movie together, and before too long, she had closed her eyes. I asked her if she would like me to leave her so she could rest, she said she thought so. Before I left, she grabbed my hand and pulled me in for a big hug. It made me so sad to leave her, but I also realized that she and I had interacted continuously for nearly four hours--she had stayed awake and alert, she had held a pen, and she had worked with words. I'm going to hold onto that.

Tomorrow I'm going to visit her with Marilyn in the morning, so I can be there when her therapists are working with her. I want to be a bit of a cheerleader during those hours and hopefully provide a little added incentive for her to do the work she needs to do.