So I went down to see my grandmother, Baba, yesterday. It had been almost two months since I went to see her last, all because of the perpetual colds and other types of ailments that have circulating through my immediate family. With health finally starting to return, yesterday I was finally able to make it down to visit her. Being 92 and living in a facility with people her age and diminished immune systems, it wouldn't have been a good idea to visit, and when I told her this yesterday, she completely agreed. Since it had been two months since my last visit, I didn't know what to expect when I walked in there. Would she recognize me? Would she know my name? Would she tell me to leave? Those questions float through my mind every time I go down to visit, but with this being the longest stint between visits for me, they occupied almost every thought I had on the trip down. Having those questions of my own, I can partly understand why some people wouldn't want to go visit a family member with dementia. There is never any certainty about what state the person you are visiting will be in when you get there. They could be having a good day, or a bad day, and you never know till you walk through the door and see them and their reaction to you. Not going to see Baba has never even been a thought that has entered my mind. I don't know how some people can just leave their family members in these facilities without visitors, totally alone, left to their own failing devices. I wish more people would go see their family members, but that is not for me to control. I can only control what I do and I know that I will continue to go see my grandmother, even if her reaction to me does change as time progresses. One thing that strikes me every time I go down to see her is the lack of visitors there. I hardly ever see anyone else visiting a family member at the facility my grandmother lives in and it saddens me to see their forlorn faces at dinner, staring off into the distance, brows wrinkled, heads hanging. Yesterday, though, that was not the case with Baba.
I had brought some clean clothes with me that my mother had washed for her. Not knowing if she was in her room or having dinner, I went to her room first. Not being there, I left her clothes on her bed and went to the dining room, where, sure enough, she was eating her cheeseburger on half a bun, the other half lying on her plate. The moment I walked through the door and she saw me, an enormous smile burst onto her face. She was overly excited to see me and it put a smile on my face to know that she at least recognized me. Baba at least knew that I had come to see her before, how long was beyond her, but she knew it had been a while. She didn't remember my name, but that's OK with me. The one person she never forgets, and this is a mystery to everyone, is my son. She always knows his name, knows that he is her great grandson, and always looks forward to seeing pictures of him. She will occasionally forget who my mother is and her relation to her, but she always remembers my son. At least she has that to hold on to. Its a mystery, but its not one worth looking into. I could see yesterday that she is forgetting more and more. She couldn't put together the fact my wife was also the mother of our son. Once I explained it to her, she understood, its just odd how some connections remain and some disappear. I had mentioned a while ago about how she gets stuck on a loop, almost like a glitch in a CD (I know, almost non-existent now) that keeps the same sentence playing over and over and over again. Well, those loops I have noticed are getting shorter. What once used to be longer stories that trailed off and then began again have morphed into occurrences during her day that she feels the need to repeat. Yesterday she kept on saying how many people were there and how few there were before. I wasn't quite sure what she was referring to, but I let it go and whenever she got stuck on her loop, I changed topics and moved things along. There seems to be more and more that I am incapable of understanding when it comes to what she is trying to say. Not to say that it is gibberish, but I just have no idea what she is talking about sometimes.
Yesterday she was asking where my parents lived. I told her they lived in Milford and she asked if it was the house up on the hill. I said yes. Later she asked where I lived and I told her Seymour. "In the house up on the hill?" "Yes, Baba." Then came the strange one. She asked about my friends, two boys who live in a house up on a hill in Stratford. I had no clue who she was talking about or whether or not she was even talking about friends of mine (which I doubt she was). Yet, the same recurring them was there, the house up on the hill. After she was done talking about my friends, she wanted to make sure I told them that she was still alive. I told her I would even though it will be very hard for me to find those friends that I don't even know about. I guess in one aspect her quest to tell my friends she is still alive, I am doing that by writing this now. I would tell her that I write about her on the Internet, but at this point that would be beyond her comprehension and probably spawn more questions that I probably wouldn't be able to adequately answer. It is sometimes tough to see her in her present condition. While her general health is good overall, she will even admit now that she is forgetting a lot. Its not always the big things that she forgets that surprise me now, its almost as if I expect those, but the small things set me back a little. At dinner yesterday, she had stopped eating when I walked into the dining room. Seeing everyone else finishing up their dinner and leaving, I asked if she wanted to finish her cheeseburger. She said yes and went back to eating. While finishing, she would take occasional sips of her tea. When that was done, she looked around her tray and saw the apple juice. I asked if she wanted it and she said yes. I opened it up for her and she told me to put it in the mug that the tea was in. She took a sip and said it was really good tea. I didn't have the heart to tell her it was apple juice. She said it was cold, but good, a little sweet, but good. Yet she still thought it was tea, not apple juice. Oh well, life goes on and hopefully next week when I go see her, she will be feeling well and be in good spirits.
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