Humour | jmgoyder

The gifts

by jmgoyder

Well I got my bangle! On our 23rd wedding anniversary a couple of days ago, I rushed in to the nursing home with my gift to Anthony of two bananas and asked him if I could have a silver bangle to add to my collection.

As he consumed the bananas, he looked at me quizzically and asked one of his daily questions: “How much money is in the bank?”

I gave him an inflated estimate and he said, “$3,000, but it has to be a two-door, not a four-door.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I said.

“The Torana,” he said. [Long story – he used to have a Torana A9X which we unfortunately sold before it became a valuable collector’s item and recently our friend, D. had brought him some laminated photos of the vehicle + a couple of Torana magazines.]

“I’m not talking about a car!” I exclaimed, “I’m talking about a silver bangle!”

At the same time my mother arrived with anniversary presents for both of us – a beanie she’d knitted for Ants and a packet of my favourite cheese, Jarslberg, for me.

“Make sure you get a really good one,” Anthony said when he realised I was talking jewellery, not automobiles.

So my mother and I went downtown to the special jeweller’s whose shop I would visit once a year after Ants got so ill, Baroque, and I immediately fell in love with this!

I asked the jeweller for a massive discount on the basis that my husband was in a nursing home and it was our 23rd wedding anniversary, and he naturally obliged. “Done!” I said much to my mother’s ~~shock/horror~~/delight.

Then we went back to the nursing home, me with my new bangle on, to show Anthony who thoroughly approved of it and my delight and gratitude. After that I went around showing all staff and residents many of whom came into Anthony’s room to congratulate us both and to admire the bangle. It was such a buzz and Ants was thrilled. (The fact that I will have to sell all the old bangles to pay for the new one is beside the point – ha!)

It isn’t very easy anymore to get that whole exciting buzz thing happening with Ants, despite the fact that his ability to smile has come back. But the adrenaline of a bit of frivolous over-spending was just the sparkle we both needed.

One of the most beautiful things about Anthony is the joy he gets out of giving me something. Ming, on the other hand, was thoroughly disapproving of such extravagance!

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Treasure hunting!

by jmgoyder

Just behind the flowering tree is one of two sheds that is was full of rusty tools, abandoned bookcases, paperwork covered in fly-poop/rat-poop, the occasional photo, bits and pieces of a long time ago – well before my time here on this farm and probably remnants of before Anthony’s time here too.

The two falling-down sheds contained objects from a long-ago era; one also contained asbestos. Then there is the little house we call ‘Arthur’s hut’ because he was Anthony’s dairy hand for decades and was the last to live there.

Today, Dina and her assistant donned protective masks and suits in order to clear all of the bits and pieces from the two sheds, and the hut, so that I could categorise them.

The three of us worked almost nonstop for six hours and we did it! We cleared all three buildings and I am astounded because I thought it would take days! I am sitting here now, filthy and exhausted and sneezing from all the ancient dust, feeling absolutely euphoric.

We took three enormous ute-loads of rubbish to the dump, once I had decided what was trash. ‘The Ming’ was conveniently at work and, as he rarely reads my blog, he will not need to know about those three ute-loads because we have left enough of the keepable clutter outside for him to check out.

Now all I have to do is to sort through a few suitcases full of miscellaneous papers, books and photos (from well before I was born – Anthony first came here with his mother and younger brother when he was 23); sort the scrap metal from the collectible metal; and decide what to do with memorabilia that family members might want.

The above photo is of the first shed we cleared. It was a very difficult job as the floor is collapsing as a result of rabbit warrens.

History is a weird thing: it can hurt you, or heal you, or humour you. I plan to take a box-full of the more interesting relics into the nursing home to show Anthony next week.

The garage sale has now been postponed until I do the remainder of sorting, but I am nearly ready to advertise it – hurray!

Many thanks again to Dina and to her wonderful assistant for the miracle of today!

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Wedding anniversary thoughts

by jmgoyder

In a couple of days it will be our 23rd wedding anniversary. Over the years, Anthony and I have been hopeless at remembering this and my mother usually reminds me! But, even after being reminded, Ants and I have never done the whole anniversary present thing, just as we have never bothered with the Valentine’s Day thing.

Our love story, in retrospect, is very romantic but we have both been a bit cringy about public displays of affection and have never adhered to expectations around both occasions. In fact, until now, we have never held hands in public. Perhaps, having hidden our romance for so long, when I was younger, and having had such a wonderful platonic relationship beforehand, our friendship didn’t require the usual trappings of romance.

I think that when a romantic relationship begins with a platonic friendship, it is easier to manage the ups and downs of a marriage. I can remember years ago Anthony suggesting that he might one day buy me an emerald ring and silly, young me hoping to get this on my 40th birthday. Instead, he bought me a wonderful lithograph that he had always wanted!

After Anthony experienced my dignified disappointment (“You just bought me something YOU wanted!”) he began buying me silver bangles every Christmas and birthday, picking them out himself during the years before he became too affected by Parkinson’s disease to drive into town. So he began to send me into town to pick whatever silver bangle I wanted, which I did, reluctantly to begin with and unhappy with the thought that I was romancing myself! I ~~eventually~~ quickly began buying my annual bangles at just above Anthony’s budget instructions. It was hilarious to watch his expression when I came home and said, “I’ve found one and I love it, but it’s a bit expensive!”

Anthony (having always been extremely ~~tight~~ careful with money), would ponder the situation, look at the picture of the bangle, then at my greedy grin, and say, “Yes, okay, Jules.” These were gleeful moments, mischievous and hilarious and as solid as the silver in the bangles.

In light of our current circumstances – Anthony in the nursing home etc. I was tempted to just pretend the whole silver bangle ritual. After all, that’s what I did last Christmas and for my birthday in January. But then tonight I suddenly thought Ants will get a kick out of giving me a new bangle so tomorrow I am going to find one that is really unusual and take it in to get his approval.

Our romance began when I was 23 and now we have been married for 23 years, so I will get the chosen bangle engraved with 23 – yes!

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Dementia dialogues 3

by jmgoyder

Okay so this post concludes the little mini-series about what I have learned over the last several weeks of working in the dementia house.

Silence is golden!

To begin with, I would take various of the ten women for wheelchair walks around the gardens and through the facility, bombarding them with my chatter and questions, pointing to flowers or pictures on the walls, or just telling anecdotes or jokes that I hoped would elicit conversations.

In hindsight, that was idiotic in many ways. Can you imagine being in a wheelchair, travelling through beautiful gardens, observing the various flowers, breathing in the fresh air, catching a glimpse of the ocean, with the person pushing your wheelchair, whose big shadow you can see on the footpath, chattering AT you, asking you questions that frighten you because you don’t know the answers, disturbing the peace of being outside?

Weeks ago, during one of these walks, I asked D how many children she had and she paused, nervously, then said, “Two or three I think.” She was embarrassed not to know the answer. Then, with S, the same question elicited sobs of “Where is my family?”

So now, unless the person in the wheelchair initiates a conversation, I just shut up and push the wheelchair and, in this way, we are both able to listen to, and appreciate, the silence of the fresh air, the smell of the ocean, the sight of the roses and other flowers.

Silence is golden!

Once back in the dementia house, there is plenty of opportunity to chat, joke, play card games, do jigsaws etc. so I am not quite sure why I felt it so necessary to crowd the quiet fresh air with my clumsy hundreds of unnecessary words. The wheelchair walks will now be done in silence.

The other thing I have learned through working in the dementia house is that touch can be a way of communicating that doesn’t rely on words or even facial expressions. A hug, kiss, hand hold, given to you by a person with dementia, is worth a zillion words – and to respond to that gesture is worth a zillion more. On the other hand, I have also learned that some people flinch at being touched, especially people who are silent, so this is something to be respected; after all, every single person with dementia is an individual. Some people don’t like to be hugged.

I am not going to write about this for awhile because I still feel that I am on P-plates, learning via my mistakes, learning how to appreciate and respect and ‘read’ silence, and learning about individual personalities.

Even though Anthony also has dementia caused by his Parkinson’s disease, I always test my ideas out with him just the way I used to do when I was writing university essays and, later, lectures. With the simple difference between a nod or a shake of his head, he continues to be my mentor despite the fact that his own ability to speak coherently is faltering fast. So learning how to read silence is a necessity.

Silence is golden!

Respect for silence is gold.

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Dementia dialogues 2

by jmgoyder

My last post raises the question “but how can you listen to someone with dementia who is either incoherent or totally silent?”

There are two particularly talkative women in the dementia house where I work. One of them fluctuates between English and her first language but, regardless of what language she is speaking, her monologues are extremely difficult to understand.

The other woman, who is bedridden now, is so talkative that it is difficult to give her food or drinks because her monologue can be unceasing, but, interestingly, when she loses the thread of what she is saying, she hums a tune. Here is an example:

“And I said to him, said to him, you go go go to the shop and … humming … And there is, is, is a … humming … (takes a mouthful of food) … Oh that’s good, and he said to me that it’s, it’s, it’s a one, two, two, two … humming … What on earth are you do-doing? It’s a very nice dress … humming … chuckling … Oh no, damn … chuckling (takes a mouthful of food) … You shouldn’t, shouldn’t do that … humming … How dare you! I’ll have to, have to do, do, do that … chuckling ….” And on and on this goes.

In my ‘shut up and listen’ mode there are all sorts of nonverbal ways of validating that what these two women are saying is important. I can nod, smile, laugh, hug, hold hands, shake my head and I can pretend to understand. And the ‘shut up and listen’ mode doesn’t mean you can’t say anything at all of course; it just means that you give the person with dementia the floor so to speak. I’ve found recently that one-word responses on my part are much more effective than attempts at coherent conversations. Exclamatory words seem to be particularly successful in eliciting smiles, laughter, pleasure. “Yes!” and “What?” and “Really?” and “Amazing!” and “Thankyou!” and “Please!” – accompanied always with suitable facial expressions – can be a gift to those with dementia who are talkative.

But what about those people for whom speech has become difficult (e.g. Anthony) or even non-existent? This is very difficult because, unless you are psychic, you cannot possibly know what that person might have said/wants to say/feels like saying but can’t. How do you listen to utter silence?

To be continued when I figure that last question out!

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Dementia dialogues

by jmgoyder

When I first entered the world of blogging, “Dementia Dialogues” was my chosen title. I wrote a few posts but nobody read them and now I can’t even find the site (I thought that once something was on the internet it was there forever!)

Anyway I’m rather glad that those first few clumsy attempts at blogging are now in the trash because I feel a bit stupid now for even trying to write about these kinds of conversations. I also feel presumptuous in thinking that I had some sort of secret solution to the dilemmas faced by carers of people with dementia because there is no one-size-fits-all. Every single person with dementia is an inviolable individual with a history, attitude, idiosyncrasy, personality, humour, passion, memory, skill, dream, ability that is theirs and theirs alone.

In my new job in the dementia wing of the nursing home where Ants resides (he is in the high-care section), there are ten amazing women who are utterly different from each other but, due to their dementia, are also the same.

Getting to know each of these women as individuals has been a learning curve for me. Of course I have travelled this curve before as a young nurse working in nursing homes many years ago. And now, of course, I am dealing with Anthony’s Parkinsons’ disease dementia.

We all have conversations with each other where we forget to end our stories, leave loose ends, lose the plot of the point, pause, interrupt, argue, joke, and forget what was said. Sometimes we worry about our manners, our bad hair days, our inability to bring perspective to a situation, our dirty shirts, our sneezing fits, our unswept kitchens, and our fear of dementia.

For me, a ‘dementia dialogue’ is a conversation between a person with dementia and someone without dementia and I think it is very important for the latter to just shut up and listen.

I am so lucky to have a job where I can actually do this!

(To be continued….)

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Mar 19

Priorititis
by jmgoyder

Ming and I have very different priorities which is not unusual in a mother and son relationship. This means that he has had a rather bemused, and sometimes annoyed, attitude to the last few weeks of what I have decided to call my “house to home” project. And, due to his man-of-the-house attitude we have had a fair few power wrangles.

So I didn’t tell him that I had booked a lovely couple who run a business called ‘Household heroes’ to clean the windows inside and out. When I accidentally let it slip that they were coming on Monday, he became angry and this was our rather fraught conversation:

Ming: Why didn’t you tell me?
Me: I thought we agreed last week that I was the boss.
Ming: Well, why didn’t you ask me to do the windows? I should be doing it!
Me: Because you’re working full time and actually I think I did ask you.
Ming: No you didn’t!
Me: Well, maybe I hinted that we could do it together?
Ming: Why don’t we then?
Me: So do you want me to cancel the window cleaning people and we do it ourselves tomorrow?
Ming: But tomorrow is my day off! I want to have fun!
Me: In that case, could we do it together next week?
Ming: What’s your problem with the windows anyway, Mum?
Me: They’re dirty.
Ming: So?
Me: I want them to be clean.
Ming: Why?
Me: Because they always used to be clean and now they have been dirty for three years!
Ming: So?
Me: Okay so you want me to ask you to help me with the windows but you don’t really want to and you don’t care that the windows are dirty?
Ming: I don’t care at all!
Me: In that case, I won’t cancel the window cleaners, okay?
Ming: Fine then!

Yes, Ming and I have quite a lot of these circular conversations but, in the end, we can usually stifle our different priorities in order to watch Game of Thrones in the evening.

So the window cleaners came on Monday and did the most fantastic job over nearly four hours, Dina and I decluttered the wash house at the same time, and Ming skedaddled!

The following photos are not remarkable in themselves; what is remarkable is that they are all taken through clean windows. Hurray!

The thing is, I do understand Ming’s feelings of alarm at all of this tidying up because I guess he has become used to a mother (me) who has been sort of stuck for so long that he has forgotten the lightning speed with which I used to get things done – ha!

And tonight he is making dinner for me! Hopefully this will become a new priority for the Ming – gotta love him!

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Mar 17

Best laid plans
by jmgoyder

It has been another extraordinary couple of days with Dina, my decluttering/organising friend. https://www.chaostoclear.com.au

Yesterday morning we tackled the wash house. For those who don’t know, in Australia, people used to have separate-from-the-house facilities for washing clothes, and out-houses for toilet matters. To my knowledge there was never an actual out-house here but the wash house is and I have never had a problem with going out the back door and into the wash house to do the washing. What I have had a problem with, though, is that this wash house’s washing machine has had to share its space with cupboards FULL of ~~junk~~ miscellaneous tools, ancient bottles of cleaning fluids, pesticides, methylated spirits, even old photos and jewellery, old boxes of shoe polish and brushes, funny little tins full of buttons, a multitude of rusty nails, screws, AND the enormous mess made by animal life attracted to the water I guess – lizards, goannas, ~~rats~~ possums, wild cats who tend to have their babies on the roof of the wash house, visiting snakes (possibly), and several years of dead leaves blown in daily because of course there is no door. After all, it’s a wash house! I am beginning to wonder if I am the only person in the world to still think this is a normal arrangement!

Anyway, in less than two hours, Dina and I cleared the cupboards, brushed all the cobwebs out, swept the leaves out and categorised things. Tools went into one box, rubbish into another, stuff for the Ming to decide about into another and we were done!

In retrospect, I am a bit embarrassed that while Dina did most of the dirty work of de-cobwebbing and brushing the walls, I mulled over objects like old hammers and wrestled with what was rubbish and what might NOT be rubbish. But in the end we sorted the stuff and put back the useful stuff and I was able to decide between rubbish and garage sale categories very quickly.

Dina has been sending me summaries, with before-and-after photos, every week, and I have become rather addicted to reading these because of how wonderful the ‘after’ photos are! To have made so much progress so quickly in decluttering and organising this house has been a mixture of exhilarating and exhausting but not once have I shed a tear of nostalgia; instead, I am rejoicing because finally, after three years of sorrow, this house is becoming the comfortable, orderly home it always was. AND for the first time for so long, I know where everything is!

This morning (and that’s where the best-laid-plans theme comes in), Dina and I met at the nursing home at 10am with the intention of sorting all of the hundreds of photos out. A couple of situations came up that prevented us from doing this in the planned time frame but we still managed to sort photos into labelled envelopes (‘family history’; photos Ants might be interested in – old cars, dogs, cows; my own family photos of childhood; and the Ming.) The latter subject – an over-photographed little prince from 1994 to high school – have been kept in photo albums in one of Anthony’s top cupboards to scan and turn into photo books at a later date. I took these photo albums into the nursing home a few weeks ago with that purpose in mind but also to remind Ants and it has been great looking through them from time to time.

It is several weeks now since I first discovered Dina’s service and it is probably the best decision I have made for the past three difficult years to solicit her advice and help. She does this magic trick of holding various things in her hands and asking me, “What do you want to do with these things?” And she always has boxes ready for the various categories – absolutely brilliant!

Thanks again, Dina. The space you have helped me to create in this house and in my mind has helped me (and Ming too I think) to begin to live in the future and not in the past.

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Mar 15

The Anthony book
by jmgoyder

I am finding it extremely tedious and time-consuming (and a bit traumatic) copy/pasting bits of my blog into a possible book about our journey into the land of Parkinson’s so I’ve decided instead to begin to write the story afresh. Going back to the sadder blog posts is only making me sad whereas writing the story with the benefit of hindsight, and from a position of acceptance seems a better way to approach the project. The blog posts are a reliable historical record of events so I can always refer to these, and even quote myself (weird!) if need be.

I don’t want the book to be in any way academic because my last book, We’ll be married in Fremantle, was a rewrite of my PhD thesis so didn’t quite get the interest (or sales!) that it might have if had been marketed differently. For instance, the title of that book in no way indicates that I was writing about Alzheimer’s disease and about how to appreciate the storytelling abilities of sufferers.

Rewriting something seems to me a bigger task than writing something from scratch; rewriting the thesis as a book was a very long process (two years!) so I don’t want to have to do the same kind of rewriting thing with the blog. I have a bit of a problem at the moment with the whole re thing!

Instead, what I want to write is a book that is partly auto/biographical, partly how-to, and partly humorous. I want each chapter to incorporate each of these attributes and to work as a stand-alone essay/story.

Today I saw the biggest smile I have seen on Anthony’s face for a long long time and the carer who came into his room to give him his pills was astounded! He has almost begun to grin again now – incredible! Is my conjuring of daily smiles actually improving the muscle function in his face? If so, maybe some scientific person could research this and send me the findings ha! Hint to the Michael J Fox foundation….

The Anthony book will not be a very big book because I don’t want to repeat stuff that everyone already knows about the hardships of disease and caring etc. I just want to write, in the same personal style I use in this blog, about our slant on the more difficult dilemmas Ants, Ming and I have faced, in the hope that this will be helpful to someone/anyone!

Here is my chapter plan so far:

1. Thinking about the unthinkable (diagnosis shock, incontinence, fear of nursing home possibility)

2. Losing the love story (how having to care for someone takes its toll and affects relationships – Ming’s perspective useful here)

3. Hiding (carer withdraws, escapes, becomes workaholic in her job in order to avoid husband’s constant needs)

4. It’s not just all about you! (finding some sort of balance between young and old, sick and well, angry and happy, sad and funny etc.)

5. Lost and found: Anthony’s smile.

Anyway, that’s what I have come up with so far in terms of structure and content and any feedback appreciated!

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Mar 14

Lost and found 2
by jmgoyder

During one of my shifts in the nursing home the other evening, I was chatting with one of the carers who had come down to the dementia house to help with supper (in order to give the carer I was working with her own supper break). As we made the milos, and cups of tea and served the ten women residents, she chatted about how much she liked Anthony and loved working in his section (high care). She even described situations in which, when he was asking for me, she would quip, “Well I’m your mate too, buddy!” and they would share a bit of banter despite the fact that his retorts are now mostly whispered.

On the days when I am not on duty but simply sitting with Ants in his room, this particular carer will drop in and banter with Ants while I watch, happy and grateful that she, and many of the other carers, domestic staff, kitchen staff and supervisors, like him so much.

I have now told all of the staff to answer his constant question of “where is Jules?” with “Jules will be back soon.” This works quite well in covering the hours I am not there – early morning/late evening – but it probably wouldn’t work if I didn’t spend big portions of the daytime with him.

Anyway, I told this particular carer that he used to be a very loud, laughing, life-of-the-party bloke and she was amazed. I was a bit amazed by her amazement until I realised that of course he now presents as a very quiet, sleepy, incoherent, expressionless old man, diminished by the Parkinson’s.

Now that we are entering the fourth year of Anthony’s time in the nursing home, his physical deterioration is starkly evident however his ability to smile has come back! I am thrilled because for a couple of years there was no smile – not because he was unhappy exactly; it was more to do with his facial muscles not working due to the PD.

Around a year ago I made it my goal to make him smile every single day and I mostly tried this with banter, teasing, tickling, dancing, toilet jokes (sigh), and funny reminiscences. Well, this has worked! And the fact that some of the carers understand/intuit his need for banter, and play the game, is brilliant.

To see this beautiful man’s lost smile come back is the most amazing gift; it takes a bit of conjuring but it always happens and it is like magic to me! When I leave him to come home all of the tears I might have shed are absorbed into a great big grin.

Lost and found: Anthony’s smile.

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