It is several weeks now since I began the routine of making myself at home in Anthony’s room at the nursing home. Sometimes I am there from noon to 5pm, but mostly from 2-5pm. The fact that I am always there at sundown has been a plus, and sometimes Ants thinks he is at home. My mother visits him at least once a week and told me that I had made a little ‘Bythorne’ there (that’s the name of our farm). I now write everything Anthony says to me in a notebook because I am fascinated at how someone with encroaching dementia can to-and-fro from past to present, from memory to imagination, from anxiety to exhilaration. But his grief when I leave to go home can be very upsetting because I have to explain that I am going back to Bythorne and he has to stay in the nursing home. Anthony doesn’t always understand this and thinks I am abandoning him so it is always a difficult ‘goodbye’ but I think I have figured out how to make it easier with a bit of banter – not sure yet.
Smiling
This afternoon Anthony was, as is usual now, in his armchair in his room at the nursing home and a bit confused. I put the heater on, zipped up his jacket, put a rug from home on him and changed the TV station to “Neighbours”. Anthony’s hands were cold, so I took the heat bag my friend Jen made and microwaved it for 4 minutes in the kitchen (staff let me come and go from kitchen area now), took it back and put it on his lap, placed his hands on it and put the rug on top.
Anthony was really drowsy – has been all week – but at one point I was able to rouse him (by punching him gently in the shoulder). His eyes were blank until they met mine and I said, “Ants, I love you more than anyone in the world.” Suddenly my eyes filled up with tears.
There wasn’t much response so I tried again, more shoutingly, “Anthony, I just told you that I love you more than anyone in the world, and my eyes filled with tears, and you ignored me!”
Anthony looked into my wet eyes, and his drooping mouth (caused by Parkinson’s disease) curved upwards into a smile. I realize that doesn’t sound like much but to get a smile from this previously jovial person who is now so disabled, is a small miracle. The only thing that annoys me about this smiling scenario is that I have to work very hard to get a smile out of Anthony whereas Ming just has to walk into his room and shake his hand and – BINGO – Anthony smiles – grr!
I’m so grateful for the decades of smiling we did before smiling became an effort for Anthony – not because of sadness but because of how PD affects the muscles of the face. So nowadays I come into his room with a huge smile every single day.
A new phase
I think Anthony has entered a new phase of Parkinson’s Disease just in the last week or so. Taking him for drives, or home for the morning or afternoon, or out to lunch, or to visit friends/family has all-of-a-sudden, it seems, become something we don’t do any more.
This new phase is partly due to a deterioration in Anthony’s physical mobility, and his current sleepiness. The transition from Anthony and Julie gallivanting off for the day to Anthony and Julie sitting in his room at the nursing home, watching re-runs of Master Chef, has been strangely enjoyable for me.
Today I had to take Ming to town to get the bus to Perth at 8.45am so I thought I may as well go straight to the nursing home and spend the day there. After seeing Ming off, I found myself in an I-can’t-wait-to-see-Anthony-mood (a mood that is capturing me more and more).
So, for the first time ever, I spent the entire day at the nursing home (from 9am – 4pm). Partly, I did this as an experiment to see if I could cope. But my other reason was to see if Anthony would like me being with him in the nursing home rather than going out; he did! I will now plan all of my writing etc. to be done in the nursing home.
I’m not blogging as consistently as before – hope to catch up soon with blog friends.
Monday 9th June 2014
Today I went into town just after lunch to spend the afternoon with Anthony at the nursing home. This has become the ‘norm’ now because a few weeks ago it just became too difficult to take him out and about or to the farm on a regular basis because of mobility problems. Over the last several days Ants has been quite content to just have me in a chair next to him with my arm around him, watching Judge Judy, Dr Phil and, if we are lucky, a good afternoon movie.
I usually stay from around 1.30 – 4.30pm (my new routine) and it beats the hell out of my old routine of taking Anthony on outings, or home, then being unable to manage. Even at the nursing home, I have been told not to lift, move, or even shift him in his chair, because he is now strictly classified as a 2-person lift.
This afternoon I entered Anthony’s room with wine and olives and my usual ‘goodies’ and he was asleep in his armchair. Usually I wake him up, but he looked too peaceful so I just sat next to him and quietly ate all of the olives. Suddenly a nurse entered the room to take his blood pressure because he had been asleep all day. He woke up but only slightly and the nurse and I struggled to get one of his arms free from his jumper because he was so limp and ‘out-of-it’. Well his BP was 190/110 – very high. This, and the fact that I couldn’t really wake him up enough to say goodbye when I left to go home, alarmed me a bit.
On the way back home to the farm, I allowed myself to think that Anthony might be dying. But my thinking of this possibility could not translate into a coherent thought because I cannot imagine him not being here. Despite the difficulties of home nursing, the transition to a nursing home, and all of the mini-traumas in between, I have not yet been able to imagine life without Anthony in it.
My father, Brin, died of a heart attack on this day, 36 years ago. He was only in his 50s.
Resting
I’ve had a wonderful rest from blogging (as in NOT reading, writing, commenting, replying) and, despite the inevitable guilt, it has been great to concentrate on other things.
Like my navel!
That’s Gutsy9 by the way.
Life here has become too busy to sustain blogging every day so I’ve decided to post once a week instead of once a day. Again, I really appreciate the support and friendships formed with other bloggers but I simply can’t keep up.
I think, too, I have oversubscribed to blogs in general and, especially to those that deal with grief. The kinship and support exchanged with those bloggers continues to sustain me but also makes me sad. I can hardly cope with my own sorrow about Anthony, so reading about the grief of others is very hard – too hard for me at the moment. For those of you who I have become close to, we have each others’ emails so we can still keep in touch. Please feel free to email me on juligoyder@gmail.com
Years ago, when Anthony was younger and still milking his cows, he would have a mini-rest after lunch and that would sustain him for the afternoon ‘shift’. He would have a solid sleep for around ten minutes then get up again, full of energy!
The memories, all mish-mashed now into the present, are sometimes heartbreaking for me, but not for him, thank God. He is okay; my husband is okay; he is being well looked after in the nursing home; he is warm; when he is confused, the nurses reassure him. And tomorrow, I will go in and stay with him for the afternoon and ask him if it is okay if I lie on his bed while we watch TV ….
Resting.
Meg and Ming
Ming (my son) and Meg (my mother) are very good at charades, or whatever they were playing when this photo was taken. I have no recollection of this occasion, but my mother just sent me the photo which I have never seen before! In the good old days, when Anthony still lived here at home, my ma would often come to visit on Sundays. She and Ming would play games nonstop while Anthony and I watched, bemused, amused and sometimes hysterical with laughter. Meg and Ming + Ming and Meg = Inviolable.
Meg is Ming’s only grandparent so they have a special relationship, as well as very bad taste in eye-glasses. Thanks for the guffaw, Ma!
Not a one-way road
25 years ago, before Anthony and I were married, I would often travel the two hours from Perth to the farm to spend the weekend with him (he rarely took a day off). I would turn into Paradise Road – the short, narrow road leading to the farm – stop my car and quickly refresh my lipstick, powder my nose, spray the perfume he gave me onto my neck, fluff up my hair, then zoom the remaining half mile with my heart beating madly in anticipation.
I would arrive to a shout of “JULES!” the scent of a chicken roasting in the Aga, and a hug that would nearly crush me. There would be beer, maybe a visitor or two, willy wagtails flitting here and there, and the beautiful, comforting smell of cow dung in the outside air. There would be Anthony’s bellowing laughter, my latest anecdotes about university and the nursing home where I worked, a lesson in gravy making, a beautiful meal, a favourite comedy on television and lots more hugs.
We were in love.
Now, I head in the other direction up Paradise Road to go into town to pick Anthony up from the nursing home and bring him to the farm for the afternoon. Even though I retain a tiny shred of that anticipation of 25 years ago, it is tainted with a kind of exhausted dread because I know the afternoon will be difficult. There will be no bellowing laughter, very little conversation and there will be a lot of dangerous occurrences when Anthony tries to do things he can’t do anymore – like chopping wood, washing the car, mowing the lawns, fixing the gate. I will secretly (through the kitchen window) watch him try and give up, then I will watch him stand outside, swaying slightly whilst leaning on his walker, then I will ask him to come back inside. If I hover over him it makes him feel inadequate, so I don’t but as he has had so many falls, I get anxious. I watch him struggle for half an hour with things I could do in minutes (like opening a gate, washing the dishes), and I try to breathe slowly and patiently. If he begins to do something ludicrous (like wind a clock with a knife, drink from the sugar bowl, talk to people who aren’t there) I sometimes intervene and not always gently! And he has no idea how absolutely exhausting these days at home are, no idea of the guilty relief I feel when I can take him back to the nursing home, no idea of how much my heart breaks when he says, “But why can’t I just stay here with you?”
During the drive back it will be the same halting conversation:
Me: I can’t manage you at night now – you know that, Ants – you’re too heavy.
Anthony: But I’ve lost so much weight.
Me: I know but you are still too heavy and Ming isn’t supposed to lift either.
Anthony: I’m better than I was Jules.
Me: Yes, but you still have Parkinson’s disease.
Anthony: I miss you so much – please never leave me.
Me: Idiot! Of course I won’t leave you! Ever!
Anthony: That’s good then.
We are in love.
When every day becomes yesterday
When Anthony was home yesterday he kept talking to the television. I would come in and out of the kitchen where he was sitting (his favourite spot) and enter an already-there conversation. I was busy with washing and other chores (something I continue to do even if Ants is home, just to keep things normal-ish), but every time I came back into the kitchen he would be talking to one of his deceased brothers, or to the now-dead stove, or to the dogs on the table (hallucinations).
Ming cannot stand it – he just can’t. He says, “Mum, I love Dad but I just can’t tolerate him!” I understand his point of view; after all, he is only 19 and his dad is nearly 78. On the shy side of 50, I am in the middle of this all the time so, when Ants comes home – and I do this as much as possible – I leave Ming with him while I go to the toilet to cry. No, not self-pity – just so hard to remember how good it once was and how bad it is now.
I miss all of our wonderful yesterdays just as much as Anthony does. But Ming doesn’t remember and he has no recollection of Anthony ever being well. Every day, lately, he has asked me for a hug and every day I have given him a hug, even after our ferocious arguments, about the car accident, about many things….
Sometimes it is hard to be positive but I have enormous faith in both Ants and Ming and I think that is reciprocated to me. I hope so.
jmgoyder 