The Role of a Watcher

I posted this blog on Feb. 28/20 and today Feb 29/20 I feel so very compelled to make a statement of increased awareness. Many people are WATCHERS and RESCUERS. The first person "I" used throughout is not just myself. These events cited are mine, yes, but without the intervention of a spirit of love and concern (which I cannot take credit for entirely), none of the events posted here, would ever have taken place. 

An Unexpected Subject

It has taken me a few days to decide what I should share in this posting. Then I came to realize that not only is my Lewy Body Dementia changing my health, my capacities and my lifestyle, IT is changing some aspects of who I am!  It has changed the roles I play in my daily life both here in the Lodge and in my Family...

Watcher

I`ve always been a people watcher. Shopping malls, doctor`s offices, public meetings (as a journalist, as a nonprofit executive, at church, Hawaiian beaches, airports, ferries, etc.), I`ve have kept my Watcher thinking going for as long as I can recall. I enjoy people`s interactions with one another, their reactions to surprises, their meditating moments, their happy tears, their touching the people they are with... all such moments have given me awareness, learning moments and life lessons.

That watching habit in my life has been a component here in the Lodge in the hallways and at meal times when we are all congregated. Who might need a hug, or might like to talk or should be complemented. Staff always deserve appreciation, a bit of joking. I even joke about myself as I become aware of my own capacities fluctuating from one day to the next or even from one hour to the next on a given day.

But, of late my watching has taken on a new role that literally has been resurrected from my days of caring for my own children and the 26 special needs foster children I cared for. ``Firsts`` (walking, bike riding, playground equipment, crossing streets unaided, etc) are examples that come to mind first, others are even more dramatic (first day of school, first blood work, first going to a friend`s house, etc) if they aren`t done with lots of love, reassurance, watching...

Watcher Becomes Rescuer

As I experience more limited abilities intermittently, I can more readily see the same challenges in others.

I`m only one of 3 residents in the Lodge that doesn`t use a walker for getting around safely. But, I need to hang on to the handrails along the walls, many days. I have tried to be careful. I`ve had a few falls, unnerving to witnesses, painful on my body and my pride.

Fellow residents could not understand and repeatedly asked, "Why don't you use a walker? You look unsteady on your feet!"

I tried to explain, that may hands were functioning so poorly, that I couldn't use the brakes on a walker. Without the brakes to break a fall, I'd be in worse shape than falling without the walker. It would bring greater speed and force to a fall. Responses include head tilts and 90 year old comments about my eventually getting used to a walker, but I've stuck to my guns at this point.

Sometimes, I know I must look like I'm trying to walk a tight rope, often with arms extended somewhat, as I cross an open space. But I try to look capable by touching furniture or stopping and holding onto a counter, a table, a chair back, or room posts. Remember, I'm a camouflage artist!!!

Now... to the point!

1. I'm friends with one lovely lady, who uses a walker, has an ankle brace NOW, after I asked her if she needed one. I stated kindly that watching her walk on her bad ankle (broken twice) made me worried for her steadiness and safety.

She admitted she had a prescription for a special (feminine style) ankle brace but that she and her husband kept forgetting to pick it up. I laughed and said I'd remind her until they did pick it up and about 2 weeks later the brace was part of her new walking style.

2. Same friend, a month or so later seemed to be showing more neurological indicators (part of her disease process).  She had warned me about probable increasing symptoms in one of our conversations.  The first time the problem became obvious, we were involved in story telling about our lives, and her eyelids kept falling and falling until they were closed...

"Are you okay?" I asked.
" Yes, keep talking, I hear you," she said.
"But your eyes are closed. Are you alright?"

"It's just another one of my crazy symptoms," she responded uneasily.
I say that because I'm having problems with the same symptom once in a while. It happens at the lunch table, or while I'm reading, while I watch YouTube, and during one of last driving days. On a near final driving occasion, (although I must admit it was not the first time) a voice speaking in my head to me said, "I have to sleep". At that moment I was going down the highway at 100 kms per hour. I opened my window, I shook my head and I fought it off for a couple of kilometers. Finally I found a campsite, pulled the car over and slept for about an hour. 

BACK TO MY STORY

"We need to get you back to your room," I asserted.
"Yes, yes, you are probably right."
I assisted her to lower her legs from a footstool position on her walker, got her standing, eyes still closed, "now you have to open your eyes! Can you open your eyes?"
"Yes, I'll open my eyes," she sleepily mumbled.
Every couple of feet, I'd remind her to open her eyes. We arrived to her room, I  helped her to bed, she apologized for cutting off our talking. Her eyes still shut, I told her not to worry and to lay and rest. I left.

On one of her better days she explained she could even fall asleep standing and crumple to the floor causing injury.

Now she can be in a sleep-like mode (trance) with her food a mealtime. WATCHING her has revealed she functions as in a hypnotic trance. While buttering her broccoli, she has the knife in the air about 3 inches above her vegetable portion and keeps repeating a motion with her knife in the air.

I was finishing my lunch. She arrived late for the meal and she fell asleep while approaching the self-feeding activity. It became quickly apparent that she was again in a trance and it wasn't ending, no matter how hard she tried. I moved from my seat, across the room and into the chair beside her at her table. I spoke softly to her, and lightly touched the wrist with same hand as held the eating utensil and her eyelids opened sufficiently to finish the act as we jointly worked for each mouthful.

She said, "Oh Geri, you are such an angel."
"No, I love you and I see how hard you are trying. We know this will eventually be me, and I'm doing for you what I hope someone will do for me when that time comes."
We continued the same process until she agreed trying to use the same efforts for eating her rice was not worth the stress.

We carefully headed back to her room. Each couple of steps, I reminded her to try and open her eyes and to try and stay with me until we again reached her room and we put her in bed... I left.

More WATCHING IN MY NEXT POSTING