Yesterday Don and I had a half hour 'conversation' about something he really wanted to tell me but the only words he could get out during the entire time were: feet, baker, dad, and gone. And, of course, 'yes' or 'no' as answers to my questions. When my questions got too far off track to what he wanted to tell me, he'd repeat those four words as if saying them over and over again, with increasing the volume, would bring me perfect clarity.
Those of us who routinely deal with someone with severe language disorders know that we start our guessing games with generalities, trying to pull out more details in hopes they will lead us where we need to go to understand what our care recipients are so intent on telling us.
"Is this about something you just read or saw on TV?" ---- No.
"Is this about your dad?" ---- No.
"Is it about someone you know personally?" ---- Yes
"Relative?" ---- No
"Friend?" ---- No
"X-coworker?" ---- No
"Neighbor?" ---- Yes
Thank God, we had a meaningful clue! Then I listed all the places Don had ever lived and found out that the neighbor was from his childhood. I did a mental groan because the stories from before I knew my husband are harder for me to pull out of him than the stories from time frames when we have some shared memories. But he is stubborn and so am I and I've learned since his stroke that there is no way we're going to avoid this aphasia/apraxia driven dialogue. So I sat down for the siege, knowing nothing in the world is more important to Don at that moment that getting me to understand the connection between those four, tiny words: feet, baker, dad and gone. It was at that point that Don did a gesture with his hand, like drawing a knife across his feet and he repeated the word: gone.
Over the half hour I was able to figure out that a neighbor kid of his from when they were both approaching their teen years was held down by one guy while another axed off his feet. Don somehow knew the people who did this to the kid and he told his dad which resulted in the bad guys getting hung. Why this story was on Don's mind is still a mystery. I asked him if he saw something on TV that reminded him of the event and he said, "No." I was afraid to dig too deep into whys and wherefores for fear it would take another half hour to figure it out. But I was curious. I still am and if his brother was in town I'd probably call and see what he knows about the story.
It occurred to me afterwards that if Don had told this same story in his pre-stroke days he would have drawn it out with rich details and made the story last the same half hour that it took to tell it now in his post-stroke language disorders way. He was a gifted storyteller with a million stories like this one and he hasn't lost the desire to share them. The difference, though, is that now the 'listener' does so much work to draw the bare bones of the story out that it's mentally exhausting. All of us who have been there, done that know exactly what I mean. ©
P.S. Some of you might remember that I entered a writing contest a while ago that had a $5,000 prize. I didn't win---didn't really think I would---but here's a link to the article I wrote for the contest. I'm proud of the way it turned out. Disaboom: a Web Company Making a Real Difference to People Touched by Disabilities.
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June 27, 2008
June 12, 2008
Summer In Caregiverville
The days of June have blended one into another. Finally some warm days to alternate with the rain we've been getting have come to our corner of the world. The beginning of summer, for us, is marked by the first of the Blues in the Park series and by the start-up date for the Farmer's Market both of which happened this week. Summer is here and we don't even have plans beyond attending these two weekly events, raising a good puppy and contracting to have a couple of rooms painted. I should plan something beyond the normal rhythms of summer but between the cost of gas and the cost of getting older I don't seem to have the desire to seek out any more fun under the summer sun. We'll probably throw in a couple of art shows, a small town fair or two and call it good enough.
The new puppy, Levi, sounds like a herd of buffalo thundering across the carpeting as I write this morning. He litters our house with a dozen stuffed toys plus chew sticks and three balls. Several times a day I pick them all up and put them in his toy box in the kitchen and after nap times he gets them all back out again. Even Don is getting more puppy related exercise. As he makes his way across the floor in his wheelchair he's learned how to kick and pick the toys out of his path. Annoying as that must be for someone in a wheelchair, the puppy has been worth the effort. Don and Levi have already become barking buddies, much to my displeasure. The puppy is a schnauzer, a breed given to barking too much if you don't nip it in the bud. But what are you going to do with a guy with very little language at his disposal who enjoys interacting with the dog in their little joyful bark-offs? You make a half-hearted attempt to discourage the barking but you know that neither dog nor man will listen. I bond with Levi through training, exercise and feeding. Barking like two wolves in the wild is their bonding thing.
So I work at training Don not to bark at Levi when he's in the middle of transferring in or out of his wheelchair for fear the dog will bounce on him and push him over. It seemed to be Levi's favorite time to start their barking ritual. It's likes he's saying, "Hey, you're on your feet anyway. Come play with me." We've worked so hard at getting Don's transfers strong, dependable and independent again. Since last fall, really, and now that we've been going to the YMCA and working out, his transfers have finally become all three of those things and if not for the puppy I wouldn't STILL be on stand-by duty during transfer times. Life is full of ironies, isn't it? ©
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The new puppy, Levi, sounds like a herd of buffalo thundering across the carpeting as I write this morning. He litters our house with a dozen stuffed toys plus chew sticks and three balls. Several times a day I pick them all up and put them in his toy box in the kitchen and after nap times he gets them all back out again. Even Don is getting more puppy related exercise. As he makes his way across the floor in his wheelchair he's learned how to kick and pick the toys out of his path. Annoying as that must be for someone in a wheelchair, the puppy has been worth the effort. Don and Levi have already become barking buddies, much to my displeasure. The puppy is a schnauzer, a breed given to barking too much if you don't nip it in the bud. But what are you going to do with a guy with very little language at his disposal who enjoys interacting with the dog in their little joyful bark-offs? You make a half-hearted attempt to discourage the barking but you know that neither dog nor man will listen. I bond with Levi through training, exercise and feeding. Barking like two wolves in the wild is their bonding thing.
So I work at training Don not to bark at Levi when he's in the middle of transferring in or out of his wheelchair for fear the dog will bounce on him and push him over. It seemed to be Levi's favorite time to start their barking ritual. It's likes he's saying, "Hey, you're on your feet anyway. Come play with me." We've worked so hard at getting Don's transfers strong, dependable and independent again. Since last fall, really, and now that we've been going to the YMCA and working out, his transfers have finally become all three of those things and if not for the puppy I wouldn't STILL be on stand-by duty during transfer times. Life is full of ironies, isn't it? ©
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June 5, 2008
Disabled Heart
It's easy for me to forget that my husband is disabled. Despite the wheelchair and his language disorders, in many ways Don is the same man I've known since 1970----good-natured, compassionate, kind, smart, and out-going. It's the out-going part that gets him in trouble once in a great while, now that he appears severely disabled to strangers. Okay, I admit it. He IS physically disabled but not mentally impaired. Why do some people assume if you're in a wheelchair you lack a few too many IQ points?
Sometime happened tonight at puppy socialization class. As we were getting ready to leave, Don wanted to roll towards to a woman in her mid-thirties. He's never met a stranger he didn't like or want to talk with. It's how he was pre-stroke and still is post-stroke. He got within eight feet of the woman as she was walking towards the door. He tried to get her attention with his voice. I don't remember what he said but it was something like, "Ah…" and he raised his hand. Mind you they were still a good eight feet apart. In a loud voice she sternly said, "You will NOT grab me!" and she walked off leaving me stunned and Don wondering what happened. His hearing is not good but he saw the hostile look on her face and the startled looks of a few others who overheard her harsh words. I've been with Don every single second of every single one of these classes. I know she wasn't reacting to anything he had done tonight or in the previous classes. That was the closest in proximity they'd ever gotten to each other. In fact, it was the closest in proximity he's gotten to anyone in the class. We all sort of spread out to keep our dogs apart while they are on their leashes.
We talked about what happened on the way home or I should say I talked and Don listened. The best I could come up with is that she had had a bad experience with an old person in a wheelchair in her past and she felt sufficiently fearful of all old men in wheelchairs that she over reacted to a perceived advance on her personal space---despite being in a room full of people. Whatever the case, I'm glad that 99 people out of 100 react differently to Don than this woman did. Most people are kind and accepting but, of course, it's the ones who aren't that can bring you down. They take up entirely too much time in your thoughts. Look at me; I'm blogging about the split second it took for a woman to say five words!
I was telling a stroke survivor friend of mind about this incident. She doesn't use a wheelchair but has the 'stroke gait' of someone who's recovered from one-sided paralysis plus she has no use of one arm. She says she occasionally gets the treatment that says you're-physically-disabled-so-you-must-be-mentally-impaired-too. If you knew my friend, you'd know she's anything but. As a spouse and a friend to people who are hurt by that kind of unfair judgment it makes me sad. It makes me mad. It makes me reaffirm my belief that it really IS important to keep taking my Ambassador from the Planet Aphasia out in the community. When people take the time to get to know post-stroke Don he leaves a wake of friendly acquaintances behind. Just yesterday a waitress where we go often told him he's her sweetest customer. Another waitress where we go for pizza once a month never fails to give Don a couple of hugs before we leave. Most people like him or, at least, are compassionate in their dealing with him. He may not be able to help educate everyone about stroke survivors with language disorders---like the woman from the class tonight---but on the chalk board of life Don's got more marks in the 'win' column than in 'lost causes' column. ©
P.S. A friend of my wrote a review/article about a newly released computer game, AudiOdyssey, that is accessible to visually impaired, blind and mainstream gamers. I thought I'd share a link to the article here since so many stroke survivors have visual problems. I've read posts from a few survivors on support sites saying that an old Wii game (which is similar) has helped them with cognitive issues and motor skills. Click here to read the review.
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Sometime happened tonight at puppy socialization class. As we were getting ready to leave, Don wanted to roll towards to a woman in her mid-thirties. He's never met a stranger he didn't like or want to talk with. It's how he was pre-stroke and still is post-stroke. He got within eight feet of the woman as she was walking towards the door. He tried to get her attention with his voice. I don't remember what he said but it was something like, "Ah…" and he raised his hand. Mind you they were still a good eight feet apart. In a loud voice she sternly said, "You will NOT grab me!" and she walked off leaving me stunned and Don wondering what happened. His hearing is not good but he saw the hostile look on her face and the startled looks of a few others who overheard her harsh words. I've been with Don every single second of every single one of these classes. I know she wasn't reacting to anything he had done tonight or in the previous classes. That was the closest in proximity they'd ever gotten to each other. In fact, it was the closest in proximity he's gotten to anyone in the class. We all sort of spread out to keep our dogs apart while they are on their leashes.
We talked about what happened on the way home or I should say I talked and Don listened. The best I could come up with is that she had had a bad experience with an old person in a wheelchair in her past and she felt sufficiently fearful of all old men in wheelchairs that she over reacted to a perceived advance on her personal space---despite being in a room full of people. Whatever the case, I'm glad that 99 people out of 100 react differently to Don than this woman did. Most people are kind and accepting but, of course, it's the ones who aren't that can bring you down. They take up entirely too much time in your thoughts. Look at me; I'm blogging about the split second it took for a woman to say five words!
I was telling a stroke survivor friend of mind about this incident. She doesn't use a wheelchair but has the 'stroke gait' of someone who's recovered from one-sided paralysis plus she has no use of one arm. She says she occasionally gets the treatment that says you're-physically-disabled-so-you-must-be-mentally-impaired-too. If you knew my friend, you'd know she's anything but. As a spouse and a friend to people who are hurt by that kind of unfair judgment it makes me sad. It makes me mad. It makes me reaffirm my belief that it really IS important to keep taking my Ambassador from the Planet Aphasia out in the community. When people take the time to get to know post-stroke Don he leaves a wake of friendly acquaintances behind. Just yesterday a waitress where we go often told him he's her sweetest customer. Another waitress where we go for pizza once a month never fails to give Don a couple of hugs before we leave. Most people like him or, at least, are compassionate in their dealing with him. He may not be able to help educate everyone about stroke survivors with language disorders---like the woman from the class tonight---but on the chalk board of life Don's got more marks in the 'win' column than in 'lost causes' column. ©
P.S. A friend of my wrote a review/article about a newly released computer game, AudiOdyssey, that is accessible to visually impaired, blind and mainstream gamers. I thought I'd share a link to the article here since so many stroke survivors have visual problems. I've read posts from a few survivors on support sites saying that an old Wii game (which is similar) has helped them with cognitive issues and motor skills. Click here to read the review.
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June 4, 2008
Routines in Caregiverville
No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Don, me and the new puppy are poking along as usual, trying to establish and keep to a schedule for summer.
We've never been good with keeping old people hours---you know those people who are up with the pre-dawn glow and go to bed soon after the mauves, purples and butter creams of the setting sun give way to night. I both admire and hate the early risers. I could never willingly do that. Even so, since Levi came into our lives I've been getting up each morning at 8:00 sharp without using of an alarm clock. And after he gets his duty done outside, I write or cruise around the Internet until 9:30 when Don rolls out of the bedroom, fully dressed except for one sock and singing his happy aphasic greeting to the world. We then have breakfast together and get our showers in before noon. This is our post-puppy morning routine.
I love my first hour of the day for its whisper quietness. There's no TV screaming out at top volume to compensate for Don's hearing loss, drowning out the sound of the birds drift in the window. There's no singing of random or made-up words coming out of Don. That first hour of the morning I am all alone with my thoughts, my keyboard and sometimes when I feel like making it, a good cup of coffee. Quiet is a rare commodity in my life, especially now that we've added puppy barking to the mix. We know now what they mean when they say schnauzers 'talk' to you. Levi's got the play-with-me bark. The look-at-me-I just-learned-something-new bark and the bark that
says, "I think I'm supposed to do this when I want to pee." He also aspires to herd birds so he's constantly barking at them. The trouble is I still can't tell his barks apart but I'm learning. Cooper barked once in his last year of life and it literally shocked me because it was such a rare occurrence for him to do that.
Routine. We are falling into a summer routine that gets us out every afternoon for lunch, errands or appointments and back home again an hour before the nightly news. Then Don takes a nap, Levi plays and I do a few household chores and by dark I'm ready to settle down in front of the computer. Egads, I've turned into one of those predictable persons! If it's Tuesday this must be swimming class. If it's Friday it must be time to recycle and eat hot dogs by the dam. Routine is good, though. At our ages, being without a routine means either we're in crisis mode or we've stacked our schedule so full it's humanly impossible for a woman with a bad knee and a man in a wheelchair to accomplish. A too full schedule risks us driving to Crazyville and crashing there so we can't finding our way back out. Yes, routine---boring as it might seem to others---is a good thing.
I've been writing a lot lately, working on my book about aphasia and apraxia and the 'joys' of caregiving. And I've been blogging for the dog quite often, plus yesterday I entered a contest with a $5,000 prize. That was an exciting day, being on the writers' forums as we all worked our way through the one-day-only submission process and the glitches that happen when a mass of people flood a website. Not much chance of me winning but it was fun to dream about it for a while, like buying a lotto ticket and dreaming big for a few hours. If it gets published, I'll post a link to the article. I'm quite excited about the discovery I made and wrote about and I want to share it with the stroke and caregiver community.
Speaking of sharing, if you or someone you know cares for a parent with any sort of disability check out Caring.com. It's a great site with lots of caregiver resources. I no longer care for a parent but a lot of their resources works for the spouse-caregivers as well. ©
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We've never been good with keeping old people hours---you know those people who are up with the pre-dawn glow and go to bed soon after the mauves, purples and butter creams of the setting sun give way to night. I both admire and hate the early risers. I could never willingly do that. Even so, since Levi came into our lives I've been getting up each morning at 8:00 sharp without using of an alarm clock. And after he gets his duty done outside, I write or cruise around the Internet until 9:30 when Don rolls out of the bedroom, fully dressed except for one sock and singing his happy aphasic greeting to the world. We then have breakfast together and get our showers in before noon. This is our post-puppy morning routine.
I love my first hour of the day for its whisper quietness. There's no TV screaming out at top volume to compensate for Don's hearing loss, drowning out the sound of the birds drift in the window. There's no singing of random or made-up words coming out of Don. That first hour of the morning I am all alone with my thoughts, my keyboard and sometimes when I feel like making it, a good cup of coffee. Quiet is a rare commodity in my life, especially now that we've added puppy barking to the mix. We know now what they mean when they say schnauzers 'talk' to you. Levi's got the play-with-me bark. The look-at-me-I just-learned-something-new bark and the bark that
says, "I think I'm supposed to do this when I want to pee." He also aspires to herd birds so he's constantly barking at them. The trouble is I still can't tell his barks apart but I'm learning. Cooper barked once in his last year of life and it literally shocked me because it was such a rare occurrence for him to do that.Routine. We are falling into a summer routine that gets us out every afternoon for lunch, errands or appointments and back home again an hour before the nightly news. Then Don takes a nap, Levi plays and I do a few household chores and by dark I'm ready to settle down in front of the computer. Egads, I've turned into one of those predictable persons! If it's Tuesday this must be swimming class. If it's Friday it must be time to recycle and eat hot dogs by the dam. Routine is good, though. At our ages, being without a routine means either we're in crisis mode or we've stacked our schedule so full it's humanly impossible for a woman with a bad knee and a man in a wheelchair to accomplish. A too full schedule risks us driving to Crazyville and crashing there so we can't finding our way back out. Yes, routine---boring as it might seem to others---is a good thing.
I've been writing a lot lately, working on my book about aphasia and apraxia and the 'joys' of caregiving. And I've been blogging for the dog quite often, plus yesterday I entered a contest with a $5,000 prize. That was an exciting day, being on the writers' forums as we all worked our way through the one-day-only submission process and the glitches that happen when a mass of people flood a website. Not much chance of me winning but it was fun to dream about it for a while, like buying a lotto ticket and dreaming big for a few hours. If it gets published, I'll post a link to the article. I'm quite excited about the discovery I made and wrote about and I want to share it with the stroke and caregiver community.
Speaking of sharing, if you or someone you know cares for a parent with any sort of disability check out Caring.com. It's a great site with lots of caregiver resources. I no longer care for a parent but a lot of their resources works for the spouse-caregivers as well. ©
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