After lunch, we drove to the other side of Nashville to visit Ellen. Three years ago in August, she had a stroke while visiting her daughter who lives in Nashville. We had been with her the night before when she told us that she had finally decided to stay in her home in Knoxville rather than move elsewhere. She had been considering a move for several months. She was in the hospital a while and then in rehab. As soon as her daughter said, we could visit, we went to see her. Since then, we have tried to visit about once a month. Two times she has had other issues to deal with. Those kept us away as long as a couple of months, but we are back on schedule now.
As usual, we had a good visit despite the fact that Ellen has never fully recovered her speech after the stroke. She made progress for a while. Since the first six months to a year, there has been no change. We can only understand 30-40% of what she says. She understands us perfectly which helps. We can ask yes no questions. Then she can nod to indicate if our guesses are on target. That’s a slow process.
This is the second memory care unit she has been in. The first was a unit of her assisted living facility. This facility is totally dedicated to memory care.
For the past few years, I have been sensitive about taking Kate to anyplace that offers memory care. My concern was that she might find this depressing knowing that one day she will be in the same condition as the current residents. There are at least 3 people I have known in memory care that I haven’t visited just for this reason. I have made the visits to Ellen with some reservation but decided to go anyway. I see absolutely no sign that Kate is bothered. As with everything else directly related to Alzheimer’s, I have not discussed this with her.
We were there almost two hours. The first hour we sat with Ellen at the table where she was to have dinner. When they set up for dinner, we decided to stay so that we could spend more time with Ellen. As it turned out, this didn’t work very well. There were three other residents at Ellen’s table. Only one of them, Wally, was verbal, and she was quite a talker. She is 90 and showed signs of dementia but was very communicative. At one point when Ellen picked up her chicken cordon bleu with her hand, Wally told her to put the chicken down and pick it up with a fork. Ellen gave her a dirty look and said something that led me to believe this is not the first time she has said something like this. For the balance of the meal, Wally dominated the conversation. It completely shifted the focus away from Ellen.
While this was going on, Kate tried to engage the other two residents in conversation without any success. One of them does not speak at all. The other has limited speech. Although Kate was actively trying to interact with them, she did not appear to be bothered. If it did, I am sure that she forgot it almost immediately.
I will continue going back on our once a month schedule. The next time I will make sure that we arrive earlier so that we leave before they eat dinner at 4:30. That’s what we have done on previous occasions. That has worked out.
I want to add that Kate still remembers Ellen although she often doesn’t recognize the name when I mention it. One thing she remembers is that the two of them used to go out for lunch every Monday when I was at Rotary. Kate brought that up several times over the course of yesterday’s visit. I’m not sure what else she remembers. I know she doesn’t remember the names of Ellen’s husband or her children. I believe the regular visits we have made help maintain some of her memory for Ellen. It will be interesting to see how well the visits go as her condition and Ellen’s progress.
