Connie’s sister and our niece came to visit and for a few minutes, at least, dementia let Connie out and it was nice
CONNIE’S SISTER JANET and our niece Sarah dropped into town this past week from Jackson, Mississippi. They wanted a mother-daughter getaway and some family time, particularly since they had not seen Connie since we left Texas in 2021.
I wasn’t sure how things would go. It’s one thing to be with a dementia patient every day, day after day, from the beginning and to just drop in from the sky. I wasn’t sure how they would react to her condition, which most days was just sitting in a wheelchair, chin on her chest, off in some private world dementia has made for her.
I wasn’t worried about Sarah, who is a transplant care nurse, has been an intensive care and COVID nurse but I wasn’t so sure about Janet. I needn’t have worried. They were both troupers.
It was a good visit. Our daughter Andi and her husband Bill came up from the DC area, so it was a good gathering of family. Thanks to dementia granting one of those moments of clarity it occasionally grants its victims it ended up on a high note.
Each visit over the four days Connie was aware of their presence but for the most part we all talked, she listened, most often from behind closed eyes.
We thought Tuesday night would be their last visit and it was a quiet one. But I got a text Wednesday morning they would be staying another day. The combination of weather and the TSA shutdown had cancelled their flight from Atlanta to Jackson so they never left West Chester.
They had a nice day of sightseeing in Independence Square in Philly. In the evening we met up at the care facility and our son Seth and his wife Diane joined us and then, for just a bit, dementia let Connie out of its world and into ours.
She sat up her in her wheelchair. Her eyes were open. She seemed to be following our conversation. She smiled, she tried to talk. Alas, the speech aphasia kept her from making a lot of sense, but we could tell from what words came out that she was trying to participate.
Then, dementia pulled the door shut and her head slumped and we took her back to her room. We all gathered at the Social in West Chester for a late supper. It was a good evening. I think it was a good trip for Janet and Sarah.
They won’t see Connie again. Of that I am pretty certain, and maybe Connie sensed that and so came out of the darkness for a few minutes and we were family, talking and laughing and loving.
Rich Heiland, has been a reporter, editor, publisher/general manager at daily papers in Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio and New Hampshire. He was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team at the Xenia Daily (OH) Daily Gazette, a National Newspaper Association Columnist of the Year. Since 1995 he has operated an international consulting, public speaking and training business specializing in customer service, general management, leadership and staff development with major corporations, organizations, and government. He also writes the blog stuffonmymind.blog. Semi-retired, he and his wife live in West Chester, PA. He can be reached at [email protected].
Victor has FTD with “primary progressive aphasia of the logopenic variety” (a subtype of FTD). Exact diagnosis as Bruce Willis. I cannot get a timeline, what to expect and when. I am 65 and want to make plans — sell the house, move, move where, invest, all kinds of issues. But I can’t. I want to do things with and for him, at the right times. Cannot plan. I watched my mon experience “the rally” — could this have been your wife’s rally? Mom’s came at a family visit.
Love this. Thinking bout fun times and how she gathered me up to help when Rowe died. The wine we shared, the laughs. Love cannot be measured with the best of friends..