Tag Archives: Companion Care

The Dementia Dossier: Companion Care

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The day after my hospital homecoming, the companion I hired came to the house for her first visit with Mom. They played Go Fish and looked at photo albums. They went for a drive. Three times a week Rochele has come. For two hours each visit. For all her resistance to the idea, Mom is thrilled with Rochele and her visits. “Help me fold my laundry,” she said one day. “Take me for a drive to my childhood neighborhood,” on another. I’ve added gas money to the budget. But I don’t care. Rochele is pleasant and patient. And Mom is delighted. She gets to see a friendly face three times a week, a face who wants only to please Mom in her whims. Rochele being Brazilian and speaking Portuguese is a bonus. Not that Mom remembers much Portuguese, from her (our) four years there. But the romantic connection to Brazil, for Mom, makes the companion connection perfect. I tremble at the Rochele-less days, when Mom becomes very lonely and pines for company. But Mom’s sister Karen came one day to visit, and they played old-time piano duets for an hour. And Megan comes, and holds Mom’s hand. And Carolyn comes, and does her cross-stitch. And Steven texted about the North Carolina snows. And Jen hairdresser came. And Madison delivers the mail every day with a cheery teenage hello and hug. And Brad leans the New York Times against the front door every morning. And Jeanette calls on the phone—every blessed day. God bless her.

(Pictured: homemade flowers made by Henry and Adelaide for their grandpa during his convalescence.)

The Dementia Dossier: Post-op 1 (Massage)

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It’s just genes, two different specialists explained. Genes that pulled at my heel and twisted my foot and flattened my arch over six decades. “Your calves are a beast,” the surgeon said, not referring to size or strength (sadly), but to pulling power. Fixing the foot, they promised, would allow me to walk and hike and travel for the rest of my life, whereas I had arrived at the point of no longer being able to walk for exercise. Sitting in the consult chair, I remembered Dad grimacing and clinging to his walker handles, sliding his deformed feet along, his ankle bones on the floor. “Let’s do it,” I said, and scheduled the surgery. Jeanette flew up for five days to take care of me, and, especially important, to take care of Mom. I would be either in my bed or in my office recliner, my foot above my heart, for a month, and no weight-bearing for two. “I want to see Roger,” clamored Mom the day I came home from the hospital. “I want to give him a massage.” Jeanette had gently suggested to Mom that “Roger will not want a massage.” A massage? Mom can still surprise me, apparently. Just where did the massage idea come from? And where did she imagine she would massage me? Not my sutured foot, certainly. My good foot? My bare knees? My bald head? The thought was too weird to study seriously. During her first short visit to my room, she stood over my feet with her fingers wiggling eagerly in the air, and I nearly screamed, “Don’t touch my foot!” She wasn’t going to massage me, of course, or even touch me. She was just sending me a little old-mother love through her wiggling fingertips.

The Dementia Dossier: I Can Take Care of Myself!

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I explained to Mom the pressure I live with every day of every week of the year of her wanting to go for a drive every day of every week of the year, and how tired I am of feeling that pressure. “Every time I leave the house, you look sad and disappointed,” I said. “And every time I don’t take you with me to run an errand, you look sad and disappointed. And you get upset with me every time you have a letter to mail and I don’t drive you right away to Help-U-Mail or the post office.” I explained how her 89-year-old friend LaWynn has someone come every day just to talk, or to play games, or to take her for a drive or to run an errand, or to make her lunch, or to change a lightbulb, or…. “I don’t need some stranger to come and play games with me,” she huffed. “I’m very happy with my blanket and my needlepoint and my word search puzzles—I don’t need someone to come and play games with me. I can take care of myself!” No. She can’t. Today I called five companion care companies to compare their abilities and rates. I have consulted my siblings and have their support. The reality is that within 30 seconds of meeting her care companion, Mom will adore her and anxiously await her next visit. She will love playing Rummikub and Boggle and Scrabble. She will love being driven around the neighborhoods. She will love her tuna sandwiches. She will love her letters being safely and immediately mailed. She will love not waiting a week or a month for a lightbulb to be changed. She will love love love telling a stranger all about growing up in rural Magna before it became an endless ocean of subdivisions and strip malls, and about her English and French and Swedish and Italian and Danish ancestors. She will love the hugs. We’re doing this.

(Image by Vilius Kukanauskas from Pixabay.)