Stage Five and Positive Reinforcement

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I went out to take mom to the eye doctor.  She was a lot more pleasant than she had been when I took her to the doctor last week.  Instead of sulking and being angry about the circumstance, she was quite overjoyed and quite surprised that I had come – for in her mind West Valley might as well be on the end of the universe.  She thinks I am quite far away from all civilization.  She thinks I must spend all day driving as I am so far away .

Not once did she ask me to take her home but did ask “Where are we going?” and we proceeded to have the same conversation at least ten times before we arrived.

I asked her if she remembered me taking her to the doctor last week.  Of course she didn’t.  I told her that she had been quite mean to me and the doctor.  She apologized and felt just as bad about hurting me as she felt excitement in seeing me this morning.

She was overwhelmed by all the equipment.  She told the doctor (as she had several times during our drives) that her eyes were fine and that she did not need new glasses. 

I covered the smile that formed on my both when she informed the doctor that she reads A LOT – she used to read all the time.  Sometimes she’d have up to three books going at the same time.  Not now.  She will barely read at all. 

And she DOES need glasses.  Her eyes seem to work okay together, but not separately – especially on her right eye.  Her prescription had changed, but I wasn’t going to argue with her about not needing glasses.  We had already been at the doctor’s office too long.  She was anxious to leave.

Could I possibly use the same trick on her that I had used last week when I brought her back to Alpine Ridge?  She actually asked me if that is where I lived.  “No.”

We went inside.  She was greeted by those behind the front desk.  “How was your doctor’s appointment?”

Who were these people and how did they know she had just been to the doctor?

“Do I live here?”  She asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because  you need consistency.  You need to be safe.  And you have friends here.”

I had hung up a sign for her that let her know that very same thing and that she is home.  Five sentences all written in first person.

She wanted me to sit down and have lunch with her, but I needed to go.  I really wanted to finish hanging pictures in her room.  But I only got four up.  I had a broccoli salad and then I left.  And she was sulking.  But nothing like last week when I had arrived.

Corey and I talked over the phone several times throughout the day.  Corey was talking about the seven stages that one with dementia will go through.  At present she seems to be in the hoarding stage and resorting to a child like mind.  That is stage five.  Probably the funnest stage for the family to go through.

Our final conversation was his report about his latest conversation with mom.  She said that she thought she should stay.  She had lived in the facility before and was back.  She thinks about three years. (It’s been three months – total)

I was so happy to hear that.  We both hope so much that she will go with these feelings and continue to believe she would like to stay and not focus so much on trying to escape.  We will have to more stages to get through.  May God be with us all.