They've Noticed

When Lyn and Mom visited at the end of June, I noticed that it took Lyn at try or two to stand up from a seated position.  I'm not the only one to have noticed.

Mom indicates that Lyn now needs assistance to maneuver the stand up, sit down, kneel routine at church.  The family who sits in the pew behind has noticed as well.  They recently asked Mom "How is Lyn doing?" because of how unstable she seemed during Mass. 

Yesterday, Lyn had her regularly scheduled appointment with her speech therapist.  Afterwards, the therapist expressed concerns about the decline in communication skills.  Their normal routine is to start the session getting caught up from the week before.  The therapist asks Lyn questions like "What did you do this weekend?" and "Who did you see?"  Lyn used to provide great details about her activities and what Mom was doing.  Mom and the therapist joked that Mom can't have a private life because Lyn makes sure there's not a skeleton in any of her closets.  Well, the catching up conversations are not as detailed or coherent as there were even two months ago.  Lyn is not able to maintain the flow of the conversation and is forgetting what she did early in the week.  She's not completing sentences and having more long pauses between thoughts. 

I've noticed this as well when I speak with her on the phone.  I usually call a couple of times a week.  Since Lyn's a social butterfly and has an activity scheduled each day, I speak to Lyn at least once a week.  In last night's conversation, for example, she was very concerned about my younger child who has been recovering from bronchitis.  She asked about my little one and was releaved to hear that my child is on the mend.  She asked what the other members of my household were doing.  This is standard introductory parts to our conversations.  Normally, she then tells me what she did that day or what she plans to do tomorrow.  Last night, I kept quiet to see what she would say.  It went like this "That's good... Yeah... Uh... Yeah... Yeah... hmmm...   hmmm... "  That was all her over the course of a minute in which I was saying nothing.  I asked if she wanted to tell me anything.  "No."  She then turned away and called to Mom "Here!  She's got to go!"

The "Here!  She's got to go!" always cracks me up.  I didn't have to go.  She was done with me.  It doesn't matter if I have to go or not because this is what she says to Mom when she passes the phone back to her.

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