Headed Home From the Hospital

Susan is coming home from the hospital today. I am concerned and unsure about how she will take this transition. Ordinarily it might not present itself as a big deal, but this is for sure not ordinary- not this mother-in-law of mine who suffers from Alzheimer’s- nope, nothing ordinary about it. For Susan, thirteen days is a long time and a lot can be forgotten in that time. For you and me that is barely two weeks; but for her brain it is another time and place- another set of memories ago (likely forgotten ones).

It may seem odd to question: Will she remember her room? The house? Will she sleep tonight? Will she insist on going home (wherever in her brain that may be tonight)? Will she feel any sense of security and comfort at being in her bedroom and back in our home (and her home for the past year). In about an hour we will take her out of the hospital and begin the 23-mile ride home. Will she even know what is going on? I realize she will know something and feel something and desire something, but it will likely be based on inaccuracies. We shall see. I feel silly that I am apprehensive and a little nervous about bringing her home. Will I sleep tonight? Will she be nice and passive or will she be pushy and insistent? The answers to all of the uncertainties do matter to the rest of us living here.

It seems obvious to all of the doctors, nurses and social workers at the hospital that she should be in a long-term care facility. For me it seems obvious that we are getting closer to that decision, but I am not so sure that we are there yet. With all the new diagnosis’ these past few weeks (congestive heart failure, hardening of the arteries, full degenerative disk disease, shingles, drop foot …) along with all her past diagnosis’ I can’t help but fear that what we are witnessing respectfully is her descent. Others looking on see what is obvious, but perhaps to Jeff, to Katrina, to Kyle and to myself, it is hard to admit that she will not bounce back and regain her fight. I hear myself whisper inside my head, "But maybe she will; maybe she will.”

Susan's Bedroom

I wonder whom Susan is talking to in her bedroom, or whom she thinks she is talking to. I can hear her through the wall as if she is having a conversation with somebody in there. I can’t make out the words that she is saying- only that it is her voice and that she seems calm with a matter- of -fact attitude about this conversation. I hear her clock chiming the music to the Beatle's song Yesterday. I find myself half singing the words from the song that seems so fitting right now:
“Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.
Love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away.
Oh, I believe in yesterday.”
.

Sometimes she talks about Deogracias visiting her when she sleeps. She says that he taps her on the shoulder to get her attention. They often discuss why one of them cannot go where the other one is: heaven and earth, dead and alive. Sometimes he kisses her and tells her he misses her. When she tells us about it the next day we can tell that she misses him too. It seems that her memories are mostly good ones of him and her; the ugly part has disappeared from her brain and is replace by kindness. That is as it should be, I suppose.

Susan may have forgotten, but the rest of us remember well their ups and downs. They now seem so long ago and far away. But the clearer memories of the past remind me of how she stood firm and staunch while they were together; until the day when he was gone and she was alone. Even then she tried to be strong; but looking back it is clear how much she needed him, she just never knew it. Any memory of their separation has mercifully erased itself from her mind. So it may well be that it is He whom she is speaking with in the bedroom. Maybe he has once again come to tell her that he misses her and to ask her to come to him. One day she will, but not today.