Andie, when you read this I hope we can laugh about it, but today when you left a message on Mom and Dad's answering machine it seemed kind of tragic that you know what you want to say and your tone and inflections are there but the words are all over the place. When we got home from church this morning (where Josh thought the communion bread was cheese and grabbed one, "good, I'm hungry"!!! Luckily Gramma brought him something to munch) the answering machine had a message that I should have written down to write it out here but we just thought you were wondering where we were.
While getting breakfast together you called - with the help of the aides - and were so upset that when Dad couldn't get the gist of what you wanted he gave the phone to me. Paper was a word that was used more than once so I asked if you wanted the newspaper... no, a notebook... no, you mentioned two of something there are two calendars in the room..... "OH LYN!!!" Okay, I'll get there as soon as I can - after we have our breakfast.... then we'll figure it out... again something about two of something... paper... that I have... crosswords? No, something I have - your contacts? YES - Eureka!
Tray and twelve are words that are used a lot and for different situations, but still the frustration of not being able to get your point across is obvious.
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So, we had breakfast and I got her contacts and solution together and got into Good Shepherd. When we got there She was really, really upset and her glasses were held together by scotch tape. She was in OT at the time and the therapist and aide were both in the room gathering information about what made her so upset that she out and called one of the aides from yesterday a b-i-t-c-h even while knowing she shouldn't and looking in Josh's direction while whispering it. I calmed her a bit by assuring her that I brought the contacts but kept them out of sight since the doctor has to approve anything like that first.
The story is: Andie heard the AIDE yesterday talking about her - well, they do have to give each other updates about what they're getting into and since this AIDE was new to Andie's case she needed the full run-down. I've already noted that when she's talking Andie has this gossipy, head bobbing attitude with vocal inflections and tones about her if she's among people she's comfortable with - is this stuff so ingrained that it's just part of communication even when all else fails ? Anyway...
Well, Andie sensed that she was being TALKED ABOUT yeah, she was! - and got paranoid about that. Then, I'm just going to call this a personality conflict with the AIDE in question cause any time you mentioned the AIDE or events from the Saturday she got visibly upset.
I circulated among the aides and therapists that were there this afternoon and got the real story: It seems like after she felt slighted she would not comply with the normal bathing, changing into PJs schedule that the place tries to maintain. I've seen Andie take her own glasses off when she's ready to sleep and put them down next to her on the bed usually I - or the aides secure them once she puts them down. My guess is that she put them down then rolled on them while sleeping, but - I honestly can't tell what happened to the glasses. My parents are working on getting them fixed.
While trying to figure out how to get her glasses fixed we asked where she bought them she tried to draw a map for Dad but it's hard to know where to go if you have no initial point of reference. At first she seemed to say it was by the Giant then later said it was by the Weis market.
So the doctor came by after Andie was like " Where is he? ... get him moving?" and asked if Andie's ever had a corneal abrasion - and I don't know if she has, but I have and it really hurts - and because of risk of corneal abrasions if she forgets about taking out the contacts or if the nurses / aides can't get them out for her he ruled no contacts. Andie was visibly upset but the doc also explained that it should only be for the short term.
Bottom line was that once a different aide came on duty last night at 11:00 pm she was a no-nonsense type of person who told Andie "you will get washed, and you will get changed so you're not smelly" and she complied, that explains why Andie was trying to tell us that she smells while we were trying to decipher what she was saying this afternoon.
It's got to be tough for Andie to be trapped in her own mind in the sense that she has to really work to make the simplest requests known and also trapped on the 4th floor there at Good Shepherd while we can all walk away.