One morning, I video-chatted with my mother while her nurse dressed her. Moments later, she said, “Christy, I am heading to activities. I must get off this phone!” Yes, after only a few minutes, our conversation ended. (Sigh) My prayer has been that she bonds with her new neighbors. I’ve heard that these types of connections help dementia patients thrive even as the disease progresses. But I miss long conversations. I miss being the one with whom she is active. I miss seeing her dress Continue Reading
A Moving Moment
From redirecting to reminding…from doing “it” for her to picking up behind her… from meeting with family and leaving with a plan to meeting with doctors and leaving with a diagnosis. It was hard to hear and tempting to challenge. It explained experiences. It triggered emotions. After crossing the T's we were encouraged to cross, we dotted the I's we knew to dot. What remained were unmet needs, unanswered questions, and an unrevealed solution. Unsure of what to do, I did what I was Continue Reading
Trust Silence
I cannot tell you exactly what the topic was, but I can tell you that this speaker on this day said “um,” “uh,” and “so” a lot! This stood out to me not as a critique, but as a reminder. I thought about my time as a member of Toastmasters International, an organization for public speakers who want to improve their skills. One of the many forms of training we received was how to minimize and ultimately eliminate filler words such as “um,” “ah,” “so,” and “uh.” We tend to use them to fill in the Continue Reading