Post #4: A Pivotal Time

Good morning everyone,

Sorry for the delay in posting yesterday's update, but I did not have time and was too tired to do so last night.

An interesting day yesterday. Mother had lots of wonderful visitors during the day whom, of those visits I observed, she was clearly very pleased to see and those visits appeared to be stimulating to Mom. Thank you all for making the effort to come see her. It helps her keep her focus more outward. Kelley continues to come daily with his darling lapdogs and Mother really responds well to them.

Her skin color is good, her eyes are in general bright and focused. She can partially use her left hand to adjust her covers, hold kleenex, pick up her water cup and other objects. She tried yesterday to raise her water cup and straw herself to her mouth. She missed her mouth with the straw, but she was making the effort. More encouragingly, she tried to mouth (no sound) some words. We definitely saw her mouth the word "no" and "wah" for water and also mouth a word beginning with the letter "b" - we couldn't catch it but it could have been "bathroom" or "Bernadette" (who was visiting with her at the time). She is laughing at jokes and ironies, she appears to listen and comprehend conversations going on around her. She smiles, tears up from time to time, and looks lovingly at people around her. She likes to hold and squeeze your hand with her left hand and her grip is surprisingly strong.

Her speech therapist (a wonderful guy named David) showed us an amazing thing Mom did a day or so ago. He had drawn a circle on a blank piece of paper with a red marking pen. It took a while but Mama, with her left hand, drew in eyes, a nose and a mouth making a smiley face. The most wonderful part of this besides her being able to draw is that it means that she has visual acuity out of both eyes. David told me that most stroke patients would have "drawn" only half the face because they lose visual acuity out of one side. That is why most stroke patients tilt their heads to one side, because that is the side that has retained vision. So this is an excellent development with respect to Mom.

But, unfortunately, she is still refusing to eat. She will sip water, but has eaten nothing in the past couple of days. She also still refuses to participate in speech therapy and David told me that yesterday she resisted going to physical therapy by holding on to the bar-rails on her bed when they tried to stand her up. David suggested we try to tempt her with some of her favorite food items. My brother Ed and I brought her some food, but she refused to eat it. So we are now encouraging anyone who comes to visit her to bring something soft and tasty that you think she might try. Don't be discouraged if she turns you down, just take the food back. But we've got to provide her with the opportunity to eat. She does have the capability of letting you know she is saying "no." She moves her arm out with her palm raised as though to say "stop." Not to mention her facial expressions! Especially her eyebrows. That's how I know Mom is really there and still cognizant. You can see the ol' Anita personality blazing through. And that's actually a positive thing.

An upbeat note: I took pictures yesterday morning with my iPhone of Mom's garden. Fortunately the flowers are blooming, the ones that she has planted and worked so hard on. As you may know with iPhone photos, to view the next photo you just sweep your finger on the screen and the next picture rolls into view. So I was holding the iPhone up in front of Mother's face and rolling through the pictures of the garden when all of a sudden she raised her left hand and swiped the screen with her finger which rolled in the next picture! No one had asked her to do this! It was entirely her own action. Absolutely fabulous! However, I need to explain the signifigance of this.

Mother does not have voluntary control so much as she has involuntary control. For example, if you tell her to do something like "swipe the screen with your finger" she would not be able to do it. The connection between her neuronal control for physcial action pursuant to a conscious mental direction does not function at the moment. That part of her brain needs to rewire itself around the damaged areas. But if she gets an impulse that she hasn't thought about, the physical action happens, such as her suddenly just reaching up a finger to swipe the screen.

So the upshot is that she has definitely made improvements in the past 10 days, but she is very depressed and may be deliberately starving herself. All of us know that deep down Anita is a fighter and a survivor. She is a lover of life, a do-er, and take-action kind of person if ever there was one. If she decides to fight this, as my Aunt Harriet Delnero has said, look out world - she'll do it. And that's the nub -this is Anita's decision to make. She has to decide that she wants to live and wants to fight to live. No one can make this decision for her. We all certainly hope and pray that she will. But ultimately, it's up to her.

Melissa