Memory & Story

My mother recently moved into a nursing home, or, as we like to refer to it, “the most expensive serviced apartment she could afford”. She purchased the room by selling her independent living apartment in a retirement village, where independence had been translated into “we won’t intrude other than once a week to send in a cleaner as long as you follow the rules”. 

In her new place meals were prepaid and served in a common dining area with an optional glass of wine. Residents were careful not to ‘visit’ each other too often and cross the line of being intrusive. During the day residents were out and about leaving the village and doing what most people do in retirement enjoy life. Liberated from the worries of property maintenance and utility bills, life was grand.

Over time, however, things began to change for Judy. Subtly at first, the nights seemed to get longer. The hip pain that she’d ignored for so long seemed to escalate. Ambulances were called several times in the wee hours of the morning for tummy pain, and each time an uncomfortable night was spent in Emergency on an ambulance trolley for observation. The nurses were racing round tending injuries and the illnesses of others while popping their heads around the makeshift curtain every so often to check that she was okay.

After each episode, Judy would return to the Village, with a new normal just slightly altered in an almost imperceptible way but enough that the world seemed to be slowly shrinking around her. Words began to slip out of sight or not leave the tongue quite so easily as they had before.

Judy has always been a person of decisive action; she knew something had to be done and now. Within a week of her suddenly reaching this inexplicable decision she booked herself into hospital for a hip operation. The X-rays had revealed her hip joint had died, possibly from a fall from a horse around 20 years ago. Instead of the X-rays showing calcification of the joint, there was a black patch where the joint should have been. “Delirium” or, as laypeople would call it, “confusion” postoperatively was to be expected but it should settle within a couple of weeks. Judy decided it was worth the risk, better than having someone “wipe your arse” in later life because you couldn’t move around.

Judy came through with flying colours although rehab was proving a little difficult. Wasn’t there a pill for that? Judy returned to her former self but it became evident that perhaps something else was happening that had been masked by her belief that somehow everything would be okay. Support was put in place to allow her continued independence, and she won the hearts of those assisting her, everyone loved her winning smile and gracious attitude. Only those one or two who were in her inner circle realised that something wasn’t quite right.

Finally, the General Practitioner agreed to write a referral for Judy to access the local memory clinic. Working the system again and accessing something for “free” appealed to Judy. After extensive tests and follow-up, the results showed that Judy was in the very beginning phase of Alzheimers.

That was eighteen months ago. When I visit now, she talks with wonder about the luxury she now lives in, being able to stay in bed until lunchtime and only getting up after breakfast to go to the dining room. During one of my weekly visits, she tells me she wants for nothing. She can’t understand how for the first time in her life she doesn’t have to rush or worry, and how everything has now been taken care of. She is safe from the COVID 19 plague.

Sometimes she forgets that this is her new home although it is not with displeasure. The frame that hangs on the wall in her room depicts a potted history of her nursing career. It reminds her of her accomplishments during her life, evoking memories and topics of conversation.  It “Thanks her for her Service” during a time when health care workers mostly women were unseen. It reminds those around her that she too was as busy as they are now. It enshrines her nursing badges and her nursing diploma that were at risk of being separated and misunderstood. The frame gives context to her accomplishments and reveals aspects of her professional life that might have become lost in time and broken into fragments of her larger story.