I'm still keeping my diary of visits to see Jan.
Yesterday's reads:
It is a continual challenge to me to be able to accept Jan as she now is.
Gone are the days when she could crawl around her specially padded room. She can no longer do that, and we get more out of visits when she is in her chair. At least I get more out of the visits and it is less distressing for me, regularly to see her this way.
Yesterday's reads:
The older residents don't seem to have the same thing happen - or perhaps, since I never knew them before, I just accept them as they are.September 24th 2007
Visited before lunch. Jan had slept in, so I fed her Weetabix for her breakfast.
At first she was not entirely with it, but she was calm; then, as the visit progressed, she emerged somewhat.
I reflected, with my nose and forehead on hers – the normal communication method now – that her face has become a bit like rubber, in that all the features are still hers, but they are slightly distorted. Maybe not so slightly. Her beautiful face has become a bit of a characature.
But close up, nose to nose, it is still Jan's eye that I see, still her mouth. Moving away a little, her nose is still recognisable, though it points at a weird angle, presumably because she now habitually sleeps face down on it. As it has happened with trying to understand what is going on inside her mind where I have to enter her world and change my own perceptions – it is now happening the same way with her physical presence.
It is almost like a test – how far can Jan be taken away, while still with me, and yet still be recognisable as Jan?
It is a continual challenge to me to be able to accept Jan as she now is.
Gone are the days when she could crawl around her specially padded room. She can no longer do that, and we get more out of visits when she is in her chair. At least I get more out of the visits and it is less distressing for me, regularly to see her this way.