Rainbow Descriptions
by Sarah Bon
“Isn’t it terrible?? I’m too old to take care of myself.”
Then she cried. She cried while I dressed her in nightclothes. She cried while I helped her to bed begging me to stay and hold her hand.
She does not know this, but I also cried when I got home after my twelve-hour shift, cried while I showered the day off, and cried while I got into bed.
A few weeks later, she suffered from a stroke that left her 90-something-year-old body too weak to repair itself. They call it “Cheyne-Stokes breathing” when a person cycles between rapid, shallow breathing and periods of apnea. By the time I got to work again on Friday, she had breathed her last.
The family told me she “never met a stranger”—she was always able to make herself at home. But they didn’t see her anxiety persist when she was only meeting strangers in our facility, unable to connect to the world she used to live in, feeling far from home. Her thoughts were overwhelming, especially since the mechanics of thinking and memory had significantly faded. For her, producing words or conversation from memory was like looking for something you never had, or describing a rainbow of colors to someone who could not see. I felt like a blind recipient of her rainbow descriptions. To gain some insight, I often think about her thinking. It helps me dive into her world, and diving in helps me be a better caregiver.
“A strange little girl came into my house today, dressed all in blue. She told me it was time to shower and then go to dinner. That’s odd because I just ate dinner? Or did I? I can’t shower while she’s here. How did she unlock my door? Do I really live here? Is this her house? My house is in New Jersey… I wonder if she knows my kids… Where are they? Where am I?”
Back to my own thoughts, muddled by our interaction. Disoriented to person, place, time, and situation. Refused shower and dinner. Will try again later.
Well, “later” was interrupted by a stroke and eventually, her passing. Now, my thoughts are in a vacuum. I can no longer even attempt to make sense of her rainbow descriptions before my sightless eyes.
I hope all her thoughts make sense again, and that my contributions of care and connection made their way into her collection of nice, sensible things that she could carry despite her confusion, and I hope, somehow, she remembers me.
Image source: Unsplashed
Sarah Bon is a third-year medical student at the UTCOMLS.
