Responding to loss

Dad was asleep when we arrived tonight. It was good to see him sleeping soundly, but also made me more aware of how vulnerable he looks. I hate to think about how much weight he must have lost. And it isn't like he had a lot to work with beforehand.

If you didn't know my father as a youngster, you might be surprised to know that he was once overweight. Like everything else in his life, when he made the decision to lose weight, he simply did. Nothing fancy, no miracle diets, just the internal will and determination to change who he was. To become what he wanted.

I was anxious to visit with him after the last visit. I'd heard of a good visit yesterday, and selfishly wanted to experience some of that myself. But I didn't want to wake him up just to suit my selfishness.

He woke up anyway, and through a drowsy gaze greeted us appropriately. We helped him become comfortable through adjustments in bed, shifting around the covers, and providing him with this crazy sponge thing that functions as a makeshift toothbrush/tongue scraper.

Eventually, he took my arm and began to try and communicate. He was desperate that I understand his wishes. It took some time, and a little help from my brother to fully comprehend.

He wants to go home.

...

Officially, there are 5 stages of grief as it relates to a significant loss in your life:

Denial and Isolation
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

...

I'm no expert on anything emotional. The running joke around my house is "my husband with the cold dead black heart." So, I'm obviously at a loss to fully explain Dad's feelings or where he's at emotionally. It's clear that Dad is working through his loss at this time.

There is a paper on the wall that talks about patients with aphasia and how to interact with them. I don't remember everything on the list, but it all seemed fairly common sense:

Talk directly to them.
Loss of speech isn't a loss of intelligence.
Loss of speech isn't always an inability to understand.
Ask them questions that can be answered with a "yes" or "no."

I think I've heard the term before, but tonight was the first time I've seen "aphasia" applied to Dad.

Aphasia: loss of the ability to produce and/or comprehend language, due to injury to brain areas specialized for these functions, such as Broca's area, which governs language production, or Wernicke's area, which governs the interpretation of language.

I listened intently to everything that Dad had to say. I was honest about the need to stay at the center, and our inability to care for him at home at this time. I promised to talk with my mother and siblings about his care. I acknowledged that ultimately the decisions about his care were up to him.

I think what I witnessed tonight was Dad going through the stages of grief. I hope that what I witnessed tonight was Dad's unwillingness to accept his current situation, and the beginnings of him fully committing himself to rehabilitation.