A few last Christmas pics — visiting my mother at the nursing home. I haven’t talked in much detail about how things are with her, and I probably won’t for a while, as most of the family is more private than I am. But it feels important to document at least a little bit. This is where we are now.
Amma’s pretty unstable on her feet — what precipitated the move was a series of falls, and the realization that my father (who just turned 80) isn’t stable enough on his own feet to be able to help her up after a fall, or stabilize her sufficiently for daily life activities like showering. She needs 24-hr nursing care. We spent some time trying to find a home nurse, but at this point, a nursing home seems like the right choice for our family.
She’s doing much better there than she was at home, physically, and they’re able to help her with medications to sleep better as well. Eating continues difficult; I think she has little appetite, but she has several sisters in the area who come by daily and try to tempt her with Sri Lankan food (along with my father and the Sri Lankan family friend who now cooks for him), and she does eat some of the Western food the nursing home provides.
Amma likes socializing quite a bit — with someone to steady her, she likes to take walks up and down the corridors, smiling at the other residents, staff, guests. And she watches TV and laughs, and even engages in some of the social games they provide, like throwing a balloon around in a seated circle. The nursing home also provides activities like art classes.
The hardest thing is that she can’t really talk anymore. We think Amma understands quite a bit — she can say yes or no in Tamil, can indicate when she wants to eat or not, when she wants to get up and go for a walk. If you talk to her in Tamil (which I can’t actually do), she may understand a lot. English seems less accessible to her.
She can verbalize almost nothing, and seems to get frustrated and angry when pushed too much on that front. I know I’d find that very difficult myself.
I don’t know what causes that kind of neurological breakdown, but Amma’s suffered a variety of issues along those lines for decades now — most of the family and friends started noticing it in her early 50s, I think, but I would actually say that there were a few incidents as early as her 40s, erratic behavior that I’d notice when I was visiting from college.
Amma spent many years being paranoid and frightened a lot of the time, but strongly resisted treatment and medication that might have helped. At least now, she’s able to get meds that seem to have soothed those fears. We’re lucky to be a medical family; Amma’s doctor at the nursing home is a good friend of our father’s (also a doctor), so we know she’s getting good and thoughtful care.
It’s been a long road to here, and I’m not sure where it’ll go next. Kevin and the kids and I are far away in Chicago, and it doesn’t seem to make any sense to bring her here, when she has a much bigger support network there. I’m glad we got to bring the kids to visit, though.
Anand never really knew her, but she and Kavi had a bit of a relationship, and Amma seemed to remember Kavi when she came. (The masks really don’t help with recognizing people, very frustrating. Kavi took hers off after a while, and Amma brightened up.)
Anyway, that’s where we are. Cintha (short for Jacintha) is loved by a lot of people, and I think she knows that. If you’re a Sri Lankan friend who’d like to visit her, you’d be very welcome; just contact me for the details. She loves spending time with children, so if you have children or grandchildren to bring along, they’d brighten her day.
