Since it's term break, I can spend more time with mom and observe how dementia's affecting her.
Mom speaks English well with little accent, although she has a limited amount of vocabulary. However, when you ask her whether she speaks English or not, she'll say "no" without thinking. (Like if you ask her whether any part of body hurts, her first response would be "no" unless she's in pain at that moment.) Yet, she'll respond in English when you speak English with her, and likewise in Chinese when you speak Chinese with her.
Sophia, the physical therapist who doesn't speak Chinese, went to pay mom a visit and helped her deal with the arthritic pain due probably to the rainy wintry season. Mom looked her in the eye and told her in a clear voice with perfect English & American accent, "I do not speak English." And then she continued to respond in English for the most part of the conversation with Sophia.
The other evening, a male nurse paid mom a visit. The nurse checked the strength of mom's hands by asking mom to hold and squeeze his. Mom didn't understand at first. After a while, she managed to hold one of the nurse's hand but felt embarrassed to squeeze. Instead, she turned to me and commented with awe, "his hands are so big and warm!"
The nurse came tonight. After meeting him only once, mom surprised me by saying that she remembered to have seen him before. I checked on mom's exceptional memory after he left. She spurted out these two words, "肥佬！"
I brought an old photo album of pictures taken in 1988 to mom. Some of the pictures have mom and dad in them. Mom pointed at dad's picture and uttered, "衰佬！“
1 comment:
How interesting a person's mind works. My friend's dad had Alzheimer's, he kept asking his family to take him back 'home'. He was living at home at that point in Canada, but what he meant was the 'home' when he was 15 years old, back in China!
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