I'm sorry to have left this blog, like an orphan left by the roadside, while the armies of the people march by. I just don't really know what happens to my time. Eaten up, by often insignificant issues. But there we are -- i'm sorry for my lack. Energy -- discipline -- attention span. Whatever.
I find myself struggling a lot with the inner sense i have of what dementia means or does or how it happens upon someone and changes them and how it is that see that person, changed and very interesting. While others see that person as gone. I have less and less patience for the attitude. because it's cruel, self-centered and just plain wrong. Not morally wrong. Factually wrong.
I've been reading Jill Bolte-Taylor's "My Stroke of Insight". a wonderful book which has really revolutionized my view of my own ideas about dementia, because it gives me the tools to know I was right all along. Well, who wouldn't love that, after all.
Dr Jill was a Harvard brain researcher. When she was 37, she had a devastating left hemisphere stroke. In her book, she describes the whole experience, in a very interesting and entertaining way. with great insights and many understandings based on the merging of her stroke experience with her knowledge as a researcher.
At last, I found in there confirmation of my own observations of people with dementia. That they grow more emotionally open. That they don't lose creativity. That humor raises their functioning level. All kinds of stuff. Well, most of my observations referred to right hemisphere functioning, which is less stricken usually in dementia. Left brain is where we keep our calendar, datebook, schedule, shopping list, facts and recent memories. Right hemisphere is where we keep the big stuff. Emotional connection, intuition, sensitivity, oneness with all creation, fun, humor, creativity -- that stuff.
So finally, I find written down the reason for the many great and powerful things I see that develop more strongly in people with dementia. Thank-you, Dr Jill!
Among the many things I love about people with dementia is that, in general, they are much more open to fun, humor and experiencing something new. I loved finding stuff to read to them they might not have experienced before.
When I had my care home, I'd read whatever caught my fancy aloud to The Ladies. "The Velveteen Rabbit, Or How Toys Become Real" was one of our favorites. Especially when it came to the zen-like questions within. "What is Real?" asked the Rabbit of the wise old Skin Horse in the nursery. The Ladies paid close attention to the Skin Horse's answer.
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
"That's right," echoed Pearl softly. "People who don't understand."
And I knew that included her four sons and her one daughter, all of whom assumed by now their mother wasn't like a real person any more. But I knew that, like that shabby old Skin Horse, Pearl had Become.
