Hello in there

The coffee had just started to kick in as I entered the Headquarters building that morning. After I hung up my coat and collected the day’s schedule, I knew I would need all the energy stored in that black miracle drug. I was working the day watch out of Dementia Division, but I knew that on some days – I felt more like the person who could not find my way, than the persons whom I had committed to serve. 

I had been given this case of a 90 y/o woman who had seemed to divorce herself from reality. Just stepping away? It wasn’t that simple a modus operandi for her, but I had seen that since she had returned home from the hospital, she was not engaging with her staff and friends as she had before. The assignment was to help her find a path to the rest of her life – through contact. 

She reminded me of either “Abbott” or “Costello” from the recent sci-fi movie “Arrival”; I watched her initially, using a strange way of discourse with persons familiar to her. She screamed. She glared! She didn’t react to statements or questions directed to her. How would she make a connection with her loved ones, and with those charged with keeping her healthy and safe? Soon, after meeting with the woman and having an initial conversation, I realized it would take quite a few visits to develop a vocabulary we could easily share. There was a lot of pressure to get this accomplished by her staff, however. She was even considered for a transfer from her assisted living unit to the “dementia” unit.  Pressure!  How would that help the connection? How to solve the puzzle? 

Then, later that day, I happened to walk by the communal dining area, to my lonely sandwich at my desk to type reports. My case was eating with her peer group, and – without any special equipment, and without any staff coaxing her out – she was having a normal conversation about the food, and about her day. It was happening! No special drills. No expensive equipment. There was just – simple connection.

John Prine sings, - just waiting for someone to say: Hello in there; HELLO. I would always chuckle when I heard that chorus sung on the radio, on a college FM station. Now, seeing my patient in her natural state, - I understood the line, - what it meant to call into the space a person occupies when her/his spirit withdraws, and hope you get an answer. I understood what effort it takes most families to realize, this is reality and this is our loved one, and we’ll do our best, loving the person she/he is now and the person she/he will become, as best we can. We’ll have our language to use, and we’ll keep sharing and – one day, she may do something helpful for us. The shift is changing now.