Things changed again on Saturday morning. Mary had a small stroke, a TIA (Transient Ischemic Attack). It was the worst one she has had thus far, involving paralysis of her right side, her arms, legs and face. She could not talk. It lasted about thirty minutes from beginning to end but she was weak and wobbly the rest of the day. She was also aphasic so she could not string words together coherently.
Having admitted her to Hospice just this week was an amazing blessing. We were able to call her nurse who came out and assessed her and took her vitals. Her BP was elevated but after calling it in to the doctor we were assured this was normal for TIA.
Yesterday she improved as the day wore on but it is obvious that she is struggling more and more with her language and cognition now. There most certainly is a difference between the loss of words and memory that AD causes and the loss of function brain damage from a TIA causes. Before the TIA she knew she was missing words which kept her frustrated. Yesterday she would say something quite normal and then suddenly say something that did not make sense, but she didn’t realize this because it made sense to her.
Saturday, I sat and quietly watched her as the nurse was examining her, talking to her, listening to her. She seemed markedly smaller somehow, much older and fragile than she was the day before. There is no easy way to say this, she is dying by inches but Saturday I think she skipped forward a few steps.
The Hospice team has been coming one at a time this week to meet and interview her. The Chaplain came yesterday. I cannot say enough good things about Hospice right now.
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