Katie Starts to Emerge: Katie’s Story, Part Five.

Katie now resides in a nursing home.  During the first half of 2013 she had surgery to have her skull reattached, and Botox injections to relax her limbs.  Due to the traumatic brain injury (TBI) that caused the stroke, Katie’s left arm is tightly contracted; the left leg has dropped foot; and the right leg has become mysteriously contracted after her skull reattachment.  Only her right arm functions normally.  Katie has had some physical therapy, but it was discontinued due to her inability to tolerate the pain.  Friends were trying to help out by stretching her limbs, but no one could stand to put her through the agony.  So physically, there was very minimal improvement, at best.

Mentally, progress was more positive.  Her vocabulary was good, and she was able to communicate fairly well.  She did have a tendency to “confabulate”  (giving fictitious accounts of past events, believing they are true, in order to cover a gap in the memory caused by a medical condition such as a brain injury).  That characteristic, in addition to the extreme change in her personality, were possibly the most difficult for family and friends to adjust to.

Judene and I tried to visit Katie every week or two, and we would sometimes have get-togethers as couples for dinner and game night at the nursing home, with the hope that familiar activities would help restore some essence of her personality.  And very gradually we began to see some progress—through a smile or a laugh or a demonstration of Katie’s keen wit.

Katie

LOVES

Games!

 

 

 

 

Because I had been an Assessor at the Area Aging on Aging, and because I had experience with developing care plans, I began to talk to Sam about the possibility of caring for Katie at home.  I told him that I had seen clients in similar conditions cared for at home.  I acknowledged that providing total care is very difficult and a huge responsibility.  I understood that Sam was completely over-whelmed by the concept, and basically scared silly by the idea.

But I had a plan—a real longshot—and it became a driving force for me to see if it could work…

 

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