Its been a while since I last posted, but today I invite you to tour two wards with me and listen in to the conversations from yesterday!
I spent nearly 3 and half hours on Monday visiting two wards of the elderly and patients “living with” dementia. A real mixed bag of characters. The first guy I met had already spread butter on a slice of toast and was still fidgeting with the knife but was still scraping inside the tiny gold wrapping, even though there was hardly any butter left! My colleague asked him, “can I help to spread the jam?” But the guy gave a curt reply, “no, I like mucking about!” That was it; he liked fiddling with the knife! A little more into the conversation he said he had been married 60 years, but his wife had died 3 months ago. We chatted on for a bit, but we could see he was more interested in fiddling with the knife to extract every trace of butter from the tiny wrapper. A bit sad really.
The adjacent patient’s bed was next to the window with a good view of the city. The sky was a bit dull and grey so I said to him “I wish I could paint the sky blue” but he replied, “I’m not bothered.” The conversation continued in a grey vein. He said, “its pills, pills, pills, all the same.” He too had lost his wife. Not a good start but at least we had a little conversation and when he told me his age of 80 something, I said that’s 40 years ahead of where I was (a complete lie) and that made him laugh.
Curiously, the patient opposite was sitting up in bed with his blanket completely over his head. I say “his” but one couldn’t tell if this was a woman or a man or even a dummy. Clearly someone not entirely happy with life! Actually, I am being presumptuous there; he might have been very happy. I did call out his name, and his head peered out of the blanket, and I said, “good morning”. He grunted and returned to cover. Not a good start.
The last of the patients in that bay was more jolly. In particular, he wanted someone to buy him items of food namely: a small baguette, two Portuguese custard tarts, a pot of humous and two bananas. The Volunteers department do provide RRV’s (Rapid Response Volunteers) who take an order and go shopping on behalf of the patient. If the patient can afford it then fine, otherwise the hospital charity will pay up to near £10.
Another male patient told us how easy it was to forget things. Like he’d forget to bring his false teeth. He told us he had read about a mnemonic device, a way of remembering things. I'm was to do with using a cabbage by way of analogy. We both surmised that that had something to do with the compressed and unfolding leaves, but he laughed and confessed, “I don’t really remember it!”
Another male patient was very anxious but keen to keep my attention, trying to explain his domestic situation. But his English was quite poor. I concentrated on giving him the assurance I was indeed listening to him. Even though I was wearing a face mask I looked at him in the eyes and with as much movement with jy eyes tried to give visual responses to him. He would repeat “Before my son was born, I saw my wife first.” Yep, I didn’t understand this either. Perhaps this was the Morecombe and Wise joke – “these are the right notes but played in the wrong order.” He was able to tell me his wife had Alzheimer’s. Perhaps she had believed that her son had come before her! Who knows? Thankfully a Family Liaison Officer appeared at bedside. He knew of the patient’ distress and was aware of the patient’s case. I allowed him to take over.
Moving on. This time to an extraordinary lady patient, who I like to call Miss D Frost. (Ever since we met this patient we observe her a little bit more civil and friendly. So, we say she is “defrosting.” The remarkable thing about this lady is her immaculate clothing outfits. We’ve seen her for several weeks now, on our Monday visits. She must have a hidden wardrobe of clothes for each week she lies on top of her bed resplendent in full dress and invariably wearing a very smart jacket. Yesterday a green silk handkerchief protruded from the top pocket. Her accent is as sharp and cut like a diamond. When I first asked her if I could play Chopin on my Bluetooth speaker she said “no” without seemingly moving her lips! More lately she says “no thank you” but with even less movement. However, she does enjoy a short exchange of pleasantries. As I see her lips curl to an ironic smile I sense a trickle of acid on her tongue ha ha. Joking aside, I do believe she enjoys our encounters. Yesterday she was expecting to home, with two bags full and a posh suit case at the side of the bed. (From one of the bags appeared the head of a cuddly toy tiger. Hmm.) This lady probably prepares to go home every single day; that would explain why she is still there dressed ‘to the nines’ every morning. In past conversations she has told us that she has nowhere to go! I think she’ll still be there next week. I said “au revoir” to her and she gave me an acid grin!
Another male patient had a plate of sausage, peas and mash potato but had only cut and eaten a quarter of his sausage complaining that there was no brown sauce. Isn’t it strange how one small addition can make a meal? Try as I might to encourage him to eat, he just wouldn’t. I am resolved to carry a sachet or two of brown sauce into my satchel for next week!
The next patient was an elderly man, blind in his right eye and sporting a kind of punk hairstyle. I reckon it was the way he slept that he had developed this quiff of white hair on the top of his head. He told us his mother had lived till 98 but was deaf from birth and as children his siblings would tug at the base of her skirt for attention! I’m sure a merry old time was had by all.
But he said his mother learnt to lip read. I was sceptical at first, thinking how is that possible if she doesn’t understand sound; how could she link the shape and movement of lips to sounds she has never heard - so I went looking on Artificial Intelligence sites (Chat GPTP) this morning to discover that this can be achieved! It was interesting to hear the gentleman say, “you can talk a bit with your eyes and face.” Yep, that’s what we do as volunteers!
Finally, to our last hospital bay where four female patients. I made three mistakes with the first lady patient. Well three wrong assumptions really. The first was to believe she was Irish, from her accent. This produced quite a furrowed frown! “No, I’m Scottish. She said she was originally from Glasgow. Into the hole I jumped. “Rangers supporter?” I asked, prompting a look of hell-fire. “Whoops, let’s move to the colour Green” I said.
I then enquired what music she might like to listen to, suggesting Tony Bennett, Perry Como, Moira Stewart. “AM I DEAD?” she retorted. But 'Stewart' was ok in one regard. She did like Rod Stewart so I crawled back into her friendship by playing “Maggie May.”
The lady diagonally opposite could hear the music ring out and gave me a wide smile. So I went to her next. She was with a carer who allowed me to sit in the chair
she had occupied. Once again, I tried my luck with “Frank Sinatra?” “You can hear him TOO often” she replied. (I found myself agreeing with her.) I played ultra-safe and went for Nat King Cole singing “Let There Be Love.” This is the recording with the British born George Shearing accompanying on piano. This is one of my party pieces where I mime a lot of the lyrics e.g. let there be “wind” and occasional “rain”, “chilli con carne” as I pretend to eat and mop my brow, and “sparkling champagne” when I pretend to drink from my Bluetooth speaker! The lady was particularly amused and entertained. She was actually German, so I felt like I was doing my bit for world peace ha ha. Anyway the carer filmed my antics and the reaction of the German lady telling me she would post the video to the patient’s family. (It might go viral!)
Lastly the lady patient opposite shouted out “Can I request a song?” She requested “Memories” sung by Gladys Knight and the Pips. She told us this was the song that was played at her husband’s funeral as his coffin entered the church packed with 700 guests, none of whom ever forgot the occasion, and most of them in tears as that song rung out in the church. And as she sat upright in her hospital bed, listening to Gladys Knight and the Pips., so she shed a few tears for those years and memories gone by, but she was strong and proud, telling us the final song at her husband’s funeral was “The Good Life.” If she is still, there next week I will play that to her! That’s it folks. I hope you all enjoyed the visit!
