19 February 2025
The past few days at Golden Heights have been pretty much the same as the last few reports have described.
I visit Joyce mid-day to get her out of bed and into the wheelchair, roll her around the facility to sit in the sun by a sliding door and weigh her, encourage her to eat more than a bite at lunch, take her to the gym to work on the SciFit and help the RNAs walk her about 100 feet along the halls.
Then I roll her back to her room to sit up for a while watching TV. She always asks me how she's going to get back into bed. I leave the call button near her so she can ring the CNA to do that. And I remind her the shift change is around 3 p.m. so that isn't a good time to call. Every day, the same discussion.
There are a few wrinkles, though.
Eric the RN on her wing told me with some alarm she hasn't been eating anything at breakfast. And last night Rober the Nutritionist called to say she didn't eat dinner again.
I told Robert I was aware of the problem. I weighed her at 116 lbs. today after she nibbled three tiny bites of a piece of pizza I'd brought her from home that I'd make myself and knew she liked.
She complains about the taste of the food, I told him. He promised to pursue that with "the team." I told him she also suffers from dementia, which may also play a role. And she is incontinent, which may be a factor too, if she's trying to avoid bowel movements.
Earlier I had voice mail from the billing department which wanted to know if we had applied for Medi-Cal (since her Medicare benefits have run out). Apparently Loren the Social Worker, who has applied for Joyce, hasn't told billing.
I will say that Joyce is doing less screaming these days. She's been on the Memantine for dementia for almost two weeks now.
And yesterday with the SciFit occupied, she watched YouTube videos of Paul Eugene who does chair exercises for fitness. She tried a few of the arm movements but mainly just watched. Then we did a few sets arm cycling on the Spirit Cycle.
The weight loss and failure to eat are serious problems. The alarms have gone off but the problem hasn't been addressed. Which is how things go at Golden Heights.
So the past few days have been bleak. And don't promise to be better.