1 October 2025
Joyce and I have been doing the same routine for a while now.
On most days, she gets dressed and walks to the scale with me where I've stashed the wheelchair and then does some exercise that changes every day (which, some days, is just three sets of 252 steps on the SciFit in the gym, which she never skips). After lunch, I help her brush her teeth and then roll her around to see where the suckerfish in the fish tank has hidden before I leave.
DAILY EXERCISE
On Mondays, her exercise is with the RNAs, who both walk her around the unit while I follow with the wheelchair.
On Tuesdays, I take her to the stairs platform where she goes up and down the four steps with me three times.
On Wednesdays I usually take her home for lunch, although I wasn't able to do it after my own fall in August. When she comes home, it's a dozen stairs up and down plus walking to and from the car at the SNF and at home.
On Thursdays, the RNAs do the stairs with her, four sets of four.
Fridays and Sundays her only exercise is in the gym, maybe doing a puzzle, too., or the SpiritCycle for her arms.
RAMPING UP
But lately I thought it's time to ramp things up a bit.
It started with taking her to the bathroom before she dressed. She walks in on the walker, takes the pull-up down, sits and calls me when she's done. Sometimes I help her with a new pull-up but sometimes she's managed to keep it clean.
I've been thinking the RNA's walk with her around the place was a little too accommodating with three of us. Especially since I'd been walking her down to the scale (half the distance the RNAs cover) without the chair.
So we talked about it one day as she ate lunch and she agreed she could walk more without the chair. So just as she's spending more time in the chair than in bed, she agreed to spend more of her chair time walking.
This is the second day in a row, she's walked to the scale and then sat in a chair in the nearby Pacific room to pay bills or make a phone call before walking the rest of the way around the unit with just my help.
Hurray!
So she's now using the bathroom, brushing her teeth and walking more each day, too.
THE CALENDAR
Today I reminded her that a year ago September she was in the hospital. I reminded her how she was always yelling at everyone who tried to get her out of the hospital bed. But Dr. Pondicherry would calmly tell her yelling wouldn't help anything.
She smiled.
And how the social worker always wanted to know what "the plan" was. What's the diagnosis? I wanted to know. Then I'll tell you the plan. She wasn't diagnosed with dementia until December, after all. And what kind of plan can you make for that?
So she's been at Golden Heights 11 months now, I told her.
And she'll likely remain there until December if she does indeed have surgery to close the wound in November. It would be wiser, I think, to recuperate at Golden Heights than at home.
I am always trying to imagine how she would manage at home. That's why when her care team ordered scheduled toileting and no one did it, I started taking her to the bathroom. And why I asked her doctor to prescribe pull-ups (Medi-cal covers them when prescribed) so she could quit diapers for something she can manage herself. And why I take her home for lunch. And why I walk her more and more.
I'd like to imagine she'd be ab;e to come home without needing one of those 911 calls. Next year the copay for an ambulance goes up $100 to $350. But the real issue is can she manage to get from the living room to the bathroom and to the dining room and to bed without fear.
Not yet. And even if I'm the only one actually helping her with that, she's making progress. Two days in row sometimes.