Joyce's KP Adventure mikepasini.com headlines
A Visit, A Haircut, A Holiday
26 December 2025
It was another overwhelming week so I've had to put off the usual blog entry in favor of one longer magazine article I could put together as I catch my breath.
A VISIT
After Sunday lunch, I see my brother Dan and his youngest daughter Jenni in the hall. Joyce is in the bathroom in her wheelchair brushing her teeth. I ask them to wait by the fish tank and I'll bring Joyce to visit when she's done.
So we do that. She recognizes them and smiles.
They brought gifts. A stuffed magenta bear that Jenni said reminded her of the color skirts Joyce wore, a puzzle of San Francisco and a framed 8x10 print from Dan's 40th birthday of the two of us. That would have been 1994.
Gigi the RN comes by to give Joyce some medications and I tell Dan her name. He tells Jenni about Gigi, his stuffed dog that he had as a child, wearing it down to a rag. He looked for it at the house after Mom died, he says, but couldn't find it. It was there long after she left but John and Kim cleaned out much of the house and that would have gone then, I suspect without saying so.
Dan doesn't need glasses to drive, he tella ua, as his distance vision has improved. Jenni has bifocals but never wears them. She tells us about a friend at LensCrafters who took care of her.
I ask about the kids, who are on Christmas break. They go to a year-round school so their holidays are longer except for summer. Which means they can't get jobs. She shows us their school pictures. I pronounce them employable. She had to make them do reshoots because they were clowning around.
She also shows us photos of Gina's twins in front of a wood fence that makes it look like it's a composite. The oldest pair are nine now.
And we remember Thatcher, who is in the middle of his teens now.
I ask Dan about his friend Matthews. He's in bad shape. Stomach cancer spread to other organs which they tried to remove.
And we continue our visit by the fish tank until Joyce gets tired and wants to go to her room. We move the party but they don't stay long because the room is too small and there's nowhere to sit.
But it was a nice visit. She hasn't had any visits, recently.
A HAIRCUT
After they left, we have an hour or so before we have to leave for LNJ Salon so Joyce can get a shampoo, conditioning and a haircut with Jose.
But she frets and frets and keeps asking the same questions about when will we leave and will she be OK and no matter what I say, it's the same anxiety all over again.
So we leave early.
I had forgotten to give Jenni her Christmas card (which I'd brought along in a coat pocket) so we go by the house for a stamp. I put a stamp on the envelope and then we swing by the West Portal Post Office to mail it.
Then I drive over to LNJ Salon and park so Joyce can get out and walk 20 yards to the door. We're 10 minutes early but Jose doesn't have anyone before her so the three of us walk straight to the wash station after I wish him a happy birthday and he shampoos and conditions her hair. He says her scalp is in excellent condition.
He does the cut, not quite as short, and suggests every two months instead of six weeks.
Jose and I chat about ICE. I tell him about the kids in Chicago who starve at lunch in school because they're afraid if they punch in their ID code, ICE will know about them and deport their parents, citizens or not. And the Somali immigrants who have been vetted and passed their naturalization tests taken out of the line at the citizenship ceremony. We bemoan the behavior of this country under such a vindictive, ignorant president.
Joyce gets impatient but he finishes, checking the back and thinning it a bit before he lets her go. She remembers the amount of the tip and he thanks her. And I wish him a happy birthday again as we leave.
Remembering the tip is a real puzzle. I discussed it once with her and she's never forgotten the amount. I can ask her out of the blue and she'll remember it. The Memory Clinic nurse practitioner explained to me about long-term memory but that isn't what this is. She remembered just after we calculated it and she's never forgotten.
It's dark and raining as I drive back to the SNF. Joyce isn't worried in the car as it moves, I notice. She gets out and walks in with Gigi the RN holding the door open for us when she returns from checking her car in the parking lot.
I set Joyce up with dinner in her room and encourage her to eat but she takes a single bite of the lasagne, half of the ice cream. It's lighter than lunch, I notice. I get her another Ensure.
Mario is the CNA. He keeps coming back because the light is on but neither Kathleen (her new roommate) nor Joyce pressed the button. It turns out Joyce's cable is unplugged. So now we know how to get a quick response, I laugh. Don't click the button, pull out the plug.
A HOLIDAY
It seems the wrong guy took a holiday at Golden Heights, which was flooded when the patio drains backed up with leaves and debris on Christmas Eve. The patios flooded with three inches of water and it only went that high because the water escaped the patio through the sliding glass doors of the rooms and into the hallways of the building.
So when I arrived Christmas morning to take Joyce home for the day, a disaster crew was busying mopping the place up and putting a dozen or so fans around to evaporate the water. They missed the area around Joyce's bed, so I finished it off before she slipped on the wet floor.
From the moment she got up to go to the bathroom, she was unsteady. She's most unbalanced getting up from a sitting position, afraid to lean forward and push up with her legs. Once she's up, though, she's usually able to walk without difficulty.
Going to the bathroom, though, she's inclined to fall backwards, reaching for the door or the wall to stay upright. I keep my hand on the small of her back to avoid that.
Getting through the wet hallways and the fans was an adventure but she managed. And she made it to the car with her trekking stick, asking if there was a wheelchair behind her. Not when I walk with her.
It wasn't raining but by the time we got home the wind was gusting making it more difficult for her to move from the car to the house. I got her walker from the house and after lifting her from the car seat to stand on the walker, she made it to the stairs. She transferred to the trekking stick to climb the stairs, holding onto the rail with her left hand and made it to the top.
Getting into the house can be an issue. She panics. I stood behind her and guided her in and she got into the house with difficulty but no mishap. She walked into the living room and sat in her blue chair, looking at the tree.
I had put on our old Christmas DVDs when I retrieved her walker and the tree lights and other holiday lights were on, so it was festive as I gave her presents to open.
She chatted with her sister Carol on the phone and then I helped her to the table with the walker. There wasn't much room to sneak the walker between the TV and her chair but we did. She has, I realized, a very hard time navigating the house.
Then I made our Christmas lunch of lobster bisque, rack of lamb (made into cutlets to cook quickly) and mashed potatoes with bacon bits.
She had trouble with the lamb, cutting across the bone at one point. I helped her but she said it was hard to chew the meat. So she didn't eat much.
I made cappuccino for us and we had some cookies her sister Carol had sent in a tin that also functioned as a Christmas music box if you twisted it counter clockwise.
When it was time to go, she used the walker to get to the door. That was probably a mistake because we then had to transition from the walker to the trekking stick to the handrail. An Olympic event.
And reaching for the handrail, with me holding her other hand and grabbing onto her belt, her legs buckled and she went down softly. Screaming.
The trekking pole continued on down the stairs, unaware it had left her behind. I got her to sit up, got the pole and lifted her back up. (Sometimes at night as I get into bed, stiff and sore, I wonder what I did to strain myself, forgetting how physically taxing it is to walk with her.)
She got hold of the railing but not the trekking pole, which went down the stairs again. I left it there and helped her down the stairs. Again, my concern was that her legs would give out and she'd fall on the stairs but after the first step, she was fine.
I kicked the pole out of the way at the bottom, then told her to stand on the last step, holding the railing until I got the pole in her hands. Then I raced up the steps to get the walker so she could make it safely to the car in the wind.
She had fallen going to the car with the trekking pole when some passerbys helped to get her up so I thought the walker would give her a bit more stability. And it did. She got to the car as it started to rain.
But at Golden Heights she couldn't get out of the car. I had rolled the wheelchair to the car so she wouldn't have to walk but it was raining and she couldn't stand up. So I went back in to find Sheik the CNA and he came out to help lift her out. And into the chair. And I wheeled her in with a bib over her head so she wouldn't get as wet as Sheik and me.
The whole thing had a depressing effect on me. A couple of times I felt the situation was too risky for me to handle but, lacking an alternative, tempted fate. It always works out but it's increasingly difficult.
And my sense is that, contrary to the impression the photos gives, is that even when she's home, she's not there. The anxiety is there, not Joyce. Which is profoundly depressing. It's as if she's gone now.
The winds gusted to 60 mph, rattling the bathroom baffle, and the rain pelted the house but we were lucky to avoid worse wind and hail in the Bay area that night.
But it was a fitting metaphor for the day.