I wasn't actually sitting in front of the computer when I talked to my grandma earlier today, and even though she went to the movies with her friends on Saturday -- for the first time since her stroke -- I didn't expect she'd actually have anything to say about the film. But I was very, very excited and pleased that she was able to follow the movie, had a good time, and had actual things to say about it -- and had I pressed for more, I probably could have gotten a real post out of this. But what she said about it: very crude, and especially when Zohan was having sex with the elderly people, that's not the kind of thing elderly people would enjoy seeing, it seemed like they were making fun of them, and certainly that's not what happens in the salon she goes to (I should hope not!). She thought the hummus gags were funny (as did I, when I saw the film), but the whole thing lacked substance and she didn't think it really had anything much to say about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She's not sure why it was a movie, why anyone thought this was a movie worth making. So her opinion of movies has not changed much, and yet at the same time she enjoyed going and hopefully she'll get back in this routine with her friends and go again next week -- she's worried they didn't have as good a time, because she was there with her aide, but I expect they had the same kind of time they had before, and it's all fine.
I got to see her a bunch while I was home and I'd say she's 70% back to herself overall -- she's having trouble with some small stuff, she's not really able to decipher menus and make sense of money (she doesn't seem to be able to remember what different kinds of things typically cost, which seems like a very specific thing to be having trouble with), but for the most part eating out lunch with her was good, and more and more I'm finding that she's back to herself as far as following conversations and being able to talk about things beyond the stroke and being able to be a part of my life and of the lives of the rest of her family and friends without any real change, so that's good. And she's seeing a psychiatrist on Wednesday for the first time, who will perhaps (and perhaps hopefully) get her on some sort of anti-depressant to help her feel even more back to herself. More than before, having now spent some real time with her post-stroke and post-hospital and post-rehab, I feel like she really dodged a bullet and was really really lucky that her deficits are pretty minimal, and that it's likely depression more than anything else that's causing most of her problems at this point, besides some task-related stuff, and the reading that doesn't seem to be coming back, at least not very quickly. But hopefully eventually.
Welcome back, grandma. We're rooting for you!!
Ruth
Posted by: RES | July 09, 2008 at 06:30 AM
Glad to hear she's doing better!!
Posted by: Dave! | July 09, 2008 at 02:15 PM