Paper Faces on Parade

I see many Winnie the Poohs at the hospital (aka Winnie aka Pooh aka Pooh Bear), as you may guess.  Many look like this, a bit flat and with small wounds, designed to have a removable shirt:

They come for spas:

New hearts and stuffing:

And plumping up so they have a proper belly again:

Sometimes they look like this:

A bit more loved… or as his person said, in more “desperate condition”.

He also had a spa (not everyone does):

As you may’ve noticed, he needed a new nose and there were several options:

His heart had a pooh on it as well as some magic from a heffalump:

And after a bit of arm and smile surgery, soon he was healthy and ready to fly home:

His person wrote “He looks wonderful!”

The final Pooh I’m going to show you today just flew home yesterday.  He is always called Pooh Bear.  He is 14 years old and showed every year of hugs.  

Here are the photos his person’s mom sent for diagnosis:

As you can see, Pooh Bear was a bit flat and a bit gray.  He came in for a spa:

Got new stuffing and a magical Heffalump heart to preserve a bit of his original stuffing:

And finally was clean and plump and fluffy and ready to fly home:

“Oh yeah, every time that dad forgets mom is dead, we head to the cemetery so he can see her gravestone.”

WHAT. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard some version of this awful story. Stop taking people with dementia to the cemetery. Seriously. I cringe every single time someone tells me about their “plan” to remind a loved one that their loved one is dead.

I also hear this a lot: “I keep reminding mom that her sister is dead, and sometimes she recalls it once I’ve said it.” That’s still not a good thing. Why are we trying to force people to remember that their loved ones have passed away?

If your loved one with dementia has lost track of their timeline, and forgotten that a loved one is dead, don’t remind them. What’s the point of reintroducing that kind of pain? Here’s the thing: they will forget again, and they will ask again. You’re never, ever, ever, going to “convince” them of something permanently. 

Instead, do this:

“Dad, where do you think mom is?”

When he tells you the answer, repeat that answer to him and assert that it sounds correct. For example, if he says, “I think mom is at work,” say, “Yes, that sounds right, I think she must be at work.” If he says, “I think she passed away,” say, “Yes, she passed away.” 

So finally one day Alice did the whole “JANET IS HERE” and this nurse rather nastily went “Janet is dead” and before it could go any further I said “excuse me??? How dare you say something so horrible to my sister?”

The nurse was pissed, because I was “feeding Alice’s delusions.” Alice didn’t have delusions. Alice had Alzheimer’s.

But I made sure it went into Alice’s chart that she responded positively to being allowed to believe I was Janet. And from that point forward, only my specific patient referred to me as “Nina” in front of Alice—everyone else called me Janet, and when Alice said my name wasn’t Nina I just said “oh, it’s a nickname, that’s all.” It kept her calm and happy and not sobbing every time she saw me.

Always remembered that, always did it. Nothing worse than hearing someone with memory loss ask the same question over and over again only to be met with: “We already told you!”