It's a Miracle?

I talked to my dad this weekend and got an update on my mom. He decided not to tell me right away with the good news--he wanted to see if it stuck before he got his hopes up. My mother--who has Alzheimer's and has been chair bound and mute for the last nine months--is walking, talking and feeding herself.

It is kind of unbelievable. That is not to say that I don't believe it or think it isn't true. I believe she is walking, talking and feeding herself. I don't believe her Alzheimer's is receding, though. I think something else is going on.

Many months ago (I don't remember when), the staff at Danbury found my mother one morning in a different state.

"What has different about her?" my dad had asked Deena, the head nurse.

"She wasn't crabby and angry," she had said. "We thought something had happened to her." Even Alzheimer's patients don't have that dramatic of changes in behavior overnight.

My dad met my mom at the hospital. One possible explanation for this change was my mother could have had a stroke. The only way to tell was for certain would have been to give my mother an MRI.

"An MRI isn't worth the trouble," my husband said, echoing what my father had been told by the physicians at the hospital. "She couldn't sit still for that long, and they would have to anesthetize her. It wouldn't be worth the risk. Plus, the treatment wouldn't change."

One day a few weeks ago, a new hospice nurse came to see my mom. The new nurse gave my mother a spoon and a smaller bowl to see if she could feed herself. Much to everyone's surprise, she did. After months of being spoonfed, my mother used a spoon and fed herself.

A few days later, Laura, one of the regular nurses, tried to get my mother to walk. After months of being wheelchair bound, my mom is walking with assistance from a nurse. After my skiing accident, my quadriceps atrophied after not using them for two weeks. I feared my mother's leg muscles would be similar to mine after the accident--inert due to lack of use. Somehow, my mother's legs could handle walking. It sounds like they aren't that strong, but they are strong enough to stand and move with help.

I talked to my dad and Jack about my mother's miracle recovery. We suspect my mother had a small stroke or a TIA, and now she is bouncing back from that setback. When my grandfather had a stroke, he had speech and occupational therapy. My mother didn't have rehab for a variety of reasons. First, it was unlikely that she could have understood what was happening and could have participated. Second, they didn't know what happened, so they didn't know what to do to make her better. With her Alzheimer's, she couldn't articulate what was wrong in order to get the help she needed. Maybe she didn't want to eat for a few days because she didn't like the food. Maybe she had a stomachache, and couldn't say it. When she stopped eating, they decided to spoonfeed her. Unlike toddlers, once my mother was spoonfed, it became a one-way street. No one tried to get her to try to feed herself again. Most patients with Alzheimer's have a slow and gradual decline. Why would they assume that she would get better when that goes against the trend of the disease?

I find this fascinating, not just because my mother got better, but because the nature of assumptions. It wasn't until someone gave my mother a spoon again did they test if she could feed herself.