Rose-colored glasses

As my husband settled into his new home, so did I.  Only this time there was no waiting room.  I had to come up on the elevator and walk directly by the nursing unit (actually kind of slithered by at first) and go directly to his room.  At first it was down the hall and he shared it with a roommate.  But eventually because of the condition he was in, they moved him to a private room.  To my chagrin, it was directly in front of the nurses’ station.  It was great for him, because they wanted to keep an eye on him, not so great for me because they were less than happy to see me from sunrise to midnight.   But it turned out alright as I proved to be much more useful to them than they expected.

As his schedule was being ironed out by the therapists, he also had a psychologist come to visit with him.  She wanted to run some tests on him to see how much he remembered.  It had finally come to the time that he needed to know that he was in a hospital and why.  She brought in some pictures to help him figure all this out.  As she showed them to him, she would ask him to point to the one that showed where his was and why.  He had no idea.   Our daily routine was born.

Anyone who came into his room had to say his name, their name, the day, date, time and that he was in the hospital because he was in an accident.  I had to bring him a watch and make sure a newspaper or something that showed the day and date was in his room. 

This doctor also would test his memory constantly.  She would bring in a barrage of memory type games.  I would watch in awe and hope that no one would try and test me because I knew I would fail horribly.  She would have him count and add numbers from 0 to 100.  Then she would ask him to start at 100 and subtract 7 and keep going.  He was great with numbers but not with faces.  At this point his long term and short term memory was pretty poor. 

Of course I would always be there.  He was much more comfortable and at ease if I stayed.  I knew not to talk when she was testing my husband and generally sat quietly in the corner.  She wanted him to answer if he could.  If he could not, she would look to me.  If she did not understand him, I would translate.  Occasionally she would ask me how I was doing.  I was somewhat familiar with her as she had visited my husband a few times while he was still on the respiratory unit.  I would always answer that I was fine.  After all this was not about me, it was about my husband. One day she asked me if I always saw everything through rose colored glasses.  Was she being sarcastic, I wasn’t sure.  As of this day, I’m still not sure.  But if she meant that I was cheerful, positive and optimistic, you betcha!   I knew that his final outcome may not end up a good one, but I was not going to bring that attitude with me through his door.  Through this whole ordeal, my husband was always as cooperative as he could be.  He worked very hard to regain some semblance of his life back and I was not going to be the one to burst that bubble.  So if it took rose colored glasses, then so be it.