Lynne’s Aegis community is open fully for you to visit or take her out. A gentle reminder that all visitors will be required to show proof of receiving a COVID booster prior to entering and masks must be worn at all times please.
Lynne loved the sun on her face and closed her eyes for the sweet dreams she was having on Sunday when her brother and sister-in-law took her for a walk outside, after a long wait.
covid
Lynne wanted to be the first resident in assisted living to receive the Covid vaccination. Staff said, “She was a champ! She told her boys about it immediately afterward.
caregiving
Aegis staff and residents are scheduled to receive their 1st Covid-19 vaccination Thursday, 1/14/21 from 11 am to 5 pm. I have signed her vaccination authorization. Their second shot must be delivered within 21-28 days after their first one.
Hallelujah!
Fun activities under Covid
I can take Lynne outside alone, so in heavy rain we quietly drove to the lakefront and around town playing Christmas & folk music. She focused on passing scenes with memories of walks and restaurants. Caregivers found her missing birthday dress.
She clicked into her front seatbelt. We liked seeing Cal Anderson Park swept clean again and hoped the neighborhood could find peace. We sipped Dick’s vanilla milkshakes. We drove past her former home. She remembered times at closed restaurants close by, her boys playing along the shoreline, Uncle Ike’s. She laughed when I reminded her she walked me downhill to the Lake so fast we had to turn around so I could get back up. Finally, she carried her heavy Christmas wreath of green and red bells up her room.
Fun activities
Lynne called. “I’ve got COVID.”
Fun activities
“I’m sorry,” I said, startled. “But you’re healthy, good lung capacity…. Hey, wait a minute. Nobody’s called me. Someone would have called me. I’m going to hang up and call you back.”
The concierge confirmed no residents tested positive and they’ll test again in a week. Following those results over time they could remove restridtions. I gave Lynne the good news. She was happy with that. We chatted a while. She said, “I can’t stop crying.”
Her camera wasn’t on so I couldn’t see her. She kept fumbling with it until she turned it on. She was pleased with herself. The chair was not in front of the Facebook Portal so I couldn’t see her. She started crying. “This COVID thing,…..”
“Of course you cry. You’re in a lockdown.”
“I feel like a baby.”
“It’s healthy to cry. You’ve got music. You can tell Alexa to play music.”
“Oh, yea.”
“What music do you want?”
“Lyle Lovett.”
“Tell her.”
“Alexa, play Lyle Lovett.”
Alexa did. Lynne stood up and danced. I saw half of her dance. She sang the lyrics and danced to her bed. And she cried again and sat down.
“Lynne, I can’t see you.”
She moved the chair over. She told Alexa to stop. She saw my face. “What happened to your nose?”
How did she spot that, I wondered.? I had a bandaid because my sleep machine rubbed my the paper-thin skin on my nose and caused it to bleed until it scabbed over. When I saw it in the morning I was too sleepy to know what it was until I picked it off. It beld because I take blood thinner so I taped it tight to stop the bleeding. She doesn’t miss a thing.
We chatted. The TV wasn’t on and it was time to go, so we hung up.
She woke me up at 10:15 pm with a staff caregiver because Lynne was sad. I tld him the Alexa was off because I couldn’t drop in on her. It was unplugged. I told him tennis was on TV so he looked for the remote and to find the channel manually. I turned on my TV. She and I watched tennis like Karen and I used to do. We talked about Serena’s hair. I said it looked like a mop on top of her head. She said, “Its’s beautiful. It’s purple.”
It was purple. We shared memories when she played doubles tennis in high school and won fifth in the state championshp. I couldn’t remember her partner’s name. “Sophit. She came over here to play tennis.”
“You have a better long term memory than I do.”
She laughed. “Dad…”
We talked until we were past tired and decided to go to bed. Nothing had worked quite right: thinking she has COVID, forgetting she could turn on music, unpluging echo, tutning off the video camera, crying, calling me after I went to sleep, wanting to go to bed but unable to without caregiver help and afraid to go out the door to ask.
I told her I’d call the concierge. We hung up. The concierge said she’d go right up and get her in bed.
I tell myself to remember we chatted, we laughed, we cried, we danced, we watched tennis, we shared memories and we persisted.
Fun Activities. Corona-virus. Covid-19
Ten minutes before an afternoon business conference call yesterday, I phoned Lynne’s Portal. She answered in her fuzzy sky-blue cotton sweater. She picked it out at Aritzia before Christmas when we shopped at University Plaza for her surprise Christmas present. “Tell me about your day.”
“It was fun. I like it here. I feel like I’m one of the crowd.”
Some of the people were still a stitch, though. I asked if she ever says, “Alexa, play music.”
She said, “Alexa, play music.”
Alexa filled her apartment with a hit from her high school days. She laughed. She was overjoyed. On impulse I told her my birthday was tomorrow.
“It is? We’ll have to do something.”
She had to go to the bathroom. I had to hang up.
I called the concierge and asked if someone could help Lynne give me a birthday present. He liked that idea and would work on it. I scheduled a video chat when a caregiver could make sure Lynne was there. On her floor they only schedule two per day at 11:00 and 11:30 am. 11:00 am was available.
I didn’t tell him my son and his family are arriving after lunch. Maybe I can add them to my video chat with Lynne while they are driving.
Late that afternoon the medical director phoned about my email regarding Covid-19 testing. They had a professional team test every resident and caregiver in the 124 apartments on six floors. She observed every test. They hoped for results in 24 hours or so.
We wait. To celebrate.
Health Issues
A caregiver was infected with the coronavirus when they worked in Lynne’s Life Neighborhood memory care floor on June 22. The caregiver tested positive on June 24. Today, June 30, a test team arrived to test every resident, caregiver and visitor on the floor who might be infected. We do NOT know either how long it will take to get results for all the tests, or how long Lynne might be quarantined based on the results of everyone on the floor. Nor do we know what would be done if residents on the floor or caregivers are infected.
We wait and are thankful. We are thankful that Aegis follows strict health protocols to limit the spread of the virus and Lynne follows them. Weeks ago this floor had a resident infected by Covid-19 and no one else became infected. We are thankful health care workers are continuously reducing the severity and length of symptoms and improving recovery rates. We are thankful for your prayers and concerns.
Short-short story
Midnight. My two sleeps in my apartment were challenged last night. A beep-beep-beep sound penetrated my first sleep at a way-to-early time, first raising awareness and next understanding – it was a warning beep. For what? My heart? My bi-pap sleep machine? I hit the bi-pap stop button. Pulled off my sleep mask to find the source of the beep. The beep had stopped. When did it stop? I checked my bi-pap screen. No warning lights. My heart monitor screen on the floor? Green glow means OK. My radio alarm? No alarm lights on. My phone? No alarm going off. What? Silence. Sleepy. What? Check them again. Walk out my bedroom into my kitchen. Nothing on the microwave. The oven. What? Was it a truck backing up on the street below my open fifth-story window? The beep was too loud for that.
I was alone with questions. If Karen was alive she would help me figure it out. Or ask why my alarm went off. At least I avoided that question.
What to do now? I had too many options for my sleepy fog.
I could go back to sleep. I tried it. Didn’t work. Got up. Frustrated. Pasted comments from friends on Lynne’s Facebook page so I’d have a written file in case I ever figured out what to do with them. I made notes for a to do list. Ate breakfast and climbed back into bed for my second sleep of the night. Frustrated. This is hard.
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6:00 am: I was asleep so this is based on what I’ve gleaned about Lynne’s normal wake-up routine.
Lynne woke up in her assisted living apartment to the white noise of rushing water in her sound machine. Good sleep. Turned off her machine. She sorted through her options in her cognitive fog. She never goes back to sleep. Dawn rose through her 3rd-story window with a view over the rooftops of Seattle’s Madrona neighborhood. Occasional cars drove by, fewer with the Covid-19 lockdown that squashed the early bustle of commerce at the corner of Madison and 23rd St. Silence prevailed. Way too early. Too early for a caregiver to knock on her door and say “Good morning, time to get dressed.” No one to comb her hair, put on makeup. No one with breakfast. No one with medications.
She got out of bed. She saw a blue and white sweater on the floor and pulled it on over her pajama top. She did not see her glasses. She ignored the books on her bedside table. She went to the bathroom. She came out to the living room.. What to do?
She saw books in the chair. The Lacuna. She didn’t like that book. She saw magazines. Sojourner, Dad’s magazine. Journey, Dad’s magazine. Astoria was on the table. She liked that book. She opened it and started reading. She read for a while. She got tired of reading it. She went into her bedroom and laid down on her bed. She saw The Seamstress on the table by her bed. She opened it and started reading. Then she did not want to read books. And no one had knocked on the door. She wanted to leave her room, but she could not go outside without a caregiver. She was hungry. She had to wait until they brought her breakfast. She could not sit with her friends for breakfast. She had to stay. Alone. This is hard. She walked into her living room. She saw her phone. She was surprised. Where did that come from? She picked it up. She called Dad.
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7:30 am A gentle jingle-jingle-jingle penetrated my second sleep, first into my awareness and second into my understanding. My phone was ringing for a video chat. At 7:30 am? Too early. Rushed over and picked up the phone. Lynne calling.
Her face popped up on my screen. She did not have her glasses on. She had bags under her eyes, or maybe yesterday’s mascara wasted after a night-on-the-face. A blue and white sweater covered her pajama top. Her mouth drooped. Her voice cracked.
“This is hard,” she said.
Somehow, she had found her phone. I realized it was left in her room after yesterday’s video chat with her boys. Everyone had fun on that chat. Her voice jumped with excitement as each boy joined the chat. The phones were full of laughter. The boys created hi jinks in the Messenger app with a feature that super-imposes silly images and masks on participant’s faces. Dad clicked on with huge framed glasses and clenched a rose between his teeth that kept falling out when he talked. She had belly laughs. “Oh, I needed this,” she said.
That call ended last night as always. Lynne and I slid into sadness as one boy at a time vanished. One had to go to work. Another had homework to do. The youngest had already left to finish his paper due the next day. I was last. “I’ve got to go too,” I forced myself to say. I could tell it was hard for her to lose the last face. I promised to connect tomorrow. I clicked her face off. Silence. It was hard.
Now Lynne and I were on the phone before breakfast. Like old times before we took her phone away. She called Karen time and again at odd hours when she could find it. We reprogrammed it to make it easy to call my phone and left it at the concierge desk to know where it was and keep it charged. She usually needs a caregiver to start the call.
She was apologizing for calling, for being early, for interrupting, for not having an appointment. But it was hard.
We chatted about the day and the fun we had with the boys. Too soon it was time to click off again. It was hard.
Lynne is thriving during this lockdown thanks to a host of caring staff. I got this email (slightly edited) and photo from one of the staff: “I wanted to send you a quick update on Lynne. I have attached a photo from her walk yesterday. She said it felt so nice to get outside and was in such a good mood after her walk. We will take her again this evening since it is such a beautiful day. She also always looks forward to her walks during the day with caregivers. I am glad you two have been able to connect via FaceTime and I know she looks forward to each time she gets to talk with you. Hopefully this craziness won’t go on for much longer and we can go back to normal, but until then I am here to provide updates and photos 🙂”
I need those updates because I don’t get her full experiences without visits with her and staff.