visiting hours

Visited Essie on Monday evening. Her daughter Diane and Diane's husband Jim were there; Diane was giving Essie a nice manicure, and Essie was loving it. The five of us sat and chatted for a while, then Diane and Jim had to go. Mom walked out with them for a smoke, and I got to talk with Essie alone for a while.

She told me that she was having a really rough day. She woke up that morning feeling lonely, and as the day went on, she got down and depressed, feeling that no one was going to visit her. She said she felt better when Diane showed up, and then when Mom and I showed up, but she was still a bit down.

It was a good and sad talk...she talked about how she gets lonely and weepy, which then makes her feel vulnerable and so she gets snappy. She said she knew she needed to work on that, since it made some of the people around her angry with her.

It broke my heart. I told her that she was definitely entitled to her feelings, and that *she* was the one going through this, so she had to deal with it her way. I reassured her that she was not unusual, and let her know that now was the time to focus on herself and how she felt, not the way other people needed her to act so they could feel better about it. Not sure if it will help much, long term, but she thanked me for listening to her and letting her talk about how she really felt.

When Mom got back, we checked Essie out and headed up to Dairy Queen for Moo Lattes [and a brownie sundae for me]. We took our desserts and sat in the car on Main Street in Coshocton, something Mom and Essie did with their parents a lot when they were growing up. It was a really good time, even if the people watching was minimal [five people and two dogs was the final count]. Essie got brain freeze from sucking down the Moo Latte too fast, which gave us all the giggles...it was a good time.

Back to the center to get Essie ready for bed. Rubbed cream into her legs to fight the excema, got her into pajamas, got her bed ready for her. She was getting weepy as time for bed and for us to go came, but Mom held her and reminded her off all the good times she'd been having, and told her to keep those in mind when she felt down. Essie smiled at that, said she was happy to have the day with us, and calmed down...hopefully she got a good night's rest.

She hates being alone...the two things she said is she is scared of most are being forgotten and losing her independence. I'm hoping that people in her life can coordinate their visiting schedules so she gets visitors fairly regularly...she's got a lot of family in the area, so if they get together, they can cover just about every day. It's hard...people have their own lives to keep going as well, and it *is* tough to see her so frail after being so feisty all her life. But now is the time that it needs to be about *her*...she needs us.