We've had a break through!!!

Ok, so not like this huge miraculous break through(although that would totally rock!!). From the very beginning of Mom's diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia, she has had serious set backs with communicating effectively. We(me, my aunt, my mom, & the psychiatrist) finally figured out that Mom's biggest hurdle in speaking was the fear & realization that she would say the wrong thing. For months, my aunt & I would try our very best to reassure her that she didn't need to worry about saying the wrong thing or not being able to find the right word at the right time. It can be frustrating for everyone involved just because sometimes it can take quite a bit of time for mom and somebody else to be able to understand eachother. In her way of defending herself, she just decided that she wasn't going to talk very much at all. However, she would have these great little conversations with our dog, Lizzie. It's super to see her talking, but super irritating that she just wants to talk to the dog! I get the fact that there's no pressure from Lizzie. Lizzie is not going to tell her that she meant to say 'dinner' instead of 'car'. Lizzie will sit there and just wag her tail no matter what. Then we found out that mom was doing ok with talking at the adult day care program. Again, very frustrating. My mom is able to participate in small discussions at the day center, but couldn't tell me what she wanted to do for the day. Finally, something either clicked in her head or she got over the anxiety(my guess is the second just because she's started to be a little less inhibited in other ways....another blog post for that later), but it doesn't matter! My mom will now have a conversation with you!! Now I can't guarantee that it will make much sense or that it won't take some time to figure out what she's trying to say, but she will now routinely tell me what she did during the day. And she'll tell me again in 20 minutes. And possibly again in another 5 minutes after that! She will ask me how my day was. That hasn't happened for about 4 months. So we went from very little speech to a whole lot almost over night. She still has very little, if any, emotions in her speech or body language, so that can be challenging. And some days are still just really good while others I think that her brain has just decided to throw in the towel. Life continues. Day by day. Always in motion and never staying still.