The slow river of inevitable decline

One day follows another. We survived the frightening rapids and in some ways it is peaceful now. Rosemarie is up mid morning every day and is usually awake in her reclining chair when I arrive. She is (apparently) eating all of her breakfast and all of her lunch and certainly all of her supper plus her afternoon treat. Increasingly she is being taken to activities by the team and the warmer weather means that we can go into the garden more. She seems to like me reading to her and I think she appreciates me moisturising her face and neck. She seems generally very comfortable in the chair and has not had a UTI for a good few months.

And yet....

I am still losing her bit by bit each day. Her face is often contorted into a sort of twisted pursing of the lips and her hands grip randomly and tightly at anything, the wrists usually bent fully forward. Her legs are rigidly bent to the side and her body is sometimes unnaturally twisted. She hardly ever 'talks' but frequently emits staccato sounds in a startled outburst. She rarely smiles at me or even registers my presence. She is barely aware she is in the garden and does not to see the flowers. She seems to have stopped looking at the pictures of her granddaughter.

Sometimes the days are busy with problems to sort out and all I notice is her general state; but when it is quiet, and my mind has slowed down, I watch and notice the small signs.

There is no hope. There is just more of the same, getting worse.