Things to Do: Activities for Patient and Caregiver, Part 1
There wasn't a lot my mother could still do at the time when returned home to take care of her. She could still walk, and on nice days we tried to take at least one good walk outside. She could no longer fold clothes or make beds, though she still tried, she just wadded up clothes, and pulled the sheets back instead of up. She did enjoy helping with the dishes. She had to ask where each piece went, but she loved to dry and put away the dishes. She called this "washing dishes", and she thought they weren't washed unless they were dried and put away. Once when she didn't help and I left them in the drain rack, she complained later "That girl didn't wash the dishes!"
She loved to listen to soft music, and she would usually fall asleep in her chair while she was listening. Though TV became too disturbing to her, there were videos we could watch, old family-type TV series, like "The Waltons" and "Little House" were favorites. She usually enjoyed it when I read to her from magazines or books, though I had to pick just the right kinds of stories.
I tried to provide an atmosphere that was cheerful and neat. The old house needed some new floor tiles, wallpaper, and paint, so I did some of that early in my stay there. Not too much, though, because it began to be disturbing to her. I placed plants everywhere inside and on the front porch, and I planted flowers everywhere outside so that we could see them when we took our walks. I hung birdfeeders on the old clothesline pole and attached some to windows with suction cups, and she enjoyed watching the birds. Often the birdfeeders attracted squirrels as well, and she really enjoyed watching them.
My mother loved to walk outside. When she was feeling well and the weather was nice, sometimes she would want to go walking several times during the day. I thought it would be nice to have some flowers to enjoy all along our walking path. I planted flowers around the back of the house so that she would see them as soon as we walked out of the back door. She usually wanted to walk over to the clothes line where the bird feeders were and see the birds, which flew away as we approached. Then she would want to go check on the kittens down at the shed or my brothers animals (horses, goats, pigs, or whatever he was keeping there at the time) in the pasture near the old barn. Then we would walk around the house, stopping to see the roses along the side of the house if they were blooming. If it was time to go to the mail box, she would walk about half-way down the drive-way with me and say "I'll wait here" because she was afraid to get close to the road. Then we would stop at the circular flower bed in the front yard, where there were tulips and daffodils in the spring, poppies and zinnas in the summer, and mums in the fall. We would walk by an evergreen tree that she'd planted that was having a hard time, never grew much and was drooping at the top, and she would reach out to it and say "poor little tree." Then we would walk across the yard and up a gradual slope on the way to the garden, viewing a rectangular flower bed with more of the same kinds of flowers, and she would usually reach out and touch the taller ones and say how pretty they were. The little hill up to the garden was the hardest part of the walk for her, just a gradual incline, but often she would be out of breath when we reached the top. That's one reason I wanted to put the bench in the garden.
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