Doubt The Rabbit
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2010
- Messages
- 2,208
- Reaction score
- 6
Seems like it's been forever since I've seen my sister smile naturally, without drugs or hallucinations doing it for her.
It's funny, because it feels like I'm the only one who knows what she really looks like when she's smiling. Other people seem to have forgotten what it looks like. It's not like a real smile where the corners of her mouth turn up and you can see nearly all of her teeth. That's the drugs. Because of her impaired motor skills and mask-like expression, I know her real smile hardly looks like a smile at all. Her lips stretch a little and you can just barely see her bottom teeth while her top set is clearly visible. Sometimes you'll hear a sound like "Hnnnngh" rise from her chest. Her eyes become fixed in one upward-to-the-left direction as if she were focused on some distant object. It's like she's only slightly grimacing, like she's letting out a fart. But to me, it's how I know she is really, really happy.
Anyway, I got to see that tonight for the first time in a long while. Anyone who knows, knows she's been up and down with her health so the fact that she's stable enough to be even a little bit happy is really satisfying for me.
She was playing with her doggie-piano toy tonight. By playing, I mean she puts forth a burst of energy, lifts her hand, and then slams it down on the keys so it'll light up and start singing. She quickly took notice to the reward of her actions and gave me lots of smiles and kept repeating the action until the nurse arrived and had to take her vitals. It almost killed me that both my camera and my phone were dead. Dx
Anyway, it was really rewarding. She's still "in there." When she gets really sick and dull in the face sometimes I wonder if she's become just a shell and if we're doing right by keeping her at home or if it would be better to move her to a hospice facility. Then I wonder if (and hope) it's just a phase and she'll bounce back. These diseases, their stages, and this life witnessing it all is nothing less than pure agony.
But it's things like seeing her smile like I did tonight that makes it worth everything.
It's funny, because it feels like I'm the only one who knows what she really looks like when she's smiling. Other people seem to have forgotten what it looks like. It's not like a real smile where the corners of her mouth turn up and you can see nearly all of her teeth. That's the drugs. Because of her impaired motor skills and mask-like expression, I know her real smile hardly looks like a smile at all. Her lips stretch a little and you can just barely see her bottom teeth while her top set is clearly visible. Sometimes you'll hear a sound like "Hnnnngh" rise from her chest. Her eyes become fixed in one upward-to-the-left direction as if she were focused on some distant object. It's like she's only slightly grimacing, like she's letting out a fart. But to me, it's how I know she is really, really happy.
Anyway, I got to see that tonight for the first time in a long while. Anyone who knows, knows she's been up and down with her health so the fact that she's stable enough to be even a little bit happy is really satisfying for me.
She was playing with her doggie-piano toy tonight. By playing, I mean she puts forth a burst of energy, lifts her hand, and then slams it down on the keys so it'll light up and start singing. She quickly took notice to the reward of her actions and gave me lots of smiles and kept repeating the action until the nurse arrived and had to take her vitals. It almost killed me that both my camera and my phone were dead. Dx
Anyway, it was really rewarding. She's still "in there." When she gets really sick and dull in the face sometimes I wonder if she's become just a shell and if we're doing right by keeping her at home or if it would be better to move her to a hospice facility. Then I wonder if (and hope) it's just a phase and she'll bounce back. These diseases, their stages, and this life witnessing it all is nothing less than pure agony.
But it's things like seeing her smile like I did tonight that makes it worth everything.
