The Art (and Science) of Conversation

With therapy benefits winding down for the year, Juliana is on a shortened therapy
schedule approaching a three-week hiatus from all of it.  She is very happy to have the break and for the first time, I am not worried she will digress.  Thanksgiving marked a new milestone in our lives: no wheelchair in the house.  Of course the wheelchairs still sit around her but they are more the lazy among us to careen about and not for Juliana’s room to room transportation.  If she needs to get somewhere in the house, she walks (with help still of course, let’s just take this one milestone at a time).  As soon as she knew that I was serious, she stopped expecting to sit and be wheeled to the bathroom and instead, began improving on her walking. Practice, that is all it takes but it takes a whole heck of a lot of it.  If you saw the birthday video you saw that she is walking better and talking better and although therapy certainly provided the bulk of that success, it is the minute-by-minute follow-through that will make it her new normal.  So, the ‘deal’ we made with her is therapy can be on a light schedule but certain things will take its place. 

In addition to walking more frequently our big push is "conversation skills." Although her attitude is not quite the glib and happy one we saw emerge during her inpatient rehabilitation stay, her awareness of the social impact her life is having has stayed.  She is asking more questions about how this has all played out and taken a very poignant interest in all things Chris Medina.  She understands very well that his job is to prepare for his appearances, both physically, vocally and emotionally. In addition, he needs to network socially by keeping up with his fans and communicating his activities and his thoughts both home and on the road. From that understanding and her heightened reawakened interest in his career, it was an easy leap to ‘remind her’ of her job as his fiancé is very similar.  For whatever reason, she has not yet fully grasped her own star power but she does fully grasp her role as his significant other, so my covert plan to reengage her is a matter of stepping her through it.

In her previous life, being next to him for all of his musical activities was commonplace.  In this life, she is beginning to learn (or remember?) that there are expectations of her as well.  Chris used to say that she was the only person who never said, "Turn that music down: or in any way discouraged him from spending time on his music.  She planned, probably more than he planned, for him to be a rock star and for them to make that their life.  So with her renewed interest in his appearances and performances abroad I am capitalizing and taking "home therapy" in another direction and relearning how to be the supportive girlfriend she always wanted to be.  It still boggles my mind that when you have a brain injury, so many routine things just aren’t. This is just one more.

Every day after she showers, she is expected to put some effort into her appearance whether that is makeup or jewelry or clothing selections.  It is a work in progress but she does it because she is "Chris Medina’s fiancée."  Then she logs onto the internet and begins her searching of his adventures catching up on all of the sightings of her increasingly famous boyfriend.  Because her vision is limited and her hand coordination is still poor, we help her by reading and typing but the expectation is that her job is to follow the routine.  Now mind you, this "routine" is new and we are still working through the kinks but I see the opening and know it is possible.  After all, "no wheelchair in the house" became a routine and all I had to do was commit to that myself.  She is also starting to mention something that has not really been a concern to her up until now: her right eye.  I am very interested in getting this changed and even though the first doctor was not willing to do anything, it’s time for a second opinion.  So if anyone has had a corrective procedure for this eyelid opening, please contact me.  

Finally, the last part of her new routine, where she really gets to practice her conversation expectations is during her nearly nightly Skype with Chris.  She looks forward to it all day and (mostly) understands that he is not always able to squeeze in Internet time and opportunity.  He has learned not to "promise" he will contact her but instead "try his hardest" to contact her.  (Promises not kept make her very angry … and she tells everyone about how you "lied to her"… sigh.)

Anticipating her talks with Chris and "routinely being told" (AKA lectured) about how that is a very important part of a relationship—it segues very nicely into our most recent push for conversation skills, that crucial combining of articulation and interaction.  When she puts concentrated effort into her speech or "super thinks about it" (hahaha … you like that, Cheyenne?) she can articulate many words together and sometimes setting aside the "one word at a time" allows for her words to be put in context, improving the understandability overall … sometimes. Since Chris has always been pretty fluent in ‘Juliana’ her best efforts usually pay off with him.  She thinks in advance of what she wants to tell him and ask him and we practice saying it. We even practice responding and reacting.  It is the craziest thing I have ever known to be necessary, teaching someone how to have a conversation but it is just one more confounding thing she has to relearn. Since I am coaching her during these conversations it allows me to witness not only her efforts but also her effects and she is making a difference. I hear how impressed Chris is and might even hear a little more hope and excitement as he is aware that something he feared was gone is beginning is slowly returning. He is a very communicative and expressive individual (obviously) and he desperately missed the close friendship he had with Juliana, even more than the romantic life that is being rewritten. What I witnessed was Chris investing in the hope that it is possible.  But as this injury goes, what we gain we often also lose, or at least lose for a while or in bits and pieces. So until the behavior is firmly established, this is a couple of pennies to invest, not enough to cash in.  During one of her Skype conversations she asked Chris, "Am I still keeping your head up?" (A line from his song "Juliet") and he replied with the expected, “Yes, of course you are baby, every day.”  To which she responded with another line from the same song, “Then I will be your crutch.” 

So what if she isn’t writing her own dialog for her conversations? At least she has chosen the right songs to quote.

READ:  Where it all began, in For Juliana: Almost to the Almost, One Penny at a Time, by Janet Spencer Barnes.