u/ApekZombie

My nan has been in a rest home facility for about a year now. She's 94. My mum and I lived with her after my mum left my dad when I was around 1. After my mum passed my nan stayed with me and my family the last 10 years.

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She's always been fiercely independent, but last year she took a fall while we were out for the day (she had an elder alarm that connects to paramedics but she didn't think to press it). When we got home we called the ambulance and they took her to hospital. A CT scan showed she had a mass in her brain that had been growing for a while and was now inoperable.

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She went downhill pretty fast, ended up in hospice, then perked up and we got her home. We arranged for home help, but she went downhill again shortly after and ended up in the hospital and came right again. At this point the doctors recommended fulltime care for her, and we talked to her about it. She agreed.

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After moving her into the rest home she isolated herself for a while, but then started hanging out in the activities lounge with the rest of the residents and made friends with a lovely lady there. I should have probably mentioned but she's as deaf as a bedpost, and for the last couple years we've had to communicate to her with a dry erase board (she said she didn't want us or her to spend money on hearing aids because she wouldn't be around long enough to be worth it).

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About 2 or 3 months ago she started speaking a lot less. Maybe saying one or two word sentences. And it declined from there. The last few weeks I wasn't sure whether she was able to recognise the words I wrote, or even me.

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Today though, when I walked in and waved she had a huge smile and started asking me a question and telling me about something, but her words were jumbled up, and I could see in her eyes she realised what she was saying didn't make sense. But it was just so good to hear her voice and see her smile.

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I had nowhere else to post this so I hope this is okay.