Listening with My Eyes: An Abused Horse. A Mother with Alzheimer's. The Journey to Help Them Both.
Written and Narrated By: Patricia J. Conoway
Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
Nonverbal communication saves the day, over and over
Patricia Conoway didn’t know it, but that horse she bought right before her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s would turn out to be the right teacher at the right time.
She shoulda known something was wrong when the owner handed over the horse, a mare named Dream, saying he didn’t like the horse, and the horse didn’t like him. She shoulda known something was wrong when the man finally got the horse into the trailer by terrorizing her. She shoulda know something was wrong when she looked at the horse’s face and saw severe scarring.
But she was in love: Dream was her dream horse.
Soon, she came to realize Dream had been severely abused: She could barely ride her, preferring to be thrown rather than out of control on top of her; she couldn’t touch her face; she couldn’t shoe Dream either. It took much training in gentle horsemanship to develop a relationship with Dream. And soon she also came to realize that MUCH of that training could be useful when dealing with her mother’s devolving cognitive health.
Conoway learned to “listen” by watching for the slightest change of expression on her mother’s face, for the slight furrowing of brows, for the briefest flicker in her mother’s eyes. She learned to meet pressure with pressure, not trying to force her mother to go anywhere, but to reassure with firm yet not too much physical assertiveness. These were all things she learned when developing her relationship with Dream.
I liked Listening with My Eyes because it in no way celebrates the lucid moments as My Mom My Hero does. There are precious few of those with Conoway’s mother. Rather it’s about how her relationship with her mother evolves with each step backwards her mother takes as the disease progresses. Throughout their story, it sounds like there are profound changes in her mother’s physical health that goes with the vast cognitive decline. Conoway celebrates the fact that her mother at least knows her as someone who is good to her; she doesn’t sweat that her mom might not know her name, might not be able to place her.
And throughout the book, she is a STRONG advocate for her mother’s rights, her mother’s dignity. She fights for even just the basic needs she’s paying the facility for. As she narrates this, her own audiobook, you can tell she’s still pretty much seething that sometimes even the most basic of care was beyond the abilities or even interests of those in charge. She is thankful to the lowly caregivers but is scathing in her portrayal of management. Truly, she’s got a bone to pick with them.
I also liked how she’d tell of her journey with her mother then tell of her journey with Dream at length. One can get the true sense of just how far she and Dream grew to trust each other, and one can see how that could really be quite useful when trying to be a caregiver for someone who is just as nonverbal as Dream is.
The audiobook ends with several appendices which are quite enlightening, covering medications and her beliefs in how they are used, how to find a good facility should you require it for a loved one, and a few other things that are good to know if you have found yourself to be the newly initiated in the world of dementia.
We have a dearly loved one in a facility at this time, and I find Conoway’s views on management to be quite justified: There’s a constant turn-around, and the place keeps changing ownership. There’s a huge amount of staff turnover, and the people who do the hands-on caring get paid the least. It’s aggravating!
And it’s also just plain sad. But throughout the ten years that Listening with My Eyes covers, Conoway never feels sorry for herself, and she never views her mother as anything less than worthy of the greatest love and care possible. It’s ultimately quite an uplifting book, and I’m really glad I listened to it. As the disease takes its toll in our lives here on this end, I’ll be listening to it again quite soon.
Nonverbal does NOT mean there’s no hope of true and loving communication!
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