less talkative

We continue to worry about Mom's lessening verbosity. We're not sure what to make of it; today's home care nurse apparently did neuro checks ("What's your name? What day is today? Where are you? Follow my fingers with your eyes," etc.) and came away wishing that Mom had done a better job with them.

Mom had suffered another skin rash for a bit, but today it seems to have gone away. She doesn't show signs of any further wound-related infection, as far as we can see. If something's going on in her head, it's most likely a function of the tumor's activity.

Externally, what we see is that she's less verbal. For all we know, Mom is quieter for internal, mental reasons. Dad wondered, yesterday, whether Mom has gotten sick of us asking her with our own neuro-check questions, but in truth, we haven't been questioning her much. My brother David just texted a few minutes ago to suggest Mom might simply be bored. She still presents as aphasic and shows continued signs of perseveration (previously mentioned here), but she watches TV, walks around, does puzzles when she's sitting in the bathroom, and is otherwise about as functional as we can expect of her.

I have no idea what's happening. Perhaps we're just reading too much into her current quietude.


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