Tonight, after dinner, Tanja announced, “Well, I fed myself. And I used a knife and fork.”
Wren and I looked at each other. I can’t be sure but I imagine we were thinking along the same lines: namely that he and I had been sitting there having a normal, chatty dinner giving zero thought to how Tanja’s food was getting to her mouth.
“And,” she said, “Who put the plates on the table? I did.”
“How did you do that?” I said.
“One at a time,” she replied.
“I meant, how did you reach them?”
“I just kinda did it.”
That’s what her progress is like these days. Incremental. Almost unnoticeable, until it isn’t.
In fact, in some ways, the best measurement of her progress is in all the things I don’t get to do anymore. I only get to feed her if she is really tired, or if it’s soup. Other than that, my forking skills are unneeded. She can get her shoes on and off without me and I stand jealously to one side as she knots and double knots the laces. And tonight the pants came off without any of my expert help.
But the thing I really miss is brushing her teeth.
The first time she asked me to do it, she sent me down to Safeway for a decent toothbrush and some Tom’s toothpaste. I came back to the ICU, proudly showed her my purchases and awaited praise.
“Ok,” she said. “Perfect. Can you brush my teeth now.”
“Absolutely,” said I, wondering if, in fact, I could. It hadn’t actually dawned on me until then that, with her hands essentially immobile, she would not be doing it herself. So I put toothpaste on toothbrush.
“Wet the toothbrush,” she said.
I went over to the sink and doused it, came back to her bedside, she smiled and I went in.
It was challenging and strangely fun. The back teeth are the toughest, of course, because you want to give the gums a good scrub but you don’t want to jam the toothbrush into the far limits of the mouth. A balance must be achieved. Upper, lower, buccal, lingual. A quick brush of the tongue. The rinse is hard to do elegantly, because she was reclined and wearing a c-collar, but she took a sip from her water bottle, swished and then I held a cup and a paper towel and she spat as best she could.
“I don’t know why I haven’t been doing this for you all along,” I said.
As we progressed, and she could sit up more, we got pretty good at the whole process. And then, one day, she did it herself.
“Wow! That’s great! Look at you,” I said. And I meant it. It’s great she can do that, and so much more now. But I kind of miss it. Not even kind of.
If you’ve got that person in your life and you’re having a particularly good night, or maybe a particularly bad night, like maybe you’re lodged in one of those fights that you know full well should be over, that will be over tomorrow so why not tonight?, or maybe just a normal night where you’re a little bored, not with them, exactly, but there they are, so convenient as a receptacle for your discontent–if any of these, or really any other circumstances apply, maybe the thing to do, even if you’re pretty sure you don’t want to, or especially if that’s the case, is to simply show up bedside with their toothbrush, a cup of water and a hand-towel and say, “Darling, may I brush your teeth for you?”
I bet something would happen. And it might be something fun!
And if that works out, maybe get yourself a pack of Huggies wet-naps and go next level.
But this is about Tanja’s progress, so my apologies for getting off topic.
After dinner, she brought her plate out to the kitchen and tugged at the dishwasher door. It resisted her efforts. Might as well have been the gates of Jericho. She put the dish in the sink.
“That’s all I’ve got,” she said. “I guess I’ve progressed from being a baby to being a teen.”
Here’s a song that always gets Tanja going. I don’t think we’ve referenced it before but it fits her so well, somehow, that twice would be ok:
Tanja power 