Since his arrival at Green Pastures at 9:30 Fela has been on edge and very demanding. He has been pulling me around the house to get what he wants and has wanted me to give him a lot of touch prompts to finish tasks. I kept reminding him to be “gentle”, “hands at sides”, “nice hands” but he was struggling to comply for very long. He did not have a nap which may have helped to calm down his nervous system since he was awake since 4:30.
We did the board in the lounge, and he first of all listened to romantic classical music as he played the tongue drum. He elected to go upstairs after his snack, used the loo, then watched church online. Fela requested to play cards with me whilst the church service was underway. He seemed more focused on this. He kept signing to finish and put away the cards, but then after a few minutes he would insist on my sitting in the swivel chair and getting the tray to play cards again. This happened throughout the day. It was as if he couldn’t make up his mind about the cards so his mental processing was slow and confused even though he was on edge.
Fela was rushing his food at lunchtime; just before he had made the sign for sleep. He selected his own cards as we did the board – this included footspa and manicure. I gave him a pedicure, then prepared a footspa. I then range Nanna Hazel to wish her “happy mothers day”. Fela was rubbing his face with an aloe vera leaf so I didn’t give him a phone to eavesdrop.
After speaking to Nanna, Fela chose to come upstairs to play cards again. At first I thought he wanted “car” but it was “cards”.
*When requesting “car”, he normally signs for a steering wheel.
I put ‘Summer Bossa Nova with Ocean Waves’ music on youtube in the background, and this time we counted the cards as he dealt, and I shuffled five times as usual before giving him the two packs to categorise. After dinner, the food settled for nearly 30 minutes then I encouraged Fela to bounce on the gym ball as we played dance music on youtube. Fela bounced for 55 minutes moderately and vigorously. We played a lot of ‘N’Sync’ and ‘Backstreet Boys’; two highlights were ‘I Just wanna dance the night away’ by the Mavericks and ‘Lovely Day’ by Bill Withers.
Fela had requested ‘hot chocolate’ throughout the day so I honoured this, and gave him some homemade savoury banana bread with peanut butter which he seemed to enjoy.
We took him home just before 21:00, and left him with Teresa as he was on the loo, and just before he was about to enter the bath.
Arousal States – Start: 1 Baseline End: 1 Baseline Did his state change? Yes to 3 – Very Noisy Fela was noisy on and off throughout the shift. Did he have a bowel movement? No Bristol score: Was Fela incontinent?: No Did he have vigorous exercise?: Yes – Bouncing on the gym ball.
