My Grandmother Illness example essay topic

I have been in a good relationship with my grandmother since my childhood. When my parents have been abroad, she has become my mother. My grandmother used to live in a small village in northwestern of Turkey until she moved to Istanbul, when she gets old. Therefore, she always had a problem about getting used to live in a city. She is quite serious and she is a kind of a woman who does not give up her strict rules. Seeing the independent war of Turkey, and living in poverty at the past, had made a huge life experience on her.

Therefore; the communication that we do with her, was mostly about my growing style, and my ethical education. The difference of our generations appears almost in every conversation. For example; when I was a child, if I cut my short or shirt while playing soccer, she used to tell that she had a only one dress when she was child. Since I left my grandfather seven years ago, my grandmother has become a different person since then. Unfortunately, neither my aunts and my mother nor me and my sister, we could not understand her problem in those days. Last summer, I went back to Turkey to see my parents and friends, I had not seen them for a long time.

However; when I have seen my grandmother, I could not believe my eyes. The strongest woman that I have never seen, she was exhausted physically and mentally because of Alzheimer. Alzheimer is a very serious illness which is seen in elderly people. After the age of sixty, The brain stops or gets slower to serve, therefore, a seventy years old manor woman may behave as a new born child. Then, I figure out that after we lost my grandfather, her illness has begun. As I lost my grandfather, she has lost her husband and her lifetime friend.

Now, she had been alone in a world that she did not know, because her only liaison with the city life had been by my grandfather. Since his death, she kept all her sadness and sorrows in her mind; she refused to communicate about them with us. This situation caused starting her illness. As a result, my grandmother illness is our specific problem of communication. She needs an improvement in her communication with people around her. Now, she is in a situation where she is not able to mention her needs or the things that she wants to share with us.

Due to my grandmother's disease, I had a lot of inaccurate perceptions while I was communicating her. For example; as I mentioned before, she has lost almost all her ability to understand and talk, therefore, I was asking yes / no questions to her. Like as, do you want something to drink or do you want me to turn the TV on? If I can not figure out what she wants, until I get a clue about her need.

However; sometimes our communication may be accurate. For instance; if she takes a pissed look to an open window in the room, I understand that she wants it closed. Then, after I closed the window, she says just "thanks" or looks at me with a happy smile. No doubt, it was not easy to catch our communication level, because I had no idea about her illness, I could not put in her position. Then, I began to ask easy answered (yes / no, ok, I do, I do not) questions instead of complicated questions or sentences. I also show her the thing that I was talking about.

For example; while asking "Do you want to eat some fruits?" I was showing also a fruit, an orange or an apple, just to avoid misunderstanding. Even thought, my grandmother situation makes me sad, I tried to forget that feeling by getting busy of taking care of her. After I lived the first shock, I began to understand her and her disease, so I might communicate better with her. When she tries to ask or say something while we were watching TV, I was turning the volume off as a non verbal reaction. At that time, I get nervous because if she can not say key words about her need (medicine, water, pullover... ) I may not figure out what she wants, and that makes me crazy.

As cognitive interpretation, I always think "What does it happen if I could not understand what my grandmother says?" while she asks or says something to me. Finally, I understand better why we communicate, why it is a need, and why we need it. Unfortunately, my grandmother has paid the price of lack of communication by loosing her health. I learned if we cut our own boundaries and taste the enjoy of communicate and share something, it would make us happy mentally and connect us to the life that we would never be bored from life..