Philip Y. Kao PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

coughs, and workers were gathering their belongings for the end of the day’s shift. I
came back up to the dining room in the health and rehabilitation centre, and found
Gwen, still alone, staring out of the window into the coming darkness.
Ryan
On another day, I showed up promptly at 9 o’clock in the morning. I met Deena, the
social worker, who was going to hand me some instructions. She introduced herself, and
offered me a comforting smile. Three other residents were leaning in their wheelchairs,
half-watching the morning news, as we started heading towards her office. Deena
closed the door behind us and said, “Ryan will be thrilled to get a male visitor. He wasn’t
too interested in the past one. Just so you know, he’s had a stroke and is beginning to
display some vascular dementia. You can keep him company, and this may help his
dementia from getting worse.”
When I first approached Ryan’s room, which of course was all the way at the end of the
corridor—as these things usually are and not just in the movies—I didn’t know what to
expect. We ran into a nurse who looked at Deena and asked if she could be of assistance.
Without saying anything, Deena mouthed the word (Ryan) and the nurse understood
the nature of our visit. I entered the room and took notice of the bricolage ensemble
before me. There were the usual suspects: a TV remote duct taped together, medicine
pills next to a small paper bowl of butterscotch pudding, newspaper clippings, an
incomplete set of used poker cards, and a teal coloured plastic dysphagia cup for the
successful completion of swallowing. I walked toward Ryan without maintaining direct
eye contact; I was shy, or perhaps I felt that we should both be rather coy in our initial
encounter. Deena said to Ryan, “I’d like to introduce Phil. He’s here to hang out with you
and to learn a thing or two from his elders. Would you mind it if he spent some time
with you?” Ryan said, “Well, I suppose so. I don’t see any harm in that.” And so Deena
left us to our own devices.
Ryan had nice thin whitish hair, which was brushed to the right side of his head. I
noticed that his cheekbone on the right side of his face was indented, and that he had a
few neck warts, and was missing some front teeth. The room was nothing special, and
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