This morning we were having breakfast and Mom asked me, "where did you grow up?" There wasn't a really easy answer to that because we lived in so many places so I just said, "with you and Dad. You and Dad raised me, you're my Mom."

She seemed pleasantly surprised and said, "then you grew up with me and Gramma, too! In Ohio. Because that's where I grew up." About then, Stan yelled from the other room, so I went to see what he wanted, leaving the subject alone.  I know I'm supposed to play along but there are days when that is hard to do.  Besides, these incidences are still semi rare enough that they still surprise me and sometimes catch me off-guard. I was glad he yelled for me when he did.

Later he and I took the dogs for a walk and were gone about 20 minutes. When we got back I smelled something cooking and distrusted my sense of smell, immediately. I knew nothing was cooking and Mom hasn't turned a stove on in over two years. So I didn't think much of it and took off my hat and coat and hung them. I walked in the kitchen and there was Mom, making hot chocolate on the stove. Wow. I asked, "watcha doin', Mom?"

"Well, I'm trying to make some hot cocoa. I used to make it all the time for Dick and the kids. But I don't think it's turning out."

Stan just about freaked. He didn't say anything but I could tell by his look that he might be getting ready to. And it is scary knowing she might used the stove. But I didn't want to upset her. I said, "well, it looks good. What kind of chocolate did you put itn it?"  She wasn't sure but I think she found chocolate chips to put in it. At least that's what it looked like.

I can't help but think that she may have dwelled on what was said at breakfast. That she may have realized that she'd forgotten (again) about being married for so long and having kids. Time and the concept of it is what she struggles with. The other night we were at Stan's son's for Thanksgiving and she was telling one of the girls about Dad and she asked me how long they were married. I said, "Almost 50 years. Just over 49, actually."

She said, "Well, that can't be right. We just did get married when he died from that Vioxx.  It couldn't have been that long."

"I know, Mom...time flies when you're having fun."

The Experienced Caregiver

We went to a surprise birthday party next door for our neighbor. There were a lot of people there, and we knew most of them. While we sat at the patio table and waited for the surprise, a couple came out and asked a woman sitting there at the table a question about eldercare.  Although I'd only met this woman once before and didn't really know her, I had heard that she had taken care of her Mother at some point.  And the way she answered the question posed to her, she seemed to have experience at it.  Well, that and the fact that she just came right out and said, "I know more about eldercare than I ever wanted to know."

Their conversation ended, the surprise came, everyone had a good time and we had birthday cake...and then they broke out the cornhole games.  (This is a very popular game here in the midwest...throwing bean bags at a hole in a board 33 feet away. Only the bean bags are full of corn. But it's similar to horseshoes)  We had a huge tournament in the alley. Mom was the banker. Each player paid 2 dollars and the winning team got the money, so Mom held it in her pocket and we got her a chair and sat it in the shade. She loves to watch us play this game.  She had a cold drink and had eaten birthday cake earlier. People were taking time out to grab a plate of food before they had to play again, and I wondered if I should get her a plate. The reason I had to think about it was because my Mom hates to eat with a plate of food in her lap. The older she gets, the less tolerant she has become of eating without a table. I kept thinking I'd just wait until the tournament ended and then she and I would eat together. It was a good plan, but because I have this built-in guilt meter that is always telling me I don't do enough, I asked her if she wanted a plate now or if she wanted to wait. The answer was just what I expected. "Oh, no honey, I'll wait until the game is over and eat with you."

Meanwhile, the Experienced Caregiver came over with a chair and sat next to Mom and proceeded to strike up a conversation. That was good, because it was my turn to play. She talked to Mom for a long time and at one point they called me over to ask me a question that Mom couldn't quite answer. I think it was where I fell in birth order. She was very pleasant and let me know that she was having a good conversation with Mom.  When she spoke to me she did so as if Mom wasn't there and when she spoke to Mom she talked to her as though she were a two-year old.  She told me about the conversation they were having.  "You're Mother and I have been having a great conversation!" I looked at Mom and she nodded her head in agreement.  The Experienced Caregiver continued, "I asked her where she lived and who she lived with.  And she told me she lives with you and Stan. And I asked her if everything was ok there with you all, and she said it was..." this continued on for a minute and I had to go back and play (thank God) but now I was worried about Mom and the way this woman was talking to her. I try my hardest every day not to talk 'down' to her or sound condescending in any way. After all, she isn't totally 'gone'......yet. And this woman seemed to be pumping her for information about her living arrangements, how she was treated, if things were acceptable for her. I was really offended by this line of questioning.

Later, I walked back over and Mom was telling her, "...we had 6 kids, they came out 3 boys first..."

"Yes, you told me that already, dear, remember? 3 boys, and then 3 girls..." the Experienced Caregiver was finishing Mom's stories almost as fast as she was finishing her beers. Mom's stories are all she has left and even though I've heard them a million times, I don't finish them for her. I let her tell them. I patted Mom on the shoulder, asked her if she was all right and went back to my game and told her to watch Stan and I win this one. (which we did). 

Next thing I know the Experienced Caregiver is bringing Mom a plate of food. I cringe, knowing what it looks like to everyone else there. This woman is looking after my Mom better than I am.  Actually, everyone was having a good time playing the game and probably didn't notice, but I sure did.  I walked over to them and looked at Mom and said, "Mom, you're making me look bad. I asked you if you wanted something to eat and you said, 'no'."  I was joking with her.

"I don't ask, I just do. I've been down this road before," the Experienced Caregiver said. Then she proceeded to tell Mom that the hot peppers she had on her sandwich were not hot, even though mom said they were. She had put banana peppers on her sandwich and Mom had looked at it, tasted it, and said the peppers were hot. "Those are not hot peppers," she told Mom.  "They have hot peppers in there but I didn't put the hot ones on your Sandwich. I put the mild ones on it. They aren't hot." Then the Experienced Caregiver looks at me and says, "I'm experienced at this."

"Experienced at what?" Mom asked.

"Eat your sandwich, dear, it's not hot, I promise."

I went back to the game and kept an eye on them. Pretty soon they were calling for me. "Your Mom's tired." (I bet). "She wants to go home."  I asked her if she was all right and she said she was just tired and was ready to go home. I walked her home and reminded her where we'd be and told her we would be home in a little bit.

I didn't say anything to her about the Experienced Caregiver that night.  I waited until the next day. Mom can barely remember what she said last, much less what kind of conversation she had the day before, but for some reason I brought it up the next day, anyway, not expecting her to remember.

"Mom, did you have a good time yesterday at the neighbors? Watching us all play cornhole?" Giving her more information like that helps her to remember sometimes.

Her eyes lit up, "Yes! I sure did."

"Did that woman drive you crazy?" I was, of course, referring to the Experienced Caregiver. I didn't use her name and was very vague in asking the question, as there were a lot of women there. But Mom didn't disappoint. She looked at me and kind of rolled her eyes and shook her head.

Then she just said, "she meant well."

 

What's the world coming to...?

There is a 4 year old who lives two doors down from us who is just adorable. She has long hair and is always in a dress and always has her fingernails and toenails painted to match. She's very outgoing and always comes up to the door when she sees Mom or I on the porch. She is very bright and very articulate for a 4 year old. And she can be kind of demanding, at times. She demands to come in, she demands to see the dogs, she opens doors on her own and one day the neighbors came home to find her in their house and half way up the stairs!

We affectionately refer to her as the "spawn of satan".

Mom loves kids and animals. That said, I was afraid this kid would come up sometime when I'm not around and come in and accidentally let the dogs out. If the dogs got out, Mom would naturally try and chase addie down (to no avail, I'm sure) and get lost in the process. Not only that, the other day the little spawn came riding down the street on her tricycle with a kitten in her basket. Well, that was all Mom needed to run out the front door and coo all over her and that kitten. And pretty soon she was off and down the street with the kid and the kitten. I kept an eye on her to make sure she made it back home. So, I decided to let this kid in the house a couple of times. She is so demanding and overbearing, that even Mom noticed, and was alarmed by it. And that is exactly what I wanted to happen. I let her in and she ran through the house and wanted to see this and that and Mom watched her going 100 mph and when I made her leave, fianlly, she demanded to be able to stay. I don't think anyone has ever been stern with her, which is probably why she is like she is...so I mustard up the 'mean' look and told her, in no uncertain terms, that if she was ever going to come over here again, she was going to play by MY rules. She is never allowed to open any doors or gates without me being there, she had to LISTEN (we have to go over that one a lot--every time she's here), and no cussing. Yep, belive it or not, that is a biggie. She hasn't done any of it at my house, but I was talking to her Mom one day in their yard and she called her own Mom an MF...only she said the whole two words. Wow. And she'll flip people off. Mostly older kids. I don't let her see me laugh, but that is quite funny, to see that tiny, chubby middle finger pop up when some older kid tells her to go home. Suprisingly, she understood the rules at my house, but Mom has seen enough, I think. lol. When she sees her coming down the street on her tricycle, Mom will go in the house and close the door.

She did that very thing one day and I said, "Mom, what's the world coming to when we have to barricade our doors from a 4 year old?"

She laughed. And agreed.

A victim of Vioxx...?

My Mother tells anyone who will listen that my Dad, her husband, was a victim of Vioxx. It's not true, but I am personally to blame for her believing this. What my Dad was a victim of was mostly his own fault. He smoked for 60 + years and couldn't put them down. Not after his first heart attack, not after his second open-heart surgery, not after they told him it would kill him. When he died, his heart probably looked like a black jelly bean. What they told him was that his heart would never be able to survive any surgery, ever again. And here's what happened...

Two years before he died he developed an aortic aneurism. They couldn't operate then because his heart would never be able to come back from it. So, because of the pain it caused him, he started taking vicodin. Eventually, his surgeon called him in and told him about a new procedure that he would be a candidate for and it was successful. But he was addicted to the vicodin by then. The entire time he took it he had trouble with his bowel movements. He couldn't go. At one point it got so bad he tried to dig out his own stool with his fingers. It was awful. I told him the vicodin was doing that to him and he said he knew it and that he knew he should get off of them but at that point he couldn't. He had a family doctor at the time that just kept writing those scripts. He lost a ton of weight and couldn't eat. Finally, I made him go to the hospital. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have. And if I knew then what I now know, I wouldn't have made him go. He would have died in his own bed within 24 to 48 hours. His bowel was impacted (I personally, am sure it was from the vicodin) and they told him then: Sugery, or wait it out (which meant certain death).  Long story, short...he opted for surgery, and lived about a week longer.

All of this was before Mom's diagnosis of Alzheimer's. A couple of months after he died, Mom was lamenting over what killed him and (stupid me) I told her I thought his Doctor over-prescribed the vocodin (and it was over prescribed, whether it killed him or not). I explained to her that it bound him up to the point that it caused the impaction. Well, she got things turned around and started seeing all of those commercialsabout getting on the lawsuit if you had a loved one who died from Vioxx...completely different drug! And that was all it took.

Every time she starts to talk about him now, it's always the same thing..."that damn vioxx killed him." She'll tell someone that he smoked non-filtered cigarettes for 40 years, before switching to filtered, but that ain't what killed him. It was that damn vioxx.

We had some friends over on Saturday afternoon and Mom was telling the story about how she and Dad met. Its a cool story and they enjoyed it. Then she said, "but he didn't live long after that...he was a victim of the Vioxx scandal." Now, there was a new one on me...now it was a scandal and he didn't seem to live much longer after they met. Later, when Mom wasn't around, my friend asked me, "So how old was your Dad when he died?"

I assured her that he did live longer than Mom made it sound.  They were married for just over 49 years. But I'm sure that to her, it wasn't long enough.

Leaving Mom alone...

     It never ceases to amaze me, the things Mom remembers. Oh, she still knows the basics...husband's name and the fact that he's no longer with us, that she has 6 kids and can remember all of their names, and that she has a bunch of grandkids (although she will ask how many anytime the subject comes up). If I mention a grandchild's name, she knows exactly who I'm talking about, but if I show her a picture of one of them she may or may not be able to tell me which one it is. She tends to recognize the older ones easier than the younger ones, which makes sense. Other than that, her memory is pretty well limited to things that happened 50 years ago. However I've noticed that she will most likely remember the stuff that stresses her out...

Saturday morning I was doing laundry and she wanted to help me fold clothes. So we dumped them all out on her bed and proceeded to fold them. I took all of ours upstairs and she put her stack away in the drawers and closet. While we were folding clothes I told her that Stan and I were going to go to the track and watch qualifications that afternoon.  I'd never been to THE track in May, so we were going with some friends. In the next 3 or 4 hours before we left, she asked us 100 times about when we were leaving, when we'd be back, how long would we be gone, etc. She doesn't need 24/7 care, but we also don't usually leave her alone for more than a couple of hours at a time. And the neighbors were going to be home all day. I had talked to them the day before and they said they'd be around and check on her. And the 100 questions was the reason I didn't tell her sooner we were going to be gone. I knew the questions would come.

They started during breakfast. "How long are you going to be gone, today?" "What if someone calls?" When are you leaving?" What time will you be back?" What should I do while you're gone?" "What do I do if that little girl comes over?" (4 year old down the street). There were really only about 6 or 7 questions but she asked each of them about 5 times. I realized that she was a nervous wreck about being alone but she thought we were going to be gone all day.  I realized then that we should have just told her we were running errands. She's always ok with that.

So, we were all sitting on the porch, waiting for our friends to show up and she started a new line of questioning.  "When am I going to Mike and Sue's?" (she stays with them half the year).

I said, "Why, are you ready to go to Mike and Sue's?"

"No. Not necessarily, I just wondered. Someone said they were coming up to get me later. I just thought it was today."

My brother and I hadn't nailed down any plans for the switch yet, so I told her, "Mom, you're probably going to be here for at least 6 more weeks, maybe two months. Is that ok?"  She assured me that it was.

Then she said, "then why did someone have all my clothes out on my bed this morning? Like I was going somewhere?"

I reminded her then, "Mom, you and I were just folding the clothes on your bed, remember?"  And then I asked her, "you didn't pack your bags, did you?"

"Nope. Don't know where they are."

We went to the track and walked around a little while and took in all of the sights and sounds and smells that are the epitome of the Indianapolis 500 track during the month of May. I picked up a stuffed bear for Mom for Mother's Day (which she loved). And we were back by 4 pm. She was fine. The neighbors stopped over for a little bit to talk with her and she worked on her puzzle and kept the dogs company, which is her favorite thing to do, anyway.

Mom's from the planet Ewe Tic Ah

My Mother's memories consist mostly of things that happened 40+ years ago. Rarely does she talk about something that happened in the past 20 years. And actually, if she tells any story that doesn't involve her childhood, I tend to listen a little more carefully. She has a few more recent memories that she'll tell quite often, but for the most part they all involve "back home".  When she uses the words 'back home', or refers to her home in any way, she is not talking about her home that we moved her out of. She isn't talking about any home she ever shared with my Dad through the almost 50 years they were married. She is referrring to her childhood home. It's not that she doesn't remember Dad, her husband. She does, and will talk about him frequently. She just doesn't seem to remember much about where they lived. She'll see something in my house that came from her house and automatically say, "oh, that was gramma's." And I always let it go.

She'll talk about her hometown like it's another planet. Her grandmother raised her in a small town in Ohio called Utica. These days, when she brings it up, which is daily, she'll say it in such a way that she makes it SOUND like another planet. She'll say it like it's six different words. Ewe Tic Ah, Oh High Oh. I don't know where she picked up that habit, but it's getting a little weird. And everything in Ewe Tic Ah is still the way it was 60 years ago. She's sure of it. (actually, she may be right about that one--it IS a small town). But she really hasn't been there in years. Whenever she sees anything out of her ordinary, she'll comment that they don't have such things where she's from. It could be a city bus, or we could be at the nursery looking at plants. If she sees something that she isn't familiar with, its always the same thing. "We don't have anything like that where I'm from."  She get so upset when she reads something in the paper about a rape or murder...and then she's right...they really didn't have anything like that where she's from.

Beam me up, Scotty.

A Family Loss

When my nephew called to tell his Grandmother she was getting a new Great grandchild, she started a baby blanket. She's been making squares to join together. And because she's making the blanket, she's able to remember that there is a new baby on the way and most of the time remembered it was Richard's. But some of the time she had to ask who it was having a baby. 

Yesterday I got an e-mail from my brother saying that my nephew's girlfriend lost the baby. She's ok, but they are both heart broken, I'm sure. I had to tell Mom and she was also heart broken. She worried about Richard all day and even told Stan about it when he got home from work. It also got her to thinking about the ones she lost. She'd lost three out of her 9 pregnancies. She talked about them off and on all that day and said she often wondered what they would have looked like or been like. This is one of those memories that she never brings up. When she talked about that I hung on every word.

All help appreciated!

Every morning I walk out to the pond with my coffee and say the Serenity prayer and ask God to help me to make the right decisions where Mom is concerned and then I ask Dad if he's around, to help me out, too. All help appreciated.

We took Mom to a fish fry tonight. They have a big one every Friday close by us and they have live music and have about 100 picnic tables. They pack 'em in every Friday.  The music is usually easy-listening. Mom really enjoyed it. She was toe-tapping and singing through dinner. Then we went to Pottery Barn and looked around.  When we're out she'll pick up the oddest things she wants to buy. If you've never been in a Pottery Barn, they have everything that the country of Taiwan has ever made. And of all of the things she saw, the thing she wanted to buy was a broken bowl...she liked it. I managed to convince her it wasn't all there, the lid was gone. 

I know I said I hate to shop but we try and make a trip to the Pottery Barn about once a year. It's actually Stan's favorite store, next to Home Depot.

We came back home and sat next to the pond for a while. I told Mom the pond was her Mother's Day present. I said, "Mom, you can just have that for Mother's Day." Pretty chintzy, huh? But she loved that I gave it to her and she said, "that's the sweetest gesture."  OK--I did get her a card and a book, too. She can't retain anything much that she reads anymore, but she does still read and she'll read every night before she goes to bed. It puts her to sleep. And I got her an easy read.

Every night, before she goes off to bed she gives us both kisses and always says the same thing: "Thank you for another wonderful day." She says it whether we've been running all day or sitting around the house all day, matters not to her.

I thank her back.

It ain't always easy

After having such a good day at the zoo the other day, we kind of had a crash and burn the day after. Mom can be so funny at times and at times I want to lock myself in my room. It rained most of the day on Wednesday and we couldn't get out in the yard. Moms shoulder started bothering her. Her left shoulder had bothered her for a long time and I finally called the orthopedic surgeon who had done my shoulder surgery and he gave her a shot of cortisone and she hasn't said anything about it since. All of the sudden now it's her right shoulder and she's acting like I'm personally to blame. She'll reach for something and tweak it and boy, it's like someone is cutting her arm off with a dull blade. She'll writh around in pain for a few minutes and I'll get her to sit down and give her an advil. Then she looks at me like I'm not doing enough. She has no recollection of ever seeing a doctor and I'm thinking that she thinks she's had this same pain for months.  I think she wants me to call 911. Seriously. So the other day we went through all of this and she says, "I need to see a doctor when I get to Sue's."

Sue is my sister-in-law and that is where Mom spends half the year, at a few month intervals. Sue and I are at completely different ends of the spectrum in terms of personality. She loves to shop and I'd rather eat a bug than go shopping. She's bubbling over with enthusiasm all the time...she's great with Mom and Mom loves her. Mom loves me, too, but I'm more on the laid-back side. If I have to go shopping I'd rather go straight in, pick it up, and straight back out. And I really try and get it done without taking Mom. Sue tends to take Mom along more often than I do.  I (or we) do try and get her out of the house 2 or 3 times a week, though. But rarely for shopping. lol. If you've read my earlier posts, I also took her to a new MD about a month ago, or so, and it was a total disaster.

So, when she said she needed to see a doc when she got to Sue's, I said, "why do you need to wait until you get to Sue's?"

"Because I don't want to bother you." She didn't just SAY it, she was kind of snippy about it.

So I said, "What makes you think you're bothering me, but you're not bothering Sue? I don't think that was very nice and I'm offended." This is where my emotion took control over my common sense. For a moment I thought she was my old Mom. For a moment I thought she spoke with malice on purpose and I forgot that it was the AD. And for a moment I was snippy right back.

She said, "well, I'm in so much pain I don't know what I'm even saying."

I went to my room for about an hour just to get away. And really I didn't want to get away from her but from myself. I was so mad at myself for snapping.  One thing about it...I'm still beating myself up for being hateful to her and she'd forgotten all about it 10 minutes after it happened.

 

My husband

Sometimes I think I'm married to the greatest guy in the whole world. I guess all women think that once in a while about their husbands, but mine amazes me sometimes. His own Mother died when she was only 39 and he was 20. She had lung cancer. He was really close to her, too and I always wish I'd known her. We have one picture of her displayed on our bookshelf and she was a beautiful woman back in the day. She looked like a movie star.  She had four boys and my husband was the oldest. And when she died the youngest was only 5 or 6. I'm sure that the hardest part of her disease was knowing she was leaving her young children. That had to be awful for her.

Fast forward 35 years...

When we decided as a family to move our Mother out of her house, we weren't sure at the time where she would live. We tried to have her visit each of our homes for a month or two at least while we tried to figure out a permanent solution. I know that at least two of us (if not more) didn't really like the idea of her going through the change of enviroment every couple of months and a disruption of her routine. At the time, Stan and I had only been living together for about 5 years, but we had had Mom here with us several times over those 5 years. Whenever she left here, Stan would say how much he missed her being here. I have to say that I was a hold-out. I really didn't want her here all of the time. I kept thinking how there was 6 of us, why does it have to be me? But any time I brought the subject up with Stan his answer was always the same. He didn't have much to say on the subject except this: " I don't understand why it's such a hard decision. All I know is, if it were MY Mom, I know where she'd be." He didn't just say that to me once...it was every time the subject was broached.

So now, we share the responsibilty of her care with my brother and his wife. His wife seems to be of the same opinion as my husband. She seems to love having Mom there, and as a matter of fact, we have decided that the inlaws in general have dealt a lot better with this disaese than her own children have. I find that both funny and wierd at the same time.  Maybe we just all married well. Maybe we all married people better than ourselves, I don't know.  But our final solution gives us the breaks my brother and I both need and it isn't too much of a change for Mom, really. Except that their house is about 10 times bigger than ours and I kept thinking that we couldn't have her here because our house is so small. That was stupid...how much room does one little old lady take up at once, anyway? The answer is almost none.

A trip to the zoo

Mom and I went to the zoo yesterday. We took my friend's 5 year old and our step-daughter-in-law went with her two year old.  Mom has been wanting to see the new baby elephant we have and just last month a new giraffe was born so we got to see that, too. She was so excited to go and she got ready in record time. She wore jeans, a turtle neck and a denim shirt over that. Before we left I had to hide her winter coat and hats. (She had them laid out like she was going to wear them). It was 88 yesterday at the zoo. As much as she loved it, she accused me of trying to kill her between animal displays. She shed the denim shirt right away and she sweat like crazy the rest of the day. At one point she just went on strike. We were headed to the dolphin show and she just plopped down on a bench on the way there and said, "I'm sitting here!" And boy, did she look mad for a minute. She did that several times throughout the day and our zoo is really not very big. But the animals were a big hit. She loved the elephants and assured everyone that they didn't have elephants where she was from. We took the kids to the petting zoo and she marveled that she had never been in a zoo where there were chickens. lol. Instead of explaining to her that we were in the petting zoo part of the zoo, I just said, "Only in Indiana." And she laughed and laughed at that.

She loved the dolphin show and all the rest. We were getting ready to leave and Dalton, the 5 year old, wanted to see the snakes. On the way thre, Mom plopped down on a bench and said she was done. Emily and I decided to leave her on that bench and go in the snake display with the kids...we figured she was too worn out to go anywhere. But the longer we were separated from her the more worried I got. I kept thinking I could see the news headlines the next day in the paper..."Alzheimer's patient lost. Woman leaves elderly Mother alone on park bench." Emily just laughed at me and reminded me how worn out she was, but it didn't help and I was a nervous wreck. We were probably only separated for 10 minutes and by the time we left the snakes, I was practically running back to the bench. Of course, there she was, right where we left her and she got a good rest but she was ready to go home!

The Serenity Pond

The pond was finished the same day a woman, who I know only as "Serenity", lost her Mother to Alzheimer's. I couldn't shake the name, 'serenity', whenever I was around the pond. I kept thinking, even though I've never really named any of my previous landscape projects, that it was a perfect name for this one. But I didn't christen it or anything...just thought about it.

One afternoon, a day or two after it was done I was placing another rock near the water and one of the dogs chased a squirrel across the yard and up the tree that grows right behind the pond. He sat there on the lowest limb, just out of reach of the dogs, and watched me. The dog sat beside St. Francis and a sparrow lit on the rock and was drinking from the fall. And the fish had come up to me when I placed the rock, thinking I had food for them. So, for about 5 seconds, right here in the city I had birds, fish, squirrels, and the dogs all within an arms length, or two.  Mom missed it but later that afternoon we were sitting by the pond and I said, "isn't it great, Mom, just to sit here and listen to the waterfall?"

She said one word.............

 

 

"Serenity."

...more pond.

We worked all weekend and for the most part, the pond was finished on Sunday, April 22, 2007. I've added a few plants and re-arranged a few rocks and it will always be a work in progress, I'm sure. But for the most part, it was done that Sunday.

I thought about a lot of things while I worked on it. I wanted it to be a peaceful sanctuary in the middle of this otherwise crazy neighborhood we live in. I wanted the birds to enjoy it, the dogs to drink from it, and the fish to thrive. I wanted to see what little wildlife we do have here in the city to be drawn to it. I thought about all of the people I'd met recently on the message boards and hoped they all had as peaceful a place to sit and meditate, or pray. Because it was a peaceful place even before it was done. Every morning I was drawn to it...I knew what I wanted it to look like and I wouldn't really rest until it looked just like the vision. I thought about the people who were in the middle of their final days on this earth, having battled Alzheimer's and were fighting a losing battle, and I wanted it to be for them, in honor of them and the people who took care of them. And of course, I wanted it to be for Mom. I knew once it was done she would sit in front of it and love it (and she does).

 

I'm laid -off right now, so it was easy for me to get most of the work done on my new project (when the weather permitted) by myself. And as well as Stan and I work together on the home projects, I really had a vision of what I wanted this pond to look like and I found the whole building process very therapeutic, working alone on it. Mom would wonder out periodically and check on me or sit and watch for a while.

But on Saturday and Sunday Stan was home to help me. We got the liner in and the rocks placed about. We filled it with water and added the plants from the old pond. Stan, bless his heart, worked on the plumbing end. every time he placed a rock, I inevitably would move it to a location I preferred over the one he chose...poor guy. He had no clue what kind of mission I was on. I felt driven on this project to the extent that I wasn't even sure what kind of mission it was. lol....

 

I dug a hole

....I was so mad, I started digging. I had wanted water feature in my yard and we had a small one by the house but I wanted to make it bigger. I just hadn't started it yet. When that doctor made me mad I went home and dug up the old small pond and started moving all the rock to the corner of the yard where the new one would be.  And I started digging...and digging...and digging. I couldn't let go of the anger any other way. At least any other way that was legal or non-violent.  And pretty soon the anger did go away. The more I dug, the more it looked like it was going to be a beautiful pond and I kept digging and chopping up tree roots and before long I had quite a hole.

Mom would come out to check on me...she asked me if I needed anything and I asked her for a glass of iced tea, knowing that I may or may not see her agin with it. To my suprise, she brought it right back out. I know that it took all of the concentration she could muster to go all the way back into the house and fill a glass with ice and tea and then remember it was for me and bring it back out. When she did, all of the rest of the anger that I felt for this guy who tried to purposely hurt my Mom subsided and I was standing in a hole that would be our beautiful pond. Mom asked me several times that day what the hole was for and why was I digging. I answered her every time like it was the first. I was happy with it and I climbed outside of it and stood and stared at the hole for what seemed like forever. When I finally looked over at Mom she was looking at me, staring into that empty hole and I said, "you probably think I'm nuts, staring into this empty hole...but when I look at it, it's full of fish and plants and water. And it's done!" And she just laughed and gave me a big hug that told me that she knew exactly what I meant.

Doctor Bruce Bender...I thought Bender was his name, not his state of being...

We love Mom's doctor...the one who diagnosed the Alzheimer's. The one who treats her and us like we matter. The one who is 'up' on all of the current meds for the disease. The one who will talk to us separately, so as not to upset Mom when we talk about the dementia and what it's doing to her. New symptoms to discuss, new questions answered, etc. That doctor, however, is 5 hours away. And I'm finding out that finding one closer is no easy task. My first step was to take her to my doc. I'd never even met him because I always see his NP, whom I do like. When I spoke to her about Mom, she told me to have him see her first, that he was 'good with old people'.

Long story, short...I called the morning of her first appointment with him to see if her records had made it yet. "No records yet," his nurse told me on the phone. So, I very carefully asked her to ask him not to mention dementia or Alzheimer's, as all this does is upset her. His nurse was extremely agitated by my request. I should have cancelled right then and there, but I thought it'd be ok...that maybe SHE had never heard of being tactful around an AD patient about their disease, but that he would have more sense than her....Boy, was I sooooooooo wrong!!

I don't know what she thought I was really asking, or how she conveyed the message to him, but he came in the exam room, introduced himself, and proceeded to ask her about her dementia. He also had an attitude with me from the start and when the exam was over and I stepped out of the room to talk to him, he met me with disgust...as if I'd asked him to euthanize her or something. All I asked was to not mention the "D" word, and that I wanted her to feel comfortable here and to WANT to come back, because she wouldn't go see the last doc who told her it was what she had. He just shook his head, had a "whatever" attitude, and said, "sorry," and walked away from me. I don't understand how people like him can actually practice medicine. The number one drug prescribed in America today for AD is Aricept. This doctor couldn't even pronounce it.  Another red flag!

Anyway, when I got home from that doctor's visit, I was mad. It was Lent and I had been trying my darnedest to love everybody. I was almost through it, too. It's hard to love everybody, all of the time, believe me. But I had been doing a pretty fair job, not getting too upset at anybody or anything, and trying to just...LOVE. It felt pretty good, too. But the afternoon of that appointment, I wanted to take that guys stethoscope and wrap it around his neck until his eyes popped out. Yep...there goes the love...right out the window. All it took was one jerk who thinks he's a doctor.

The stages of Alzheimer's

These are the stages of Alzheimer's as outlined on their web-site.

Mom seems to be a solid 5 with a few signs of 6. But the thing is, everyone is different.

 

Staging systems provide useful frames of reference for understanding how the disease may unfold and for making future plans. But it is important to note that not everyone will experience the same symptoms or progress at the same rate. People with Alzheimer’s live an average of 8 years after diagnosis, but may survive anywhere from 3 to 20 years.

The framework for this section is a system that outlines key symptoms characterizing seven stages ranging from unimpaired function to very severe cognitive decline. This framework is based on a system developed by Barry Reisberg, M.D., Clinical Director of the New York University School of Medicine’s Silberstein Aging and Dementia Research Center.

Within this framework, we have noted which stages correspond to the widely used concepts of mild, moderate, moderately severe and severe Alzheimer’s disease. We have also noted which stages fall within the more general divisions of early-stage, mid-stage and late-stage categories.

Stage 1:	No impairment (normal function)
	Unimpaired individuals experience no memory problems and none are evident to a health care professional during a medical interview.

 

Stage 2:	Very mild cognitive decline (may be normal age-related changes or earliest signs of Alzheimer's disease)
	Individuals may feel as if they have memory lapses, especially in forgetting familiar words or names or the location of keys, eyeglasses or other everyday objects. But these problems are not evident during a medical examination or apparent to friends, family or co-workers.

 

Stage 3:

Mild cognitive decline Early-stage Alzheimer's can be diagnosed in some, but not all, individuals with these symptoms

Friends, family or co-workers begin to notice deficiencies. Problems with memory or concentration may be measurable in clinical testing or discernible during a detailed medical interview. Common difficulties include: Word- or name-finding problems noticeable to family or close associates Decreased ability to remember names when introduced to new people Performance issues in social or work settings noticeable to family, friends or co-workers Reading a passage and retaining little material Losing or misplacing a valuable object Decline in ability to plan or organize

 

Stage 4:

Moderate cognitive decline (Mild or early-stage Alzheimer's disease)

At this stage, a careful medical interview detects clear-cut deficiencies in the following areas: Decreased knowledge of recent occasions or current events Impaired ability to perform challenging mental arithmetic-for example, to count backward from 75 by 7s Decreased capacity to perform complex tasks, such as planning dinner for guests, paying bills and managing finances Reduced memory of personal history The affected individual may seem subdued and withdrawn, especially in socially or mentally challenging situations

 

Stage 5:

Moderately severe cognitive decline (Moderate or mid-stage Alzheimer's disease)

Major gaps in memory and deficits in cognitive function emerge. Some assistance with day-to-day activities becomes essential. At this stage, individuals may: Be unable during a medical interview to recall such important details as their current address, their telephone number or the name of the college or high school from which they graduated Become confused about where they are or about the date, day of the week or season Have trouble with less challenging mental arithmetic; for example, counting backward from 40 by 4s or from 20 by 2s Need help choosing proper clothing for the season or the occasion Usually retain substantial knowledge about themselves and know their own name and the names of their spouse or children Usually require no assistance with eating or using the toilet

 

Stage 6:

Severe cognitive decline (Moderately severe or mid-stage Alzheimer's disease)

Memory difficulties continue to worsen, significant personality changes may emerge and affected individuals need extensive help with customary daily activities. At this stage, individuals may: Lose most awareness of recent experiences and events as well as of their surroundings Recollect their personal history imperfectly, although they generally recall their own name Occasionally forget the name of their spouse or primary caregiver but generally can distinguish familiar from unfamiliar faces Need help getting dressed properly; without supervision, may make such errors as putting pajamas over daytime clothes or shoes on wrong feet Experience disruption of their normal sleep/waking cycle Need help with handling details of toileting (flushing toilet, wiping and disposing of tissue properly) Have increasing episodes of urinary or fecal incontinence Experience significant personality changes and behavioral symptoms, including suspiciousness and delusions (for example, believing that their caregiver is an impostor); hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that are not really there); or compulsive, repetitive behaviors such as hand-wringing or tissue shredding Tend to wander and become lost

 

Stage 7:

Very severe cognitive decline (Severe or late-stage Alzheimer's disease)

This is the final stage of the disease when individuals lose the ability to respond to their environment, the ability to speak and, ultimately, the ability to control movement. Frequently individuals lose their capacity for recognizable speech, although words or phrases may occasionally be uttered Individuals need help with eating and toileting and there is general incontinence of urine Individuals lose the ability to walk without assistance, then the ability to sit without support, the ability to smile, and the ability to hold their head up. Reflexes become abnormal and muscles grow rigid. Swallowing is impaired.

Saying the "D" word

When we first realized Mom had a problem with remembering things, we knew that we had to address it and that it wouldn't be an easy thing to do.  I guess we knew her well enough to know that she wasn't going to take it well and none of us wanted to do it alone. So, when my older sister and I were both visitng that spring, we talked to my Dad, who was still alive then and he thought it was a good idea that we talked to her--without him.  It seems that all they did was argue at the time, because she was always forgetting things and he would get impatient with her so it came to be that when he mentioned her memory, it was an automatic 'sore spot' between them. He told us that if he said anything or was there, that she would automatically get defensive. So my two sisters and I told him we'd do it without him...and we let him off the hook.

The three of us sat her down and as I remember, our older sister did all the talking, at least at first. We did tell her how much we loved her and were concerned about her memory problems. We mentioned, very delicately if I remember, that maybe she had Alzheimer's...not mentioning dementia at all at the time.  I think this was 2002. 5 years ago. At the time we all lived so far a way from her. My younger sister only lived about a mile down the road, though, and Mom saw a lot of her. And the two of them were always very close. You know how Mother's are with their youngest... Anyway, Mom seemed to take the talk very well and she even hugged us and assured us that she knew we were just worried about her and that we wanted to help her.  At least that's what we thought.

I think it was later that same day when she was in the car with my younger sister, she let loose!  She had a complete meltdown in the car with sis telling us later that Mom claimed that we all thought she was crazy and she was loosing her mind and just to shoot her now!!  Put her away in an institution!!  it was all very ugly and I felt bad for my sister being the only one with her at the time. (Although, that's why Mom did it). I don't think she wanted to have that kind of meltdown in front of all of us...because from the way my sister told it, we might really HAVE shot her...

And during that same visit (I was staying at Mom and Dad's) She locked herself in the bathroom and I stood outside the door and listened. She was in there crying and sobbing and saying awful things about us thinking she'd lost her mind, and that maybe she had and basically the same stuff she had let loose on my sister, only she was locked in the bathroom, alone. I'd finally had enough and made her open the door. And this was back before I knew anything at all about this disease. I had no coping skills at all. So I told her if she kept ranting like that that, yes, we really all WOULD think she'd lost her mind. Probably not the best thing to say at the time. But it did calm her down a bit.

We took her to a doctor and the first diagnosis was that it was probably not Alzheimer's. It was probably memory loss due to depression.  She prescribed the Aricept along with zanex for the depression. But even the word 'depression' didn't set well with her so she wouldn't take the zanex. 

Dad died a couple of months after this episode.  It hit her pretty hard and I think she headed off in a downhill spiral the first year after he died. Soon after he died, we had her go to her family doc and get a physical. We wanted to get the smallest life insurance policy for her to cover her own funeral expenses when she died. This doctor performed the physical and a few weeks later she got a letter from the insurance company saying she was denied because he diagnosed her with Senile Dementia. OK--they weren't satisfied with only using the dreaded "D" word. Nope, they had to throw "Senile" in there, too, just in case we didn't understand demented. And to this day...5 years later, when she can't remember what she just said 10 seconds ago, if you mention that Doctor's name around her you will see the very definition of 'coniption fit'.  And it ain't a pretty definition.

We got her a great Doctor after that. One who specializes in AD. She's on all the right meds, at least we think she is, and she's holding her own living here part of the year and in Florida with my brother the other part of the year. But, as with a lot of AD patients, the "D" word and the "A" word are kept out of her earshot. One thing I never do, though, is change  the TV channel when the news shows a breakthrough in Alzheimer's research. Not only do I want to see it, but she'll watch it, too. She won't say anything, but she does get that look on her face that she gets when she's trying a little harder to concentrate.

Having said all of that, I'll now say this...We made the decision not to bring it up to her collectively. None of us wants to see her fit. And especially none of us who have her on a daily basis. And it scares her. And none of us want to scare her.  I think she knows she has it and at one time she even told my Aunt she had it, but we let her deal with it in her own way and meanwhile we feed her the meds that keep her mind strong for now. And we love her. And about every day she thanks me for "keeping" her. That's how she says it. And I remind her that she "kept" me for 22 years, so it's the least I could do.

I have gotten the feeling, though, that some members of the extended family feel like we are not doing her any favors by not talking to her about it. And what I've found out about this disease is, everyone handles it differently.  But I would be happy to drop her off with them for a week and let them talk to her all they want to about her condition. As long as they start the conversation on Monday and then when I pick her up on Sunday, they will have surely learned that her kids have made the right decision.

My message service

I was gone this morning for a while and when I got back, there were two phone calls. My friend, Aurora called to tell me she was on her way over, and the Alzheimer's Assc. called to remind me of a meeting tonight at the Methodist Hospital. Mom took both calls and when I got home, my message went something like this: "Aurora called to remind you there is a program at the Methodist Church tonight."

Eventually, I figured it all out. She did good. :)

My new friends

I've made a lot of friends in the past month. More friends than I've ever made in such a short time. And they are well-meaning, informative friends who want to help and who know only too well what I go through every day with Mom. They understand, they love, and most importantly they don't judge.  I have been visiting the Alzheimer's message boards and have learned more information in the past month about this disease and what's to come than I would have ever thought possible.  I guess what I mean is, I thought I knew what was coming and in a sense, I did. And I was scared to face a lot of it. But these people on the message boards put it in such perspective that nothing could come as a shock at this point.  No matter what kind of nutty thing Mom does, someone in the forum has been there, done that. And no matter how bad a situation is, someone in the forum has it worse.  In the past month, I've gotten the best advice I could ever ask for. And it didn't come from a Doctor, but from people who KNOW. Experience is the best teacher.

One friend I have on the boards goes by the name 'Serenity'.  Serenity is at the end of her journey with her Mother. But she was gracious enough to let us all share the final days her Mother spent on this earth. It had to be the most beautiful passing I have ever had the opportunity to 'share', even if all I did was read her posts daily.  My wish is for Mom to pass that peacefully, when it's her time to go. (And we have a long way to go before that happens.) This was her final post (you can click on it) about her Mother, who died yesterday at 3:00pm   Dear Mom - Your Angel Wings look so so beautiful on you...see you again in my dreams. - Topic Powered by eve community

The Pedicure

I'm finding out slowly that having a loved one with Alzheimer's is like raising a child in reverse. Gradually they forget to take care of the simplest things...

I gave Mom a pedicure the other day and I still don't think I'm over it, although my husband has let me touch him again, with the same hands...If you knew me very well, you'd know that a pedicure would normally be something completely out of my realm. And here I found myself giving my Mother one. But....I got some new products recently that I really love and I wanted to really put them to the test. Mom's feet and legs get so dry. I had her soak her feet for a good while and then rubbed her feet and legs down with a dead sea salt scrub and a few of the other products...then clipped her toe nails. That had to be the worst. I don't know when she'd done it last, but it now dawned on me why she clicked when she walked across the floor. I think she went down half a shoe size when I was done.

If someone told me a year ago I would be clipping her toenails, I think I would have said I'd rather pull out my hair........one strand at a time.........slowly. But I was doing it and I even found it relatively painless. Although she didn't share the same feeling when I nipped her toe. (ouch!) Other than that, she loved the whole thing. And the stuff really helped her dry legs. And I guess its a good thing I found it relatively painless, because it'll probably be a regular job from now on.

Keeping busy

One of the challenges I face daily is keeping Mom busy enough. I worry that she does too little some days. She'll read the paper all morning and work on the crossword. She used to do all of the puzzles on the page and the Cryptoquip used to be her favorite, I think. But now she just struggles with the crossword and she still does pretty good on the word search.

Now, with the Virginia Tech massacre all over the paper, it's hard to let her sit there and read it over and over. It just upsets her so. I thought baking cookies might be a good diversion, so she helped me. I was looking for things for her to do on the Alzheimer's message boards the other day and, sure enough, someone had printed a long list. They are always good for ideas, prayers, suggestions and a plethera of useful information. And it's all coming from people who have been through it or are going through it now. Anyway, the list had baking cookies on it and Mom hasn't done anything like that in years, probably.  I'm baking something all of the time but I usually just do it while she sits in the kitchen and works on her puzzle. Today I had her grease the baking sheet and mix the ingredients. Then she dropped them out on the sheet. All sounds so smooth and easy, doesn't it?

It was one of the hardest things I've had to do in my own kitchen!  AAAHHH!! It was excruciatingly painful to not jump in and do it for her. But I was good and I made myself be patient and let her do it. She needs to feel that sense of accomplishment, I think.

After that we took a walk. I can get her to take a walk with me but rarely can I get her to make it all the way around the block. She'll start breathing heavy and then she starts moaning and groaning...lol. And telling me how she's 78 years old and she can't walk like that anymore. (Keep in mind, we're moving at a snail's pace but if I take her out shopping, she'll walk all afternoon!) Anyway, we got out there and I thought I would point out all of the new flowers coming up with the spring weather and keep her mind off of the walk itself. She pointed out some spirea in bloom and we talked about how beautiful everyone's tulips were. It was a nice walk but when we got to the alley she still wanted to take the shortcut down it and back home.  My goal is to get her all the way around the block!  When we got back to the house she told me we needed to get a bud vase out and cut some of my tulips. I got the vase ready and she cut the flowers.

She helped me get dinner ready, too. She's still the best potato peeler in the house. All in all, it was a good day for her and I.

A baby blanket has begun

Today I asked Mom if she thought she could still crochet a small square. She hasn't done anything more than a dish towel end for years. Shr tried and came up with a pretty good one so now she is working on a baby blanket for my nephew's baby. I hope she's able to finish it. I'll have to keep after her about it. She's excited about being a Great Grandmother, but only when I remind her...I'm hoping the blanket will help, too.

Is there anything I can do?

Mom is forever asking me, "is there anything I can do?" Bless her heart, she spent her best years raising 6 kids and was always busy.  I have a hard time answering this question a dozen times a day. And, in my mind the question has morphed and carries a whole new meaning for me. I feel like she's asking, "is there anything I am ABLE to do?" And it's starting to break my heart when she asks the question. Because, the reality is, there isn't much anymore that she can do. So, the things she does do around her are held in high regard and I always tell her how appreciative we are when she helps with dishes or folding clothes, etc. One of the things she does that I just LOVE is she makes the coffee in the morning. She has always been an early riser and so have I but she still manages to wake up about an hour before I do. She's up around 5:30 and I get up with Stan at 6:30. It's great having a good hot cup of coffee waiting.

The other night I was getting dinner ready and she asked, "is there anything I can do?"

So I said, "sure, Mom. Why don't you set the table." And she began getting out the plates. She set three of them on the table and got the silverware out. Then I told her just to start handing me the plates, one by one, and I would fill them from the stove. She gave me the first one and I put a serving on it and she set it back on the table and handed me the second plate, which I filled. When she turned around to set the second plate down she said, "well, someone already got theirs. There's one here already."  :)

Last night after we finished the dinner dishes I thanked Mom for helping with the washing and she said, "well, it's nothing. I feel like I have to earn my keep around here. You all feed me and keep me." She says this every time I thank her for helping. So Stan said, "the grass needs cut and the gutters need cleaned out, too, Shirlee."  No one laughed harder than Mom. She LOVES Stan. And he jokes with her all the time like that.

Mom's Courage Cup

Before my Mom moved out of her house, she was sitting at her dining room table one morning, talking to my sister. My sister was the only one who lived close and she or her husband tried to get out there every day. It was fairly early in the disease, but it was also in the first year after Dad died.  Mom started telling her she was worried about her memory loss and she started to cry and tell her how scared she was all of the time. I went to visit her one weekend and the visit went just fine. When I got ready to go, I had my stuff packed in the car and was headed out the door and she asked me if I really had to go. I told her I did and that I had to get back to work. She started crying and told me how lonely she was out there every day. That was the hardest drive I ever had to make. I cried the four and a half hours back home.  Of all of the nasty things this disease was doing to her, scaring her was the worst for me. Especially, since she was alone. That was the hardest for me to deal with. 

 

Last month Mom found a coffee cup she liked in a catalogue and asked me to send for it for her. It says “Courage” on it.  She loves it and keeps saying how much she would like to have a whole set. I have a ton of coffee cups and that cup is always there for her. She uses it for her coffee every day. I tell her that and ask why she needs a whole set.

“So I can take them home with me.”

“You are home, Mom,” I said. 

She was showing this cup to my sister when she came to visit last week. Again, she mentioned that she’d like to have several more. My sister agreed that it was a nice cup.

The next morning, I came downstairs and my sister and Mom were having coffee and Mom was drinking out of a different cup. I looked in the cabinet and didn’t see her Courage cup anywhere.

“Mom, where’s your coffee cup?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve looked everywhere.”

When Mom got in the shower I told my sister to follow me into Mom’s room. I told her I knew that cup was in there somewhere.  I checked the dresser drawers and Kendra looked around the bedside table.  Sure, enough, she found it. Mom had wrapped it up in two different hats she wears, the cup wrapped in one hat and then those wrapped in another hat.  Who knows what her reason was. I told my sister maybe she was afraid you’d leave with it, or maybe she thought if she lost it, I’d go ahead and get her another one. I put it back out on the counter and when she finished her shower she was drinking from it again.

A few days later, she and I were doing the morning dishes and she mentioned having more of those cups and I asked her, as I dried her favorite cup, “do you feel like you need extra courage, Mom?”

She said, “no….not so much anymore.”

 

I guess I’ll get her three more for Mother’s Day.

I'm going BANANAS!!

 

Mom likes bananas. She eats them all the time. I have to keep them put up because she’ll eat them all day and if they are out of sight, they are out of mind. In her case, they don’t have to be completely out of sight. Just kind of ‘put up’.  I was out running errands today and was only gone about an hour and a half. When I got home, Mom was sitting at her usual place at the kitchen table. I noticed two bananas on the cabinet, so I ask her, “Mom, have you been eating bananas?”

She wheeled around real quick and said, “I had one.”

“You and I bought eight at the store just yesterday and there are only two left.” (Stan took one to work).

“I might have eaten two,” she said.  Very definitively, I might add. I didn’t want to agitate her so I said, “I don’t care if you eat them, but if you eat too many you might get diarrhea.” That made her laugh.

Then, about three minutes later, she said, “If I only ate two, who do you suppose ate the rest?” 

Love begins with me

I have added a link to a site I recently discovered. You’ll find it on the right under Learn to LOVE unconditionally. May 1 is Global Love Day. I never knew there was such a thing until I happened upon this site.  There are some interesting and beautiful thoughts on it and its worth checking out.

 

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Good News For Mom

Today my nephew called me to tell me he was going to be a Dad. He was so excited and he wanted to tell his Grandmother that she was going to be a Great-Grandmother. I put her on the phone but I was a little worried about how the conversation would go. I made sure I told her that her Grandson was on the phone and told her which one. I long ago gave up just handing her the phone. If I did that, the first five minutes would be spent on not only names, but lineage, too. I was in the other room and I could hear her side of the conversation. They would talk and soon she would say, "who is this, again?" and then, "Of course, Richard! Where are you located now?" And he told her and they talked some more and then she asked, "now, who am I talking to again?"

He finally managed to tell her about the new baby coming, and then they went through the names...I heard her say, "the baby's name is Tatum? No? Oh, oh, oh, you're going to name the baby Tatum? Oh! OK, I see. The Mother's name is Tatum!" It went on like that for a few minutes and again I heard her say, "Tell me who this is, again...you've got me so excited, I can't remember!"

I felt so sorry for my nephew. He was SO excited to tell us this news. Mom's first great-grandchild. He knew, though that it wouldn't be easy but I did feel so sorry for him. But I let them talk about 10 minutes or so and asked her if I could tak to him. They said their I love you's and their goodbye's and I got back on the phone. I was worried that the conversation might depress him and he had sounded so euphoric over the news that he was going to be a Dad.

I got back on the phone and the first thing he said was, "Man, I LOVE her! She's just awesome." He went on to say how much he wanted her at his wedding and couldn't wait for her to hold this baby that won't be born until next December. He has such a huge heart, that boy. Especially when it comes to his family.

I’m so happy for Mom and for my nephew. When Stan got home I told Mom to tell him about her new great grandchild on the way. She remembered and relayed that Richard was going to make her a great grandmother. (ok, I helped a little, with who’s it was, again.)  ;)  But we’ll continue to talk about it so she might remember it for a while. I told her she should start a simple crocheted blanket for ‘it’.  About all she can do anymore is a simple crochet stitch.

Mom's dog heaven

This was Mom last Fall with Maggie, Jack and Addie. Her dog heaven.

About my Mom...then and now

My Mother became an X-ray technician back in the forties.  She loved it and talked about it often. She used to tell a story about how she x-rayed one of the Wright brothers. Yep, those airplane guys. She worked in a hospital at the time in Dayton, OH, and he was probably in his eighties then. She's a little fuzzy about that story these days, depending on what kind of day she is having.

She met my Dad when he had a wreck and had to have X-rays. They spent the next 50 years together. Literally, as they were married six weeks after they met. Mom quit to be a wife and Mother. There were six of us and she was a great seamstress. She made a lot of mine and my sister's clothes when we were little. She even made tons of barbie clothes. She could modify a pair of blue jeans into the coolest, widest bell bottoms on the block! They were awesome.  She could knit and crochet sweaters, afghans, hats, you name it. When her first granddaughter was born, she knitted her and her Mother matching sweaters. Now she can do one basic crotchet project where she cuts a dishtowel in half and crochet's the ends so that they hang in your kitchen, on the stove, or fridge. They are cute, and it's a good thing I think so because at last count I had 46 of them.

 

If raising six kids wasn't enough she raised a litter of 6 Great Dane pups. The mother had died a few days after birth. Mom loves her animals. We have three dogs in the house now. She is in "dog heaven" and I hear it about 6 times a day. I'm used to that, though. :)

 

She was an artist, too. She loved to sketch and was always doodling. She did several canvas paintings through the years. She helped to teach my 5th grade art class at St, Francis of Assisi.  She was always writing poetry, too. I think she probably always threw it away, but later in her life she started writing poetry for family members.  She's long since stopped both drawing and doing much writing. Two yeaers ago I wanted her to draw a pond lily on a bench in my back yard. She looked directly at the picture I showed her and drew what looked like an Iris. In other words, nothing like what I showed her, but it was still okfor the bench, just very odd.

She sure doesn't deserve this disease, but nobody does. They say it's harder on the family than on the afflicted. That certainly is an understatement.  Nobody seems to understand it. When you tell people, the first thing they ask is usually something along the lines of, "Have you found a good nursing home?"  It may come to that some day, I can't promise it won't. This last visit she had with my brother was hard on him and he mentioned looking for a good ALF. But I want to try and do it as long as I can. She's my Mom. I don't consider myself any more of a person than my sibs for wanting to do it. I just feel it in my heart as something I need to do...and that I want to do. It just feels right. 

She's got some really cool stories...when you hear them for the first time.  She sometimes gets two or three completely different stories intertwined now and they morph into something new regularly. And she occassionally won't be able to finish one she starts. She is usually best with her stories in the mornings. 

Here's the Story...a background

Here is a little background information for you. My Husband and I take care of my Mom, who lives with us. Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2003. In October of 2005, we moved her out of her house and that first year she spent 3 months with each of us. I have three brothers and two sisters. That was hard on her so...long story short, my brother and I share the task. He lives in Florida, I live in Indiana, so it works out for everyone, including Mom. She gets to spend the winters in Florida and summer's here. It takes her about a week to acclimate each time, but for now it's working out great. I know it won't always be this easy...

I'm a laid-off auto worker but it gives me time with Mom. She doesn't need 24/7 care yet, but we don't like to leave her alone for more than a few hours at a time, either. But sometimes I feel like my brain is turning to mush, too, just from lack of use!