Life's Been Good To Me So Far

OK, so I'm a Joe Walsh fan.  Who isn't?  James Gang?  Eagles?  You catch my drift.

I have been thinking lately about all of the things I've learned about my mom and about Alzheimer's Disease, and about how much I DON'T know about either.  Here are some of the things I've learned:

With mom, it's all about humor and touch.  Mom responds so well when I'm upbeat and happy and singing and acting, and for me that seems to come naturally.  I was always at my best in front of 10 or 15 people who never touched a database and who didn't know that a couple of hours with me having fun with Access and Excel might change their lives for the better.  I thrived on seeing the lightbulb come on in at least one person's eyes.  So, now I've changed roles and stages, but I'm still "on" in every sense of the word.  Keeping her from sinking into a deep despair sometimes is hard.  Today she really got upset about "those guys out back" who come in when she is sleeping, even when the doors are locked, and they take things or move them around.  It was hard to get her re-directed.  It was kind of a rough afternoon for her until I presented her with the big chocolate bar that I'd sneaked in earlier.  She's a tough student sometimes.

Yesterday, as I finished washing her hair and was strutting down the hall singing and shaking my ass, she started laughing (as she invariably does), and she said to me that she thought I needed "a psy-  . . . a psy . . . a SWINK"!!!  And that led us both to nearly falling on the floor together.  Those moments are treasures.  And if only I had had my camera, once we got her hair dried and into the hot rollers, we went down to sit on her front steps.  "Her" cat (a visitor that she feeds and pets and loves and worries about") came up and crawled into her lap and proceeded to knead his razor-sharp claws into her legs as she petted him.  Didn't have the EasyShare, but it will remain in my memory forever - or until I become a victim of this awful disease.  Those are the humorous parts.

The touch part is new to me.  Mom and I were never very physical with one another, but circumstances have allowed us to become more so.  How could they not, when I am learning to be the major caregiver in charge of personal cleanliness?  Never thought I'd be helping mom with her shower, or telling her to "wash your hoo-hoo" (I had to point, but she got the gist). But the best parts of the physical relationship is that I get to hug her and scratch her back ("Oh, that feels so good!).  We hold hands when we take walks, or put our arms around each other.  Lotioning her up after she acquiesces to the shower and hearing her sighs of pleasure.  I so enjoy the rituals we're learning.  Washing hair isn't a chore, it's a labor of love.  You know how nice it is to lean back in the hairdresser's hair and she actually massages the potions into your scalp and makes you feel relaxed?  We do that, only she is leaning forward.  Drying her hair with warm air (and the occasional surprise blow of the dryer down her shirtback, letting her hand me the pins for the hot rollers, and when we take them out, letting her put the rollers back into the setter, trying to get the small, medium, and large rollers onto the right spots. Celebrating the success of doing that right. 

OK, this has been a long post, but overdue.  Pictures next time I promise.

Whoopsie Daisy

This will be a short post, cause I'm not sure that I am all wrapped around it yet.  Yet another interesting day in the life of an Alzheimer's stricken person and her family I guess.

My mom's sister arrived for a short (3 day) visit with Shirley.  Mom was ready and had been anticipating the visit for the last few days.  We thought.  Marilyn arrived with her son Dale around noon today, there was a lovely sort of reunion, and my brother and I enjoyed spending time with cousin Dale, who is a tall and handsome and successful family guy who lives in Ohio.  After Dale left for home, mom and auntie and I went for lunch and to the grocery store for staples ("banamas" and such) and once we got home, settled in for a visit.  Sometime mid-afternoon, the mom started to get a bit agitated (not so unusual in my world anymore), so I took her for a walk.  During said walk, she told me that she didn't know the visiting person, that she didn't remember having a sister, and that she didn't want the woman to stay at her house.  I thought that we had prepared Marilyn for the possibility that Shirley might not suddenly know who she was, and Marilyn thought she was prepared for that too.  NOT!!!

As it turns out, when we got back, Shirley told her sister that she didn't know her, that she didn't want her to stay, and that "everything was perfect until this happened".  Marilyn was pretty upset, as well she should have been.  I certainly recall the first time that Shirley asked me why I called her "mom".  I shed tears for days after that.  But, one becomes inured, I guess.  Anyway, Marilyn called my brother Tom who came to get her to take her to a friend's house for the night.  Shirley and I will drive up there and have lunch with her tomorrow to see how the situation might work itself out.  Shirley felt pretty bad about making Marilyn cry, but hey, it is what it is.  I'll probably add to this tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Settling in

So, just a little over a month since I've been here and visiting with mom every day.  We managed another shower yesterday (woo hoo!!!), and it was much easier since my brother Tom put a shower chair in the tub and replaced the showerhead with a hose/wand.  Clean and lotioned from the skin out, I know Shirley felt good.  We had a great day, lunch at Wendy's (we split a salad, she had a chocolate Frosty), a trip through Big Lots, not looking for anything in particular, just using up the afternoon, then a visit to my house so she could pet Butterball.  Then I came home and had dinner and a really pleasant phone conversation with a new friend who I hope to meet over the weekend.

Today it's raining and cold, so I'm going to the Albion fair with a girlfriend.  Wait till you see those pictures!

Hot Spots

So, another week has passed, though weekends don't mean what they used to for me - or for mom either, I guess.  I've been trying hard to learn where mom's hot spots are - those situations or conversations or activities that make her angry.  One, I learned last week, was about her housekeeping abilities.  I mentioned to her one day that I wanted to wipe her refrigerator down - that there was something sticky on the shelves.  She immediately went on the defensive and asked me if I thought she had a dirty house.  I responded as calmly as I could that, no, I didn't think her house was dirty, that I just wanted to take a minute to clean up the fridge.  She stormed out of the kitchen, and just as I was finishing the job, she came back in and said, "If you think my house is so filthy, you can just get out of it and STAY OUT!!"  So I did.  Hot spot indeed. 

I found another button not to push yesterday when I brought my laundry over.  I got hers and mine together and in the washer, then as it was in the dryer, she said to me, "I don't know how to say this to you, but I don't think I want you to do your wash here anymore."  She went on to explain that running the washer and dryer added to her ("you know, that thing I get every month") bill.  Then she said, "I feel like I just said something wrong to you."  Having learned to try not to take things personally, I said to her, "You know, you made a good connection there.  Running the appliances does use electricity, and that costs money.  So I can take my laundry to the laundromat from now on."  Then I let it drop.  I won't do my laundry there again unless she is absent from the house.  I don't really mind going to the laundromat, anyway.  Good opportunity to read a book.

So, that's what's been happening this week.  She knows my name now, almost every day, that it's Kathy.  She doesn't connect me with being her daughter, though.  Matter of fact, she keeps trying to fix me up with her youngest son - my brother.  That's Mike and mom below.  Next week, mom's sister is coming for a visit from Florida.  I'm sure I'll have a lot to write about when she's gone!

Baby steps

Though I can't be sure, I think this picture was taken out at my paternal grandfather's house out in Pageville.  Obviously mom was very young, still in her 20's I think.  She had 4 little kids by then, and obviously liked her sweets as much then as she still does today. 

I took another baby step this week by following the instructions in the Alzheimer's book and getting mom into the shower.  It was amazingly easy, so much easier than I imagined it was going to be!  Simple straightforward instructions had her following me into the bathroom and taking off one article of clothing at a time, and then into the shower she went.  We got her all lathered up, rinsed off, and out of the tub in a matter of 5 minutes.   I thought I was going to get a fight from her about the process, but as usual, I was projecting, not doing.  So now that we've done it once, I won't be so anxious about doing it again.

On another note, I have to say that I visited a lovely retirement village only about 5 minutes from us called Juniper Village.  I met some people who were in the same situation as I am, and they placed her mom there a year ago.  The woman, according to her family, was pretty unhappy at first, as you can imagine, but after a couple of months has begun to blossom under the care of the staff and the company of others.  I am absolutely certain that my mom would do the same if we were to place her into a good facility, but, just like the shower, it's the anticipation of the difficulties in the path that keeps me from moving forward with what I think would be best for mom.  I have to remember that we are all taking baby steps here.