Not from Funny the World

 

This is one I chose not to write in Funny the World because I suspect people are tired of hearing me talk about my mother, but yesterday was our 50th anniversary and there was a small party here.  Jeri and Phil flew out from Boston for it.

Despite it being on her calendar and my talking to her about it every day for the past two weeks, she did not remember, of course. But I didn't expect her to.  When Ned and Phil picked her up and brought her to the house, she was surprised to find out there was a party going on and said she was angry that she never knew anything about it.

She must have asked me the name of our dog Polly a dozen times or more, plus asking if it was our dog or not.  My friend Char wrote, "I admire your patience with your mother. I think I might have ripped my hair out and gone screaming from the room after the hundredth time she asked you about Polly..."  Sometimes it's nice to have someone else notice.

She would turn to me periodically through the afternoon and point to one of the grandkids and say "who is that little girl?" and then ask whose daughter she was and whether she had a sister.  I lost count of how many times she did that.

She lost her way going from the kitchen to her seat at the table after picking up her piece of cake.  It's a distance of, generously, 5 steps, but she started wandering around trying to figure out where to sit.

At the end of the day, she was very tired so I really understand why it was difficult for her to remember where she was or where she was going  But we went over and over and over where I was going to sleep and where she was going to sleep.  She didn't understand that this was my house and I was going to sleep here.  She didn't remember ever being here before.  She said she didn't know where her house was and wondered what city we were in.

Then there was the frenzy about her purse.  She always has to bring a purse, though it is as useful to her as Queen Elizabeth's.  But she was completely lost without her purse and wondered where it was  She was reassured each time I told her I had it (out of the hands of the grandkids and teeth of their dog) and I would get it for her before she left.  I sent Jeri and Phil to take her home so they could walk her back to her apartment, because I wasn't convinced she could find her way.

It was a lovely day and I'm thrilled to have been able to snap the above photo of her, since most of the time she was looking totally lost, but this was definitely not a good day for her, dementia-wise.

Need more birthdays

We went back to San Rafael for lunch again today and I decided we are desperately in need of more birthdays! This time we were to be celebrating the two women who have June birthdays.

The last time we were scheduled to go to San Rafael for lunch, my mother told me she was feeling dizzy and didn't want to leave Atria.  Since she has been more adamant about not leaving Atria and nervous when we are out (the last time was Mothers Day) that I wasn't sure if she was really dizzy or if she just didn't want to go.,

I prepared her for this lunch again, putting it on her calendar and talking about it everyday I was there to visit with her (each time, of course, she hadn't remembered it and got the "you say it's on my calendar but I don't have to look at my calendar if I don't want to..." look on her face.

This morning I called her to remind her I would be picking her up in an hour and she didn't ask why..just said she would be ready.  And, unlike last time, when I got there, she was ready and knew we were going "somewhere" but couldn't remember where.

Whatever.  It was better than last time.

The drive down was the same, explaining over and over again where we were going and who was going to be there, interspersed with comments about how beautiful the trees were and what a shame it was that the grass is all dead looking.  Same ol' same ol'.

We were eating at Arriverderci again.

It's really a lovely Italian restaurant in San Rafael and so far everything I've had there has been wonderful.

We encountered almost no traffic, so we arrived early but I knew we had a reservation and that, the weather being perfect, we were sitting on the patio.

As the waiter was walking us to the table to wait for the others, I ordered my mother a vodka and tonic (she actually had 2 over the course of the lunch, which maybe helped!)

As I watched her joke and laugh and reminisce with her friends, the ones she wasn't sure she would remember when she saw them, I realized that this kind of mental stimulation is so good for her.  Really, she gets zero mental stimulation...and refuses to consider anything.  She won't join in any activities, she can't remember how to get upstairs where the puzzles now are, I've given up her actually making friends at Atria--the memory is just too bad for that, though she finally has people she recognizes and enjoys at mealtimes.  It takes coercing to get her to leave Atria for anything.  And even if you can get her to leave, her back pain (which she won't take a pain pill for) makes it difficult for her to move much.

She says she reads the paper, which she has done cover to cover her whole life, but if there is any tragedy or triumph in the world, or a win by the Giants or 49ers, she doesn't remember reading it.  I sure don't now how to stimulate a brain that refuses to be stimulated.

Still, this was as "with it" as I have seen her since February, when we last went to one of these lunches.  Next one is scheduled for September, this time to celebrate my mother's birthday.

Getting back in the car, I plugged in my 40s playlist again, since it had been such a success last time.  And this woman, who sometimes doesn't remember she has great grandchildren and never remembers their name, sang every word to every bloody song for the hour and a half drive home.  Music does amazing things to brain function.

A Better Day

As unpleasant and frustrating as Atria was yesterday, it was a 180 degree change today.  I dragged my feet getting there, dreading a repeat of the day before, but knew I had to get there because she needed her next set of pills.  But we actually had a good visit, this time mostly concentrating on her family, how much she misses her sister Marge (Peach's mother) and how lately she's been dreaming about her mother having very real conversations with her, and waking up convinced that she was still somewhere in the room.  She seems happy to be having those dreams, and just sad to wake up.  I hope that some day she'll just decide to take her mother's hand and go off with her to find Marge and the rest of her siblings.

When will I see you again?

I came away from Atria today, after four hours with my mother, with such an incredible admiration (as well as sympathy) for caregivers who take care of loved ones on a 24/7 basis.  My mother has good days and bad days and I always arrive hoping this will be one of her good days.

It was one of her less good days, when she seemed just very tired and unable to concentrate on anything.  I've started trying to bring her news of all the "exciting" things I've been doing since I last saw her (2 days ago), since that's usually the first thing she asks me.  "Exciting" in my life is relative, but I did tell her how surprised I was yesterday when I could not remember the name of one of my friends' children (whom I have known all of her life) but could remember the name of my godmother's boss, whom I never met or even saw a picture of but remember his being talked about a few times...and remember, she died when I was 10!)

Her comment when I finished:  "Well, life goes on, I guess."  This is one of her go-to phrases when she hasn't followed or understood what you said, but thinks that a response from her is necessary.  It also effectively ends that discussion and usually precedes "I'm old, Bev."

She probably asked me 20 times what I was doing for the rest of the day (taking her to the hairdresser and when the hairdresser was finished, taking her back home again and then going to Sacramento to review My Fair Lady).  Each time I told her that she had a different response -- do I have to write a "report" about it?  How did I happen to get tickets for that show? Have I seen that show before?  Will I get paid to write about it?  Is Walt going with me?  Where will my review be printed? When I finish answering her questions she then says "so what are you doing for the rest of the afternoon?" and we start all over again.

A new wrinkle, though, is that she thinks never sees enough of me.  I haven't been there in a long time (2 days) and she misses me and when will I come back again (tomorrow).  

About the 20th time she said "I'm old, Bev--do you think I'll live to hunnert?" I decided it was time to go.  I could either walk calmly out to the car, or stay behind and start screaming.  If I were her 24/7 caregiver, I would not have that luxury and that, I admit, makes me a tad guilty, but not really, because I know that she has the best possible arrangement right now and, whether she realizes it or not, I'm there almost all the time.

But maybe next time will be one of her better days, and I really enjoy them.  Wouldn't it be loverly...?

Brief Scare

I hadn't been to Atria in about 4 days, so it was time to go pick up laundry.  I got to the apartment at 11:15 and my heart sank.  Was today the day?

My first clue, whenever I go to see her, that she has survived another night is seeing that her newspaper has been picked up out of the delivery box.  But it was still in the box.
 
Nervous, I knocked on the door and there was no answer.  I got out my key and let myself in.  I could see the bed unmade.  I peeked into the bedroom and she was lying there, eyes opened.  I couldn't tell if she was breathing or not.  "Are you awake?" I asked, and she said that yes, she had just awakened.

Whew.  She was alive.

But she was quite disoriented.  Said the last time she remembered seeing on her clock was 3 a.m. (and had been up and down all night before that) and so slept until after 11, which is actually 8 hours, so a good night of sleep, if slightly off what she expected.

We visited until she began to wake up.  She told me something she had never told me before, that she was always embarrassed that there were so many children in her family because their family (of 10) was so much bigger than anyone else's in town.  Of course by the time she was born, the oldest 3 or four were already grown and gone (and my mother had a nephew 6 months older than she was!), so there were really only 6 or 7 at home.

After she was finally fully awake, she got her hair brushed and we went off to lunch.

I picked a great day to go to lunch.  Since it was Memorial Day, they had a buffet, but not the buffet they have on Sundays.  This was actually better -- fewer choices, but better quality.  I had 3 slices of a tri tip roast which was rare, just the way I like it, a bit of potato salad, and half an ear of corn on the cob.

My mother wanted fruit salad and vegetable soup, but there was no vegetable soup, so she decided to have chicken.  I went and got it for her, since her back was bothering her, and there was no fruit salad either, but I did get her a couple of slices of watermelon.

The corn on the cob was really good.  I am always leery about that particular food item from a food warmer, but this was fresh, warm, crisp and sweet.  My mother had decided not to have any but when I raved about how good it was, she decided she wanted some.  I remembered this was the woman who, in her teens, once ate 12 ears of corn for dinner!  When she took her first bite, she closed her eyes in bliss.

After lunch, I picked up her laundry and was pleased to see there were clothes in it this time, and no sheets, and then headed on home.

Oh Sheet

I thought we had figured out a solution to the laundry problem.  Once I started bringing her laundry to her in a laundry basket, rather than just leaving it on her bed, she stopped taking her clothes to the front desk saying they weren't hers.  I was proud of myself for solving that problem.  Apparently not.

When I got home from the book club yesterday, Walt let me know there was a message on the answering machine for me.  It was a semi-ominous message saying she was calling about my mother, that everything was OK, but that I needed to talk with either the person leaving the message (I couldn't understand her name) or the nurse and that calling them the next day would be fine.

So I called in the morning and learned that my mother has ... twice ... brought sheets to the dining room to turn them over to someone.  They thought I should know.  

Sigh.

When I brought her laundry home to wash last week, I was pleased to see that it was a big bag.  She has given me nothing but underwear for a month, and as she wears the same 3 outfits in rotation every day, surely they must need washing.  But she refuses to give them to me because "they aren't dirty."  But this was a hefty bag of laundry and I figured she had finally given me her clothes to wash.

But when I came home, I discovered there was only underwear and her sheets and pillow cases.  What the heck...?  She pays Atria to do her bedding.  But I washed it and when I took everything back to her, she said that the housekeeper had not done her bed in two weeks (which I always don't believe since sometimes she thinks she has only been at Atria for a few months, so her concept of time is way off).  I could see that trying to reason with her was an exercise in futility, so I just left the laundry basket with the sheets and her underwear on her bed, as I always do.

However, before I left, she gave me back the basket, which means that she left the folded sheets on the bed.  Bad.

I figured out what probably happened was that the sheets were not in the basket, so she didn't know where they came from and thought she needed to take them somewhere and couldn't think of anywhere else to take them but...the dining room?  Twice?

So I sat her down and told her we had to talk.  I kind of laid it on thick to hopefully make an impression on her.  I told her that I felt like I'd been called to the principal's office.  I then told her what she had done and, of course, she has no memory of doing it.

But in the space of less than 5 minutes she had given me three or four different versions of what happened with the sheets, everything from she has no memory of ever seeing sheets, to finding them folded on her table and knowing that they belonged "somewhere" but she didn't know where (in none of versions did she remember taking  them to the dining room, for any reason).  She knows she herself has never changed her sheets, though two days before she had told me she had.

I tried to scare her and told her that I didn't want Atria to think her dementia was too bad for her to live in her apartment and that she would have to move, reminding her of when her mother, my sweet little old grandmother, had been kicked out of a rest home for behavior problems (though in her case it was for swearing like a sailor and knocking frail old people off their walkers!)

I tried to make a joke.  I had brought her some lovely sunflowers, which she loved and would interrupt me to talk about how beautiful they were.  I suggested that whenever she looked at the sunflowers, she should think of sheets.  Kind of silly, but I thought maybe that would work.  A few minutes later she looked at the sunflowers and said "I look at those flowers and I'm supposed to remember something, but I can't remember what."  I said "the sheets."  She said "what about the sheets?"

It's a lost cause, so if she gives me her sheets to wash again, I'll just put them in the linen closet when I bring them back.  I tried that with her clothes, but she finds them and doesn't recognize them.  Generic white sheets should be easier to "hide."

A Normal Day

I had lunch with my mother yesterday.  As days go, it was more less normal, but occasionally I like to record how the day went, so I can track whether I see deterioration or not.

I got stuck trying to solve a thorny computer problem and suddenly it was nearly 11:30.  I usually leave here at 11:15 and we frequently go to lunch at 11:30 or a little after, so I called to let her know I might be a little late and not to go to lunch before I got there.  She sounded groggy and I asked if I woke her up.  Most of the time these days, I wake her up when I get there for lunch.  She swears she only naps occasionally, but I think she naps in the morning and again in the afternoon.

When I got to the apartment, her paper was still in the box where they put it in the morning.  That is the first thing I always check, to give me an idea of whether she might have died in the night or not.  But since I had just talked with her 15 minutes before, I figured chances were good that she was  still alive.

But when I knocked there was no answer, so I finally started to dig out my key when she opened the door.  Her hair was flying in all directions and she looked like this picture of Albert Einstein (without the moustache).  That was when she told me that she just woke up, that she had difficulty sleeping the night before and was shocked when she woke up to discover that it was nearly 11:30.

She is always disoriented when she first wakes up and today was even more so, since she had just awakened after several hours of sleep.

She finished brushing her hair and putting on makeup and brought me her lipstick to show me that it was pretty much gone.  I reminded her I had bought her two lipsticks a week ago, which, of course, she did not remember, and we went searching for them, but couldn't find them in the bathroom, where she keeps her makeup.

I finally found them on the dresser in her bedroom, so that crisis was averted.  She repeated, as she has every single day since she moved here two years ago, that she is going to have to start keeping a list so she can remember what she wanted to talk to me about (to date there has never been a list).

I told her that I had thrown out the loaf of bread that was in her freezer, since I bought it for her when she first moved in two years ago and I didn't think it would be any good now.  I wanted to be sure she didn't find it in the garbage and take it out again.

We had the usual "I'm old" discussion and the talk about how much she likes at Atria and, to my surprise, she mentioned that she had made a few friends here.  That's the first time she has said that.

She said her back was really bothering her and I asked if she had taken her pain pills.  She said she didn't even know if she had any.  I told her that she did and that they were in the drawer in the bathroom.  She got that look on her face, like a kid who thinks she's being cute when she's getting away with something and that says "I don't want to take pills and you can't make me" so I didn't press it, but I told her that if she was not going to take her pills, she would get no sympathy from me if her back hurt.  She didn't take the pills.

We went off to lunch and she headed for the table where Margaret and Robert sat, where we usually sit, but there had been two people there before us and so there were no clean place settings and we sat at the next table, but as we passed Robert, she greeted him (not by name, of course) and told me he was her friend.  She later indicated Margaret and told me she was a nice lady.  

As we sat down, she suddenly could not get her breath and for a minute I was ready to get someone to come and help, as she bent down toward the table and held her chest and tried to breathe.  But the incident was over in a couple of seconds and after that she was fine.

As she does every single day she perused the menu thoughtfully and then chose fruit salad and vegetable soup, but had to refer back to the menu several times to remember what she was going to have, though she has it every day.  And, as always, she took the broth from the soup and left the vegetables.

We were joined by a man who has probably had a stroke.  He is worse off than she is.  Very pleasant guy, but could not get his words out and would start talking and then forget what he was going to say.

We went back to the apartment and I did some flower arranging for her.  I had brought her a floral arrangement at Easter, pink and yellow carnations in a nice basket with a big bow on it.  Talk about getting a bang for your buck.  She has raved and raved over how beautiful the arrangement was, even as the flowers died off and she was left with only dried fern in the backet.  She always asks if I brought her the basket. She said she didn't understand why the flowers died, because she kept watering them.  I have suggested throwing the basket out, but she says she likes looking at it.

I had brought her fresh flowers the last time I was there to bring her pills and she put them in a vase but stuck the vase in a dark corner where she couldn't see the flowers, so I took those flowers and put them in the basket with the dried ferns and now she thinks that the basket is the one I brought her at Easter time, which is nice because she seems to spend her day looking at either the flowers or out the window at the trees.  She loves plants so much.  Ed brought her a lovely orchid plant at Christmas and though it has been totally dead for months, she has hung a plastic lei on it and it still stands there so she has "something pretty to look at."

She has mentioned that she "has to do something with her hair" and I offered to make an appointment with the hair dresser for her, but she wants to "think about it" first.  I didn't press her on it, but when I have free time I'll just make the appointment and take her.  That's the only way she will ever go.

I picked up her laundry to bring home to wash.  I pointed out that I have only done underwear for the past month and didn't her other clothes need washing?  She wears the same 3 outfits in rotation every day, despite having a full closet of clothes, but she insists they aren't dirty and when they are, she'll give them to me to wash.  Whatever.

As I said, it was a normal day, but I wanted to record how this day went.

ADDENDUM:  After reading this, Ned told me he had stopped by her apartment a couple of weekends ago to bring coffee and coffee cake and have breakfast with her.  He knocked on the door and she opened it with her Einstein hair...and no pants!