That Helpless Feeling

It was another day I left Atria feeling like I wanted to cry.

I was bringing my mother's meds for next week to her.  I knew she would be running out of them today and didn't want her to skip a day.

I knocked on the door to her apartment and she called out, as she always does, "come in!" which is silly because she never leaves the door unlocked and always has to come and unlock it.

She answered the door with unkempt hair, as if I had awakened her, and the first thing she said was "I forgot to go to lunch" (It was about 2 p.m.)

I went to replace last week's pill container with the new one and discovered she hadn't taken her pills for almost the whole week. She tried to convince me she had taken them, but that's something she can't talk her way out of because the pills were all still there.

We sat down to talk and I reminded her, as I have every day for the past two weeks, that we are going to San Rafael tomorrow to have lunch with her friends.  She looked surprised, then got huffy and said "I never agreed to that!"  Then she said that she felt "terrible" and just didn't feel like going "but you go and have fun."  I reminded her that this was a lunch for her birthday and if she couldn't make it her friends would undoubtedly cancel it.

Based on her reaction today and how she was last time we met them for lunch, I've decided we just won't do that any more.  The first few times we went to these lunches were wonderful and such a tonic for her, but not really any more. She enjoys the lunch, once we get there and she realizes that she knows the women we are meeting, but the anguish of getting ready to go when she doesn't recognize the names of any of the people we are going to see, and the nervousness of leaving Atria, and the hour long questions on the drive down about who is going to be there and who decided we were going to meet and why were we going to meet, over and over again are exhausting for me, but worse for her because she really is afraid she is going to get lost, going to have to talk to people she doesn't know and isn't comfortable being away from her familiar surroundings.  She is also nervous when looking at a menu because it's impossible to decide what to eat and she usually whispers to me to choose for her. (Things are better on the ride home because I have a playlist of music from the 40s and 50s that I have downloaded from iTunes which has all of her favorites and she sings along with every song all the way home -- proving that even people who can't remember anything else can still recall song lyrics!)

I tried to identify why she wasn't feeling well and she doesn't know.  It's not pain, it's just...something.  I asked if she had breakfast that morning and she said no.  I pointed out that she hasn't had her pills all week and hasn't had anything to eat today and maybe that was the reason why she was feeling so bad.  But that requires too much cause-and-effect processing to sink in.

She once again explained her not taking her pills by reminding me that she has never been a "pill taker."  Whenever her back hurts and she moans about it and says her back is "killing her" and I ask her if she has taken a pain pill she says "No--I'm not a pill taker."  In truth I don't know how much, if any, relief Aleve (which her doctor suggested she take) would give her but we'll never know because she's not a pill taker, even if it might relieve her pain.

We left it with that I will either call her or come over every day, now, to remind her to take her pills and I will wait on the phone until she has taken them. We'll see how long that lasts.  (I will also remind her to go to lunch.)

But she sat there in her chair, looking like a limp dishrag, with dark circles under her eyes, staring out the window, sighing and telling me she was old.  When I mentioned she would be 97 in 2+ weeks, she seemed surprised that she was so old.  Then she'd tell me she doesn't know why she doesn't take her pills because she sees them every day.  That is always followed by the inevitable "stupid, stupid, stupid!" indictment she is fond of giving herself.  I tried to remind her that it's not because she is stupid but because her brain doesn't work right any more, but that, too, is more than she can process now.

I tried to get her to laugh and remembered a photo Laurel had posted of Lacie, which I was able to call up on my phone, and that did make her smile and ask who the cute little girl was.

Sigh.

It wasn't a "visit" today.  It was two people sitting in pretty much total silence for an hour until I decided it was time to leave.  She didn't even tell me how pretty the leaves on the trees outside are today.  That was definitely unusual.

A Sorta Perk

One of the perks, I guess, of dementia....

I've been concerned because she doesn't seem to be eating much.  She orders the same thing at every lunch -- fruit salad and vegetable soup (and then does not eat the vegetables, so she's really just having a cup of vegetable broth). 

We went to lunch and the entree was a hot turkey sandwich, which I ordered and my mother ordered a HALF of a bowl of vegetable soup, since a bowl (about a cup) was too much for her.  The waiter didn't hear her right and brought her half an order of the turkey sandwich, which she ate unquestioningly, not realizing he had brought the wrong thing.  So today, at least, she got a decent lunch, which she ate.

Poor Nannie

My mother is always saying that though she remembers her mother-in-law's name (Pearl), she can't picture her.  So today I found a picture of my grandparents and showed it to my mother.  She didn't have a clue who they were.

Restless

She was restless today.  Said she knew she was supposed to be doing something, but didn't remember what.  Of course she has said  this every day I have seen her for the past 2+ years, but she doesn't know that.  She always asks if I ever feel that way and I tell her I do, which seems to reassure her that it's OK to feel disoriented, but today it seemed worse than usual. 

When I first sat down, the first thing she said was "did you bring those?" indicating some cheap trinket necklaces in purple and green hanging from the lamp.  I told her I had not and that I hadn't seen them before.  She said it's very confusing because whenever she gets up, she sees that people have brought things into her apartment and she doesn't know who or why.  Obviously she had a visitor that she can't remember.  I've asked people to sign in on the calendar when they visit, but nobody ever does.

She didn't want lunch, just fruit salad (which consists of less tan a cup of fruit).  The waitress asked if she wanted a large  fruit salad and I said that yes, she did, but when the bowl came (the size of a cereal bowl) she said it was too much and only ate about 2/3 of it  I worry that she isn't eating and I've asked Atria if they can check and see if she goes to meals every day.  They said they would, but of course I have heard nothing from them since then.

She complained all thru lunch about feeling odd and that she just wanted to curl into a ball, go to sleep and hope the feeling went away.  When we got back to the apartment, we sat for a bit, but when I got up to leave, she didn't get up and walk me to the door, as she usually does.

I read a book today called "My Roller Coaster Ride with Sallie: an Azheimers Story."  Sallie is SO much like my mother, until the later stages of Alzheimers.  The difference is that she used a walker and a wheelchair when necessary and she was friendly and outgoing with people in the facility where she lived.

I did kind of laugh, though, when we went into the dining room.  Robert, the 98 year old retired veterinarian, was sitting at "her" table.  She's usually the 4th there, but when I come, there is no room for me.  But as she passed by she tweaked Robert's ear and he turned around and she gave him a smile.  She has always needed a man in her life and while Robert is not a love interest, he is at least a man in her life and she turns on the old Chubbie charm.

When we left the dining room she went to say something to Loretta, probably her best friend there  They don't know each other's name and see each other only at meals, but they have the same humor and enjoy each other.

Forgetting

Today was the first time she forgot Fred's name.  She said she couldn't remember my father's name and I said "Al."  She said that didn't sound right and I said "how about Albert"  She said that sounded right, but t hat she had never called him that.

Then I asked her if she remembered the name of her next husband and she got this blank look on her face.  "I had another husband?" she asked.  I said that yes, she did and that it had been Ed's father.  She looked confused.  I said 'well, you'd better remember because I'm supposed to bury you with him."  "Bury me with Ed's FATHER?" she said.  When I said his name was Fred, then she remembered.  But that was definitely a first!

Puzzles

 I got this bright idea to ask her if she wanted to go upstairs and work a puzzle.  She said yes!  So we went up to the puzzle tables and found a puzzle that apparently had been finished but someone was taking it apart.  We decided to put it together again, about 1/3 of the left side of the thing.

We sat there for two hours working the puzzle.  While we were working, the Brain Gymnasium (remember that?) was going on in the room next to the puzzle area and hearing the group laugh and talk together made me sad that my mother refuses to consider going.

I noticed something interesting about her.  My mother has been a puzzle fiend all of her life.  We both are.  We are very good at jigsaw puzzles.  We look at pieces and generally find the right piece for a certain space without having to try a lot of them.  But we stayed to complete the puzzle and I know she was getting tired.  That's when I noticed she would pick up a piece and seemed to have no idea how to turn it to put it in a spot.  She'd try large round edges into small holes.  It didn't last very long, but I was surprised at how she seemed completely incapable of doing the puzzle.  Fortunately she snapped out of it soon and was zipping through the last few pieces, but I had the distinct feeling  that this was part of her dementia too.

Pissed

May I say how much I hate dementia? This morning was not my best.  I tried to activate my new ATM card and they would not recognize my telephone number...the number I've had for forty years.  I tried several ways of getting it activated, but I was rushing because I told my mother I would be there for lunch.  It was pushing 100 degrees when I arrived at Atria and my hip has been hurting since yesterday.  There were two parking spots and the gardeners had blocked off both of them.  There was no nearby on-street parking, except for the slots which are set aside for the g-d zip cars.  I finally found a spot, rushed to the apartment, arriving at 11:20.  The door was locked, she was not inside (neither alive nor dead) and it appeared that both of her keys were inside and I didn't now how she could have left the room without her keys and the door was locked.

I looked in the dining room and didn't see her where she usually sits.  I didn't find her in the lobby or in the little seating area off the dining room.  I called Ed to see if she was with him, but he was coming to see her too and said that he had tried to all her too earlier and got no answer.  Now I was really worried, so I went to the front desk and they got three different aids to go looking for her.  Turns out she was at lunch, sitting behind a post on the other side of the room from where she usually sits.  It was now 11:30, she never goes to lunch with me before 11:45, but she was finishing her dessert.  I got angry with her and she told me to sit down and eat, but I told her I had to work and left.