My mom loves to garden. It is the one interest she still has. She is outside as soon as she can get out in the morning and is hard to get in at dark. She looks at plant catalogs like a kid with the JC Penney Christmas. She will go through them and circle things, bend over pages and make lists galore of all the things she wants. She will present me with this and ask if I will call in an order. I always tell her I can do it on line and of course she doesn't understand how that works and she'll tell me that if I do that I won't get the wonderful savings of the coupon they always put on the front of these catalogs to make her think she's getting a real deal. She also feels that time is of the essence since the money saving coupon is only good until such and such a date. I'm always telling her that there will be another "special" in the mailbox tomorrow but there is all this urgency in her mind to ORDER NOW!!
She has presented me with orders for almost $300 in plants. I say-"no Ma, I'm sorry, I just can't spend that kind of money on plants right now". She'll say that she can't believe it is that much. Once, without thinking I told her to add it up and she would see that it was $300 and that the $20 off wasn't really going to help me much. Since she couldn't add it up, I got out the calculator and showed her the total. Reluctantly she started going through the book again like a disappointed kid to see what she could live without.
Part of gardening , of course is watering. She LOVES to water things whether they need it or not. Unfortunately, our water is not cheap and we have had drought conditions. Last summer when the water bill hit $130 for a month my husband (who usually doesn't say much about Ma's hobby costs) hit the roof and said he didn't care if every one of her darn plants croaked
I always hate to tell her about bills etc. because it makes her feel like she is a burden. What I DID tell her was that because of the drought, we were under water restrictions (which was about to happen). I suggested she get some of the buckets we had around to catch rain water (when we had any) and that maybe she could cut back on the watering a bit.
The next thing I knew she had every pail, bucket, dishpan, trashcan etc. lined up on the deck where the water runs off the roof ready to catch rain water. The next phase of the project was to take old towels and cut them up to make tops for all of these containers to filter the water. Lord only knows we do not want to water OUR plants with dirty water!!! After she cut the towels to fit, she took green yard and went around and around the filter to keep it tied on the container.
Then came the rain. She was thrilled that she was ready! The next phase was that she had to go out there and take water from one container to another to fill up the big ones and get the smaller ones ready for the next rain. Of course, if she determined that the filters were too dirty, they would have to be washed before she could possibly tie them to the top of the container. In addition, if the container itself looked dirty it would have to be scrubbed out as well.
Mother is basically in her electric chair so you can imagine this is quite a difficult process for her. Fortunately, we have some WONDERFUL ladies that stay with her that put up with all of this nonsense and help her to get the projects done. You can imagine with all of the bucket scrubbing and towel filter laundering that went on that we did not save much water!
This Spring I bought her 2 rain barrel which had mesh filters and chicken wire on top but nope, that wasn't good enough either, she had to make filters. I have seen some of my good towels cut in half tied to the top of a rain catching container. We thought last summer would probably be the last that she would even be interested in the projects but this has not been the case. She is raring to go and has already got 2 rain barrels filled and the other containers gathering water even now.
All of this brings her alot of joy and gives her purpose. Anyone with buckets or towels for filters that you'd like to donate to the cause-let me know.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Flashback - Wild ride at Walmart
My mother likes to get out - like we all do. Because of her mobility problems we seek out places that have motorized scooters so she can putter along and see what's going on in the world. Walmart is one place that we can generally get a scooter. Off we go to get groceries and Ma wanting to get some Christmas cards (although she had never sent the ones from the previous year). Each scooter works differently so it is difficult even for me to figure out exactly how it works let alone a person with some cognitive deficiencies.
Things start out OK with her following me up and down the grocery aisles. Then I look back and she's not there. I circle around the next aisle and up to the other end to look for her. Nowhere in sight. Like a mother who realizes her child is missing I quickly go to the head of the next aisle and look down to see her crashing into a display (fortunately nothing breakable). I leave my cart and run to where she is. Since she had not let loose of the hand grip (aka throttle) she was still moving forward. A man reached her before I could and grabbed her hand off the grip before she pushed the display completely over. When I got there an "mentioned" to her that she had run into the display she didn't even acknowledge that anything had happened.
I say, OK Ma, let's go back up here where I left my cart and go back to the aisles I missed. She starts following me. Seeing a family with several small children ahead of me I wanted to make sure she was right behind me. The next thing I know I see her out of the corner of my eye getting into the left hand side of the aisle instead of staying behind me. She is going full speed ahead. I had to jump out in front of the kids to keep them from being run over by Ma! I kept telling her to slow down but she was on auto pilot and I had to AGAIN remove her hands for the throttle.
By this point I was ready to leave Walmart! I had just another couple of things I really needed to get so I took her out into the center aisle and told her to stay right there, I was just going to run get 2 more things and then we would be ready to go. She said OK. I went as fast as I could,grabbed the couple of items and headed for where I had left her. You KNOW she was not there. I looked in all directions and saw no sign of my mother in her purple coat.
I didn't really know which direction to go and in parent mode again I just picked a direction and hit the floor running. I left my cart to make it easier. I passed an older employee and asked if he had seen an elderly lady in a purple coat go by on a scooter. He said yes-she went that way - pointing to the other side of the store.
When I finally caught up with her she was circling the toy aisles at break neck speed. Mind you, it is Christmas time and the aisles are full of kids! I don't know how many times I had to excuse her,apologize that she was in the way of the kids trying to look at the toys and keep her from hitting people and merchandise.
I was tempted to go to the hardware department and purchase some rope to tie to the scooter to keep her with me. I think I would have had better luck getting a 2 year old to stay with me than she did that day.
When I declared our Walmart time over and that we were heading to the check out she remembered the Christmas cards she wanted. Off to the boxed card aisle we go for AT LEAST an hour of me handing her every darn box of card they had and having her look it over , open it up unless it was sealed, me trying to explain that the outside of the box showed what it said inside and there was no need to open the boxes and get the cards falling out of the boxes etc. She couldn't be specific on what kind of cards she wanted. I asked - religious? She didn't know. How about something with Santa? No, she didn't want that (until a few minutes later when she decided to look at it anyhow). When all was said and done she must have had 25 boxes of cards in the basket that she couldn't decide from. I basically just picked 2 boxes and told her I thought those were the very best that Walmart had to offer and that I was sure everyone would like the cards. They are still in the drawer a year an a half later.
That was the last time I took her to Walmart!
Things start out OK with her following me up and down the grocery aisles. Then I look back and she's not there. I circle around the next aisle and up to the other end to look for her. Nowhere in sight. Like a mother who realizes her child is missing I quickly go to the head of the next aisle and look down to see her crashing into a display (fortunately nothing breakable). I leave my cart and run to where she is. Since she had not let loose of the hand grip (aka throttle) she was still moving forward. A man reached her before I could and grabbed her hand off the grip before she pushed the display completely over. When I got there an "mentioned" to her that she had run into the display she didn't even acknowledge that anything had happened.
I say, OK Ma, let's go back up here where I left my cart and go back to the aisles I missed. She starts following me. Seeing a family with several small children ahead of me I wanted to make sure she was right behind me. The next thing I know I see her out of the corner of my eye getting into the left hand side of the aisle instead of staying behind me. She is going full speed ahead. I had to jump out in front of the kids to keep them from being run over by Ma! I kept telling her to slow down but she was on auto pilot and I had to AGAIN remove her hands for the throttle.
By this point I was ready to leave Walmart! I had just another couple of things I really needed to get so I took her out into the center aisle and told her to stay right there, I was just going to run get 2 more things and then we would be ready to go. She said OK. I went as fast as I could,grabbed the couple of items and headed for where I had left her. You KNOW she was not there. I looked in all directions and saw no sign of my mother in her purple coat.
I didn't really know which direction to go and in parent mode again I just picked a direction and hit the floor running. I left my cart to make it easier. I passed an older employee and asked if he had seen an elderly lady in a purple coat go by on a scooter. He said yes-she went that way - pointing to the other side of the store.
When I finally caught up with her she was circling the toy aisles at break neck speed. Mind you, it is Christmas time and the aisles are full of kids! I don't know how many times I had to excuse her,apologize that she was in the way of the kids trying to look at the toys and keep her from hitting people and merchandise.
I was tempted to go to the hardware department and purchase some rope to tie to the scooter to keep her with me. I think I would have had better luck getting a 2 year old to stay with me than she did that day.
When I declared our Walmart time over and that we were heading to the check out she remembered the Christmas cards she wanted. Off to the boxed card aisle we go for AT LEAST an hour of me handing her every darn box of card they had and having her look it over , open it up unless it was sealed, me trying to explain that the outside of the box showed what it said inside and there was no need to open the boxes and get the cards falling out of the boxes etc. She couldn't be specific on what kind of cards she wanted. I asked - religious? She didn't know. How about something with Santa? No, she didn't want that (until a few minutes later when she decided to look at it anyhow). When all was said and done she must have had 25 boxes of cards in the basket that she couldn't decide from. I basically just picked 2 boxes and told her I thought those were the very best that Walmart had to offer and that I was sure everyone would like the cards. They are still in the drawer a year an a half later.
That was the last time I took her to Walmart!
Monday, March 24, 2008
Flashback-Who are you?
A couple of years ago we had a woman that stayed with my mother during the day. Ma was having alot of paranoid thoughts and was asking Darlene alot of questions about me and our family. What it came down to was she didn't know that I was her daughter. When Darlene told me about the questions I gave Ma a notebook and told her that when she had and questions come to mind during the day when I was gone that she could have Darlene write down the questions and when I got home we would go over the questions.
One night I got the notebook and sat down with her to go over the questions. Her first question was what had happened to her husband. My dad died in 1979. She said she knew he had been in the war but she didn't think he had died in the war. While she was talking to me about this she referred to my father by his first name instead of saying what happened to Dad? I told her that he did not die in the war although he did get injured in the war. The conversation went on with me laying out the events of the day that my dad died. She had been at the hair dresser when I got a call from my brother that dad wasn't doing well. He had been told he had an abdominal aneurysm a few weeks prior and by the symptoms that my brother described I was sure that it had ruptured. He called 911 and I started trying to get my mom at the hair dresser. We ended up picking her up halfway through getting her hair permed to take her to the ER where my father died.
As I told her the details she seemed to remember it - or at least said she did.
Another question was - "where am I?" . I asked her exactly what she meant. She couldn't really say so I asked her if she meant the city/state or my house. She said all of it. So I explained to her that she was at our home and told her the name of the town and state. She nodded but then asked why she was at my home. I told her that my husband and I had brought her to live with us because she needed some help. Then she wanted to know who I was. I told her I was her daughter.
My brother and I were adopted and fortunately for me I had some details since mine had been a private adoption. When I told her I was her daughter she looked like she didn't believe me. She said that she remembered a dark haired baby but that she didn't remember me. I told her that I was the dark haired baby but that I was all grown up now. She said that wasn't possible because she didn't have any papers. I assumed she meant adoption papers. I assured her that she did have papers but that she didn't have them here with her. I asked if she remembered Emily who was my birth mother. I reviewed the scenario of why Emily gave me up for adoption. It seemed to ring a bell but she still seemed a bit skeptical.
I explained that since I am her daughter that my husband and I wanted her to come stay with us so we could help her. Additional questions she asked revealed that she thought she was at some sort of facility like a nursing home and that there were other people living here. She would hear them upstairs although the upstairs was just storage. She would tell stories of the others using her bathroom (no one used her bathroom). She even insisted on having her shower cap labeled with her name so no one else would use it.
She frequently asked me who was in the room across from her. I showed her many times that it was just a guest room and that no one actually stayed there except when company came. She told Darlene that she was afraid my "other mother" was going to come and stay in that room and that there would be competition between them. It was awful to think that after 50+ years she still had those fears.
One night I got the notebook and sat down with her to go over the questions. Her first question was what had happened to her husband. My dad died in 1979. She said she knew he had been in the war but she didn't think he had died in the war. While she was talking to me about this she referred to my father by his first name instead of saying what happened to Dad? I told her that he did not die in the war although he did get injured in the war. The conversation went on with me laying out the events of the day that my dad died. She had been at the hair dresser when I got a call from my brother that dad wasn't doing well. He had been told he had an abdominal aneurysm a few weeks prior and by the symptoms that my brother described I was sure that it had ruptured. He called 911 and I started trying to get my mom at the hair dresser. We ended up picking her up halfway through getting her hair permed to take her to the ER where my father died.
As I told her the details she seemed to remember it - or at least said she did.
Another question was - "where am I?" . I asked her exactly what she meant. She couldn't really say so I asked her if she meant the city/state or my house. She said all of it. So I explained to her that she was at our home and told her the name of the town and state. She nodded but then asked why she was at my home. I told her that my husband and I had brought her to live with us because she needed some help. Then she wanted to know who I was. I told her I was her daughter.
My brother and I were adopted and fortunately for me I had some details since mine had been a private adoption. When I told her I was her daughter she looked like she didn't believe me. She said that she remembered a dark haired baby but that she didn't remember me. I told her that I was the dark haired baby but that I was all grown up now. She said that wasn't possible because she didn't have any papers. I assumed she meant adoption papers. I assured her that she did have papers but that she didn't have them here with her. I asked if she remembered Emily who was my birth mother. I reviewed the scenario of why Emily gave me up for adoption. It seemed to ring a bell but she still seemed a bit skeptical.
I explained that since I am her daughter that my husband and I wanted her to come stay with us so we could help her. Additional questions she asked revealed that she thought she was at some sort of facility like a nursing home and that there were other people living here. She would hear them upstairs although the upstairs was just storage. She would tell stories of the others using her bathroom (no one used her bathroom). She even insisted on having her shower cap labeled with her name so no one else would use it.
She frequently asked me who was in the room across from her. I showed her many times that it was just a guest room and that no one actually stayed there except when company came. She told Darlene that she was afraid my "other mother" was going to come and stay in that room and that there would be competition between them. It was awful to think that after 50+ years she still had those fears.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
How it All Began
My mom is 84 years old. She is a retired nurse and has been a widow since 1979. She never even had a date after my dad died. In her past life she owned her own nursing home, worked as a nurse in many settings including post partum and new born nursery. She dearly loved those babies! When I had my last baby (30+ years ago), I delivered at the hospital my mom worked at and she was able to give my baby girl her first bath.
Over the years Ma developed severe arthritis - osteo, rheumatoid and psoriatic so she ended up retiring a bit early. She enjoyed some traveling with a friend and spent alot of time with my brothers family as well as my own.
I left our home in Syracuse New York to seek sun and sand in Myrtle Beach SC and Ma started visiting in the winters and as her mobility deteriorated she spent longer here during the winter. Things started getting a bit rough when she would go home. She experienced alot of falls and started getting confused about her medicines and quite paranoid at times about anyone trying to help her with those medications. When she was with us she started experiencing a serious decrease in her mobility and wasn't even able to transfer herself from the bed to the bedside commode.
Knee replacements had been discussed with her for years but she said she didn't want to have surgery. To make a long story short, I convinced her to see an orthopedic surgeon here and basically she realized she was either going to be bedbound or get new knees. In the summer of 2005 she had bilateral knee replacements.
During her recovery she had alot of hallucinations, both auditory and visual and would call from the hospital and rehab to tell me bizarre stories of things that were going on. One night it was that the room across the hall was hosting a "Black Muslim" wedding. I tried to make light of it and said " and they didn't even invite us!" She was very upset by it, said that people were running up and down the halls and she was scared and wanted me to come get her. The hospital she was in is probably one of the most quiet and peaceful hospitals I have ever been in. They only do orthopedics, the halls are carpeted and they don't do overhead paging so I saw it as a lovely place if you had to be in the hospital.
Another night she called and said I had to get her out of the crazy place right now! I asked what was going on ( I hadn't been gone from there 30 minutes) and she said a baby had been born and there was alot of crazy stuff going on. I said - " a baby was born up there on your floor?" She said " Yes, that's what I'm telling you!" I said " well where did the baby come from" She said " It's mother". I said, " I mean, they don't even deliver babies at that hospital". She said " I know it, that's why it's so crazy and I need to get out of here!".
I attributed all of this to the stress of the surgery and medications that they had her on and assumed it would pass. I am a nurse myself and have seen patients- including myself - act pretty bizarre due to these factors.
When she got to the rehab (we used that term instead of nursing home) she continued with some of the same types of tales. She also was very paranoid about medications that were given to her and at times appeared almost unconscious when they attempted to get her up to go to physical therapy etc.
During this time I spoke with a hospitalist about her progress and he said- kind of as an aside that she had dementia. I told him that since he had only just met her, that she was a 81 year old woman recovering from bilateral knee replacement, that I didn't think it was the time to be making such a diagnosis. He basically said I could accept it or not but that his guess was that she had organic brain syndrome and dementia, possibly exacerbated by many years on narcotic pain relievers and the recent stress of the surgery.
Looking back, of course I could see many of the signs of dementia that I had attributed to other causes.
Prior to her surgery it had pretty much been decided that she would be with us full time. We were having a house built at the time and designed her bedroom and bathroom to make it easier for her to manage with a motorized chair or walker.
I feel that she made a good recovery from the surgery. She was able to use her walker and sometimes a cane. She stayed alone during the day while I worked and operated my business. She did laundry and dishes and enjoyed feeling that she was helping.
During this time, more bizarre behaviors took place. One evening Ma and I sat down to eat supper and I got up from the table to get something and when I came back she had a mouthful of something and was chewing to beat the band. The food we were having didn't really require all that chewing so I thought it was strange. My mom always drinks hot tea and has a little tea bag holder that the tea bag goes on after she takes it out of the cup. The thought flashed across my mind wondering if she had the tea bag in her mouth. I looked down at the tea bag holder and it was empty. I said -"MA! Spit out what's in your mouth!" and held up a napkin. She spit out the teabag!! She never questioned why I had told her to spit out what was in her mouth which was really odd and when I told her she had been chewing on a tea bag she really just kind of shrugged and started eating her supper!!
After that I got her into her primary care physician (after sending him a note about some of these strange behaviors) and he did a MMSE (mini mental status exam) on her. I didn't think she did too bad, all things considered but he very calmly and gently told her that she had dementia and that the most common type was Alzheimer's disease and he believed that's what she had. He sat quietly for a few minutes and then asked her how she felt about what he had told her. She said she didn't like the sound of it and after we left there she never mentioned anything about it. I later took her to a neurologist whose conclusion was the same.
So, that was the beginning of the journey. My intention is to blog as therapy for myself in coping with the situation, share information that I have found helpful and record some of the hilarious, heartbreaking and hair raising things that happen around here. I welcome your visits! Feel free to comment and share your own experiences in caring for a loved one with this awful disease. We can all learn from each other.
Over the years Ma developed severe arthritis - osteo, rheumatoid and psoriatic so she ended up retiring a bit early. She enjoyed some traveling with a friend and spent alot of time with my brothers family as well as my own.
I left our home in Syracuse New York to seek sun and sand in Myrtle Beach SC and Ma started visiting in the winters and as her mobility deteriorated she spent longer here during the winter. Things started getting a bit rough when she would go home. She experienced alot of falls and started getting confused about her medicines and quite paranoid at times about anyone trying to help her with those medications. When she was with us she started experiencing a serious decrease in her mobility and wasn't even able to transfer herself from the bed to the bedside commode.
Knee replacements had been discussed with her for years but she said she didn't want to have surgery. To make a long story short, I convinced her to see an orthopedic surgeon here and basically she realized she was either going to be bedbound or get new knees. In the summer of 2005 she had bilateral knee replacements.
During her recovery she had alot of hallucinations, both auditory and visual and would call from the hospital and rehab to tell me bizarre stories of things that were going on. One night it was that the room across the hall was hosting a "Black Muslim" wedding. I tried to make light of it and said " and they didn't even invite us!" She was very upset by it, said that people were running up and down the halls and she was scared and wanted me to come get her. The hospital she was in is probably one of the most quiet and peaceful hospitals I have ever been in. They only do orthopedics, the halls are carpeted and they don't do overhead paging so I saw it as a lovely place if you had to be in the hospital.
Another night she called and said I had to get her out of the crazy place right now! I asked what was going on ( I hadn't been gone from there 30 minutes) and she said a baby had been born and there was alot of crazy stuff going on. I said - " a baby was born up there on your floor?" She said " Yes, that's what I'm telling you!" I said " well where did the baby come from" She said " It's mother". I said, " I mean, they don't even deliver babies at that hospital". She said " I know it, that's why it's so crazy and I need to get out of here!".
I attributed all of this to the stress of the surgery and medications that they had her on and assumed it would pass. I am a nurse myself and have seen patients- including myself - act pretty bizarre due to these factors.
When she got to the rehab (we used that term instead of nursing home) she continued with some of the same types of tales. She also was very paranoid about medications that were given to her and at times appeared almost unconscious when they attempted to get her up to go to physical therapy etc.
During this time I spoke with a hospitalist about her progress and he said- kind of as an aside that she had dementia. I told him that since he had only just met her, that she was a 81 year old woman recovering from bilateral knee replacement, that I didn't think it was the time to be making such a diagnosis. He basically said I could accept it or not but that his guess was that she had organic brain syndrome and dementia, possibly exacerbated by many years on narcotic pain relievers and the recent stress of the surgery.
Looking back, of course I could see many of the signs of dementia that I had attributed to other causes.
Prior to her surgery it had pretty much been decided that she would be with us full time. We were having a house built at the time and designed her bedroom and bathroom to make it easier for her to manage with a motorized chair or walker.
I feel that she made a good recovery from the surgery. She was able to use her walker and sometimes a cane. She stayed alone during the day while I worked and operated my business. She did laundry and dishes and enjoyed feeling that she was helping.
During this time, more bizarre behaviors took place. One evening Ma and I sat down to eat supper and I got up from the table to get something and when I came back she had a mouthful of something and was chewing to beat the band. The food we were having didn't really require all that chewing so I thought it was strange. My mom always drinks hot tea and has a little tea bag holder that the tea bag goes on after she takes it out of the cup. The thought flashed across my mind wondering if she had the tea bag in her mouth. I looked down at the tea bag holder and it was empty. I said -"MA! Spit out what's in your mouth!" and held up a napkin. She spit out the teabag!! She never questioned why I had told her to spit out what was in her mouth which was really odd and when I told her she had been chewing on a tea bag she really just kind of shrugged and started eating her supper!!
After that I got her into her primary care physician (after sending him a note about some of these strange behaviors) and he did a MMSE (mini mental status exam) on her. I didn't think she did too bad, all things considered but he very calmly and gently told her that she had dementia and that the most common type was Alzheimer's disease and he believed that's what she had. He sat quietly for a few minutes and then asked her how she felt about what he had told her. She said she didn't like the sound of it and after we left there she never mentioned anything about it. I later took her to a neurologist whose conclusion was the same.
So, that was the beginning of the journey. My intention is to blog as therapy for myself in coping with the situation, share information that I have found helpful and record some of the hilarious, heartbreaking and hair raising things that happen around here. I welcome your visits! Feel free to comment and share your own experiences in caring for a loved one with this awful disease. We can all learn from each other.
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