Welcome

This blog is intended to be a part of my personal journey as I watch my mother journey through Alzheimer's disease. I am writing to help me work through the grief of this long disease, and I hope that my thoughts might help you also.

Friday, October 26, 2012

All Smiles

I remember Mother's smile as it used to be.  She smiled often, and when she smiled her eyes lit up.  It was a smile full of love, or humor, or teasing, or joy.  Her smile welcomed us and held us in its warmth.

Today Mother still smiles, and sometimes it is still warm and full of joy.  But not today.  Today her smile was pasted on.  It was big and forced.  She smiled because she couldn't connect with the conversation.  She couldn't relate to the pictures of the woods - the woods she has loved.  She only knew that she needed to smile and nod.  She wanted to participate.  She wanted to be social, but all she could do was smile.  But her forced smile only transmitted her confusion.  It became evidence of how lost she is.

Mother drifts deeper into her fog with a brave smile on her face. Her life is like the masks of comedy and tragedy.  Her tragic situation is covered by a broad and fake smile.  Tragedy, but all smiles.

Monday, October 8, 2012

Moments of Lucidness

"How much does this cost you?"  That was the question Mother had today.  She was lying in bed and chewing on her skin.  She grabbed the loose skin at her wrist between her teeth and pulled it out.  She repeated both the question and the chewing.  It struck me as such a typical Alzheimer's moment. 

She had been lying there thinking in some manner about the cost of her care.  She has no sense of money anymore.  She will tell you that a soft drink costs one hundred dollars or that a car costs twenty-five dollars.  It is all jumbled in her mind, yet she had a moment of awareness that her care in the home cost money.  She was worried.  I told her she had enough money and not to worry.  She smiled and kept gnawing away at her arm. 
I put the small terrycloth wrist band on her arm so that she could chew that.  She told me it didn't taste good.  She pulled if off and went back to chewing on her arm.  (Last week I had to throw away a shirt that had a hole in the shoulder from her chewing.)

"My inheritance will pay for this."  Inheritance?  There is no inheritance.  And truth be told, she doesn't have enough money for her care.  But I cannot tell her.  It would only worry her more, and the chewing would increase.  She is just lucid enough today to think about money and care, but not lucid enough to know that  there is no money or that she is chewing away her clothing and her arm.

Last week she grabbed my hand and pleaded, "please take care of me."  Of course I will.  I do in the best way I know how.  There is no road map to follow, so I do the best I can from day to day.  I tell her not to worry.  She will be ok.  She doesn't have to worry about the cost.  We will take care of her.  Somehow.  It will work out.