Christmas Joys
I decided to start recording the path my parents are both on ... that "Long Goodbye" thanks to dementia. I'll be sharing the challenges of diminished cognition and the moments of joy and happiness we can still enjoy with mom and dad.
Dementia - that dreaded word no one wants to EVER hear attributed to oneself in one's lifetime! Mom's biggest fear was to have dementia, lose her mind, and not know people's names, or keep up with her own high expectations for an orderly life! Lo-and-behold she was diagnosed in September with "global" dementia, likely caused by her atrial fibrillation heart condition. Poor mom!
Of course, this was preceded by about 2-3 years of caring for dad who also has vascular dementia, before he moved into long-term care. Poor mom!!!
My parents live in separate homes because of different care needs. Dad has been in a wheelchair for over 3 years so requires 24-hour care. On the other hand, mom is still mobile with her walker and lives in an assisted-living home. It's not fun to be separated but "fortunately", because of dad's short-term memory loss he's lost the concept of time. He knows that mom is not with him and indeed, in the first few months after moving to The Mayfair, he would ask Are we going home now? every time we saw him! That just tugs at your heart strings!!! Each visit we'd have to explain to him a few times over that he lives HERE now, and mom is going HOME. This is now his new home. So hard!
So today I dropped by both of their homes to pay a short visit and take pictures of the beautiful flowers & plants from my brother Greg & his wife Carol.
She looks pretty good huh?! Cute, even, at 85 years of age! And happy too.
Her world now consists of the area immediately around her spot at the sofa - notes, lip balm, eyeglasses, pen, phone, all within reach.
The walker is never far from her - always parked right in front of her, thankfully WITH the brakes ON!
The other day, I had brought her an old photo of her & dad taken in Germany on their visit in 1991. They had gone walking in the hills around Weinheim with my uncle, mom's brother. She had that picture on the seat of her walker, and picked it up, reading the caption on the backside. Even though mom had written "Funkturm" (or something like that), she looked at it repeatedly with a quizzical look, trying to understand WHERE it was taken!
You can see from her expression that she is thinking VERY hard to remember where this was. I told her what was written on the back, and suddenly she said, "Ja! Onkel Willi (her brother) had a tower up there." Ahhhhh ... the memory was retrieved! Success!
They are such a cute couple!
Next stop was dad's place. He was so happy to see me. I took pictures of the lovely mixed planter that was delivered yesterday, opened the card, and showed it to him. Sadly, dad's hearing is pretty much gone, except for a tiny bit in his right ear into which one needs to YELL for him to hear anything. Add to that the short-term memory loss and he really doesn't hear very much at all. Proper conversations or even answers to questions that may or may not be heard, is basically over. BUT he still can read! Bonus! I held the card for him, he looked and looked, and finally said, "Greg!" when he saw my brother's name. It warmed my heart!
At nearly 95 years old, he sure still loves to have his picture taken! Moments later ...
... that faraway look! Yet he still enjoys small things like watching traffic & pedestrians go by outside his window, and the changes in the weather.
I miss our conversations about spiritual things.
A few minutes later I took my leave, and as I turned to say "goodbye" he had already closed his eyes for another morning snooze! Peaceful!
Dementia - that dreaded word no one wants to EVER hear attributed to oneself in one's lifetime! Mom's biggest fear was to have dementia, lose her mind, and not know people's names, or keep up with her own high expectations for an orderly life! Lo-and-behold she was diagnosed in September with "global" dementia, likely caused by her atrial fibrillation heart condition. Poor mom!
Of course, this was preceded by about 2-3 years of caring for dad who also has vascular dementia, before he moved into long-term care. Poor mom!!!
My parents live in separate homes because of different care needs. Dad has been in a wheelchair for over 3 years so requires 24-hour care. On the other hand, mom is still mobile with her walker and lives in an assisted-living home. It's not fun to be separated but "fortunately", because of dad's short-term memory loss he's lost the concept of time. He knows that mom is not with him and indeed, in the first few months after moving to The Mayfair, he would ask Are we going home now? every time we saw him! That just tugs at your heart strings!!! Each visit we'd have to explain to him a few times over that he lives HERE now, and mom is going HOME. This is now his new home. So hard!
So today I dropped by both of their homes to pay a short visit and take pictures of the beautiful flowers & plants from my brother Greg & his wife Carol.
Her world now consists of the area immediately around her spot at the sofa - notes, lip balm, eyeglasses, pen, phone, all within reach.
The walker is never far from her - always parked right in front of her, thankfully WITH the brakes ON!
You can see from her expression that she is thinking VERY hard to remember where this was. I told her what was written on the back, and suddenly she said, "Ja! Onkel Willi (her brother) had a tower up there." Ahhhhh ... the memory was retrieved! Success!
They are such a cute couple!
Next stop was dad's place. He was so happy to see me. I took pictures of the lovely mixed planter that was delivered yesterday, opened the card, and showed it to him. Sadly, dad's hearing is pretty much gone, except for a tiny bit in his right ear into which one needs to YELL for him to hear anything. Add to that the short-term memory loss and he really doesn't hear very much at all. Proper conversations or even answers to questions that may or may not be heard, is basically over. BUT he still can read! Bonus! I held the card for him, he looked and looked, and finally said, "Greg!" when he saw my brother's name. It warmed my heart!
At nearly 95 years old, he sure still loves to have his picture taken! Moments later ...
I miss our conversations about spiritual things.
A few minutes later I took my leave, and as I turned to say "goodbye" he had already closed his eyes for another morning snooze! Peaceful!
Love you dad!
And so ends another visit. Until next time!
Comments
Post a Comment