The Thing About the Memory...

Alzheimer's, if that is what age-related dementia is, is not a sudden on-set loss of memory; it is a gradual thing and the tragedy of it is that the senior knows what is happening until they don't.  The matriarch's thought processes are not quite that bad; at least, not yet.  She has lost just enough of her recent memory to know she has said something that she has forgotten and, by gosh, she is right whatever she said.  It drives me crazy.  It drives her crazy.  It drives the children crazy.  My mother-in-law asked my children what they were going to bake for Christmas this week.  They told her.  She asked again.  They told her.  She asked a third time and my youngest was left to answer a third time.  The children never lose patience and I am extremely proud of them for that.   And, the mother-in-law knows they are being good; after conversations such as the baking one, she tends to stay downstairs and listen to them practice piano.  Maybe it is instinctual but the matriarch does know we are trying.

I heard two stories about Alzheimers.  A man lived in a decent home and every week, his son went to visit; then, one weekend, the man was waiting at the door with his bag in hand saying he wanted to go home.  The man had never complained before so the son talked to the home.  A decision was made that perhaps the man was bored and needed a job and the home found him one, folding laundry.  Six weeks went by and every weekend, the man would visit with his son quite happy about the new job.  Then, the son met the man at the door again; the man wanted to go home; he hadn't been paid in six weeks.  Sounds like a joke...except I know the son.  He arranged for the home to pay the man in cheques he provided and he cashed for his father.  The home was more than accommodating. 

Second story isn't quite so amusing: my friend's father lives in a home and has terrible consequences from diabetes.  He is on leg braces but his mind is good and he is quite social.  Every afternoon, he is given a sleeping pill.  My friend has been told it is to help with his anxiety; she knew nothing about the pill or about his anxiety and has suspicions about the pill.  I don't know.  I just keep thinking that as much as the matriarch inconveniences me and how sometimes I get terribly depressed about our situation, I don't think in good conscience I could change it.  Our meals are pretty good; despite what the matriarch says about my cooking, she does eat it.  She has company three times a day plus throughout the day and she gets out fairly regularly.  The routine has got to have helped with her mindset; to be losing one's memory at almost 99 has got to count for something.  Tonight, she went to bed with mincemeat tarts, no frozen fruit, after a dessert of fresh made short bread; I don't think a home would let her have the sugar I do--but she is not diabetic (I have no idea why not) and she likes it.