The Rose of the Wind

Wow. I just read the last update I posted. Last Saturday, wasn’t it? It feels like a year ago or more. I have to sit down and really think, send my brain back in a time machine, to last weekend, to before everything rocked and changed one last time. Monday morning, I woke up deeply and unaccountably depressed. There was literally no reason for it, other than a weird and unpleasant dream about being served with a legal judgement for $54,700 (really, brain? You have to be that

Hello y’all. Things are—well, I hesitate to say improving, but sometimes, just having knowledge is an improvement over not having it. The MRI showed that mom had a stroke. It was one of the first things I thought about when I was first notified about her sudden decline, and when I got to the ER that day after New Year’s, I did a quick and dirty bedside screening. It didn’t show the obvious indicators I was looking for, but the thing is, not all strokes present that way. The a

Yeah, late again. New Year’s Eve was fine, very relaxing, but the day after New Year’s, things began to come unwound. Place K called to tell me mom had become unresponsive at the breakfast table & they were sending her to the hospital. Cue dropping everything and racing across town. (Thankfully, the hospital is almost within walking distance of her place; not so thankfully, the whole thing is on the opposite side of the county from me.) She was better by the time I got there,

The family has been trying to keep me away from mom, for fear seeing me would agitate her more. I’ve been torn about it, because while of course I don’t want to get her wound up, I miss her! I really do, even though there’s not much ‘her’ left there. When the hospital called that she was ready to move back into the psych unit, though, I was the only one available. I took a deep breath and went into the room. Mom looked a bit disheveled, needless to say, though no more or less

It’s happened. Sort of. Kind of. Not really, to be honest, which is why I haven’t been able to blog in so long. Mom was scheduled to move into Place K last Wednesday. I set her up for several days beforehand, telling her how her doctor wanted her to go to rehab, et cetera. Remember though, when I said I was concerned about how cognizant—or not—she would be on the day itself? Well, she was confused as all get out for days prior. On Wednesday morning, she had one of her outburs

Operation Place K is moving along. I had a brief but intense freak-out on Monday when I called mom’s doctors to make sure they were sending the needed paperwork K had requested, only to discover one is out of town this week. After a small panic, I realized it was not, after all, the end of the world, and the move could wait till his return. So I breathed deep, talked with his nurse and the contact person at K, and shuffled family members (willing, thank heavens). As it turned

Okay, I did it. After my last blog post, I called and set up an appointment for a nurse from Place K to come and evaluate mom for memory care placement. It’s just gotten to be bigger than I can handle. She needs more professional care, people trained to know exactly how to help her, plus, she’s bored! Yesterday she asked ‘wonder what Peggy does all day?’ Really, under normal circumstances, she would know her sister works part time, takes care of her new great-grandbaby a lot

Facebook saw fit to remind me the other day that it had been a year since I started blogging! How is it that time can seem to fly by, and at the same time feel like an eternity? I guess it’s the same way that I feel totally alone in my situation, and yet I’m never, ever alone. The past couple of weeks have been—odd, to put it mildly. I started writing just now and then noticed I haven’t written since my meeting with an elder care lawyer. The one near me is about to retire, bu

Place K was as nice as I remember it being; very clean and neat, with pleasant staff who interact well with the residents. The lobby’s been fixed up since I left, and other areas are slated for upgrade soon, according to the lady who showed me around, but it’s not run down by any stretch. The lobby was just really—businessey, I guess you would say, with flat chairs and glass wall through which you could see administrative and secretarial offices. Now it looks much more homey,

Not much to report this go-round. Group home visit cancelled; mom’s sitter was sick again, poor thing. So it’s been another week with minimal breaks. Uncle David came by so I could run to the grocery early in the week; bless him, 45 minutes with mom has him tearing out what’s left of his hair. Aunt Peggy came by later in the week so I could make another quick dash. She and mom often end up at odds, but this time it was pretty calm. Aunt Peggy was pleased they had actually bee

Mom’s slept pretty well the past few nights. The only problem with that is increased wrangling during the day, which makes it darn near impossible to get much of anything else done. It took me 4 hours the other night to get one 1000-word article done for work, because she would not stop talking. Now, I ought to be able to whack out a thousand words in an hour or two at the most, even when it involves research. But I have to sit on mom’s bed because she hollers every 10 second

The past week has flown by, even though some parts of it felt like they were years long. First assisted living visit was last Wednesday. The facility is very nice, smells clean, with some renovating being done in parts. The front desk had a little sign greeting me by name. The receptionist was welcoming, offered to get me coffee, and when I left gave me a tiny pecan pie wrapped up. The marketers who toured me around were friendly and answered all my questions. There were a lo

Among science fiction fans, there’s a thing known as the con crud. Invariably when you go to a sci-fi convention, somebody there has some kind of bug, and it spreads, and a lot of people end up going home with it. Well, apparently, there is an RV show version. I’ve had it for the past 2 weeks. Sniffling, clearing throat, singing bass, and coughing like a barking seal has been my life. Unfortunately, dementia does not recognize such things. Occasionally, mom would comment abou

Saturday was a day to be thankful for all around! The caregiver showed up early, for starters. Her name is Valerie and she is as sweet as they come. She and mom hit it off right away and were chatting as I slipped out the door. The weather was flawless for January: blue sky and mild temperature, so weird when less than 48 hours before there was still snow on the ground. There’s one spot on the interstate between my house and downtown, where several lanes merge just where the

I knew it was going to happen sometime, and this past week it finally did. Mom eloped. I’m using the word in the sense we use it in health care, when someone not cognitively competent makes an escape, planned or not, from their home or facility. She hasn’t tried before, though the whole wanting to go home thing and not understanding that’s where she is has been getting progressively worse. Wednesday night a week ago, she went for the door. She’s done it a few times recently,

Happy Thanksgiving, fellow Americans! And a good Thursday to the rest of the world. I was going to write about my gratitude jar, it seeming an appropriate topic for the day, but last night was somewhat traumatic and I need to get this out of my system. Feel free to scroll, or leave altogether, if you like. I will understand. I promise, it is going to end up having something to do with giving thanks. Mom was pretty confused and agitated most of last evening, but calmed down so

Mom had a horrible night last night. She read her pill schedule over and over for 2 hours and kept asking the same questions. I can usually maintain; sometimes she goes on twice that long and I just say “yes mom, no mom, let me read this with you again mom”. But I was tired and a bit stressed over various things… I kind of lost it and yelled at her. :( I left her room to regain myself and do some stuff. Usually that does the trick; she fumes and gripes for a while, and when I

This morning I put a roast in the crock pot. Mom never used a crock pot when I was growing up; she cooked a roast the old-fashioned way, browning it in the oven, then covering it and cooking it for a couple of hours. Daddy was a serious meat and potatoes kind of guy, so I imagine the recipes that were au courant for crock pots when I was young weren’t things he would have liked to eat. Hence, no crock pot. Me, I don’t know how I ever got by without one. I love the thing. Dump

Mom woke up amazingly chipper and bright, and ragging on me for being in bed at 6:30 in the evening. Unfortunately, it was 6:30 in the morning. It has taken me all day to get her around to recognizing the actual time. If not for having to try to get her to take her medicine when she needs to, I wouldn’t even bother; but I had no choice. So now she is pouting and calling me names I would rather not quote. When I need to try to reorient her, I throw every tool at my disposal at

I know it's dumb to say, but when I bust my hump and spend all day and all night taking care of mom, it does still pain me sometimes for her to accuse me of being lazy and doing nothing to help her. Yes, I know she doesn't remember. Yes, I know (or hope, at any rate) that she would not say some of the things she says if she were in her right mind. And I know, as an excellent article I recently read said, that despite the uncanny resemblance, this person I am caring for is rea