Friday, June 13, 2008

Adventures in Alzheimers

Originally posted on MySpace Jun 13, 2008

Shortly after I denounced Sainthood in my last blog my Mother gave me the ultimate reason to consider moving her from our home to a full care facility. Sorry, I just can't use the term "nursing home" or "rest home."

My daughter and I had stayed up late and were about to head to bed. She gave me some insight to her thoughts regarding the last blog. I am thankful that she did. First off, I told her that I never ever want her to feel like she has to care for me in my old age (provided I live to old age) and that if I should live with her family, that she must put them first and move me out if/when they begin to be affected by my presence. She asked me if she could have it in writing. LOL - smart girl! But then she said that she was really happy that G'ma had come to live with us for the first couple of years. I really needed to hear that. Thanks, Lyss!

Next she agreed with all the other comments left me. Then we talked about Mom and some of the problems and laughed at some of the things that happen and then we hugged and said goodnight. She headed downstairs to her room and I to mine. That's when I noticed that G'ma was awake and sitting on the very very edge of her bed, extremely close to falling on the floor. OMH, why was she up and not sleeping?? It takes her hours to get sitting up in the morning and even longer to actually get her feet to touch the floor. (Well, it SEEMS like hours!!). I yelled for Alyssa to come back and help me. She was so far off the bed there was no way she could stand up from there. We don't even leave her walker in her room anymore just to discourage her from trying to get up. Alyssa arrived and we wrangled the old woman back into bed and asked her what she was thinking. All she could say was that she wanted to know what was going on "out there" (meaning the livingroom) and she had to get up to find out. We weren't even noisy so we were so confused why she thought something was going on without her.

Mom has one of those beds that you can raise the head and feet but I don't know of any way to put rails on it. But now I am more concerned about her safety. This happened at 12:30 am and I am not accustomed to checking on her in the middle of the night, unless of course she is banging on her bedside table for something.

I am more and more certain that it is time to move her. I still don't want to do it before we move, though. I hope she doesn't make it impossible to wait!

Today I was standing at the kitchen island and sorting out mail. She could easily see me from her chair and she looked straight at me and then banged on her table to come get her up to take her to the bathroom. I was 10 feet away from her!!! Geesh!!!

Well, that's her banging now... it's not even been 30 minutes since she last went.....

No comments:

Post a Comment