Earlier this year my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimers. She's 79 and always been active and out and about, that has now all changed. My grandfather had Alzheimers as well, so most of her behaviours are expected, but I'm now experiencing it first hand, just like my grandmother did.
As with most things in life, there are stages. At the moment, apart from short term memory loss she isn't too bad, and as always I am totally using her loss of memory to my advantage and enjoying myself LOL. Now don't go thinking I'm an evil daughter, or the devil incarnate, okay maybe that is true but I do love my mum, and this is my way of coping. Much like I coped with the loss of my husband, despite being totally devastating, I had to look at the situation in a light hearted manner for the sake of those around me. We now deal with his loss with memories and love, and with a very healthy dose of humour. We aren't making fun of his death or laughing at him for dying, this is how we deal with our loss. If it's not something that others can understand, then that's their problem.
So I deal with mum the same, if I didn't I'd be insane. Sure it's frustrating to go around to her house to fill up her tablets for the week (a job that my brother who lives with her could do and has done without a problem, but for some reason she is convinced he's doing it wrong), only to find that she has tried to do it herself, and totally gotten it all wrong. Or forgotten to put in the one pill that is actually for her Alzheimers (not a cure it's to stop her getting worse quickly), or the time we discovered she'd actually been taking about 4 of them a day LOL. These are things that she has mostly done routinely for years, but now she is on different tablets, cannot remember what she has to take or already taken. It's frustrating to get the phone calls asking the same question over and over again, it's frustrating to repeat yourself constantly, and it's hard suddenly being the responsible adult.
When I start to get frustrated, I remember, this is my mother, the same person that I'm pretty sure I've frustrated a time or two. The same person that answered my phone calls at all hours, and the same person who used to be the responsible adult. So I suck it up, and get back to the funny side of it all. And mum also has a good laugh about herself, which is so very important.
We go shopping once a week, when I have a day off work during the week, I arrange her appointments for those days and if it proves impossible (as it did after a hospital stay and illness on my part) there is a community bus she can catch which my brother ensures she is on LOL. Every time she used to go shopping alone she would stop for either morning tea or lunch, this is not something I do. I'm in and out, over and done within the hour LOL. But since I'm taking mum then I've adjusted, kind of LOL. We now stop for her to get her coffee and cake, while I suck down an iced coffee. She always wants me to get something to eat, and all I want is to be done and back home LOL. We get her paper then it's coffee time, we sit, she says "Don't let me forget to get the paper." I reply "Do you mean this paper, mum? The one we bought before we came in." her reply "Oh I didn't realise we'd gotten it already." and she laughs. After reading the front page, she looks at me and we repeat the whole conversation again. She eats half her cake, and oh look she's mentioning the paper again, mind you the whole time it's been sitting on the table in front of her. As we leave the coffee shop she starts to head to the newsagents to get the paper. I have to wave it in front of her face to show her we have it. We both crack up laughing.
As we past the chemist she asks if I've dropped off her scripts, "No mum, you don't need any this week." and off we go. We grab our trolleys and she says "You dropped off my scripts didn't you?" I sigh and reply "Sure did mum" :LOL. For years mum has been able to remember everything she needs without referring to a shopping list. She has routinely bought veg and meat and everything else she needs without a problem. Not anymore. My brother works on the list food wise, and I go through the laundry and bathroom to add to it. As we walk around I have to remind mum to get out her list or check her list. I race around grab my stuff, then am back to her still stuck in the first aisle. As she moves around I check her trolley and if there's something I know she doesn't need I sneak it out. I have been caught a few times, and I just pretend to be reading the label to see if it's something I want LOL. Doesn't really work well when it's something she knows you hate, so I try to cover by saying Dale might like it LOL. We work our way around like this every single week, me taking 5 mins and her taking 30, me sneaking stuff out of her trolley and her trying to sneak stuff in LOL.
After Aldi, we head over to Woolworths for fruit and veg, again I make sure she has her list then streak off to grab my stuff. Oh 10 mins usually for me in Woolies, cause the aisles are bigger and there's more people to dodge LOL. The other week I got back to mum and she had loaded up with so much stuff I knew she didn't need, but she had an iron grip and eagle eye on her trolley and I didn't want to just start throwing stuff back on the shelves. Suddenly she needed to go to the toilet, and I saw my chance, "Go mum I'll stay here with the trolleys" hehehehe, my evil self was balanced on my shoulder whispering in my ear. Off she goes, and the returns begin. You have to make sure that when your returning stuff, the trolley still looks just as full as it did before she left. It's pretty exhausting work balancing it all out LOL. When she returned she had no idea and didn't say anything was missing at the checkout, that's the joy of the short term memory loss LOL. Now again, don't get me wrong, she gets everything she needs, and definite treats (she loves her chocky), but if left unsupervised she will spend way to much money and buy way to much food that will not get eaten.
Every single week she insists on stopping at Bakers Delight to buy some bread (not something she needs that often, but I indulge her). She asks for special bread that confuses them all as they have never stocked it LOL. She'll stand there and say "I remember getting it here and I'm sure I got it a couple of weeks ago, I'm sure my daughter will agree" she turns to get me to agree, but I've already run off not wanting to get involved LOL. Once we are loaded in the car with all our groceries she might suddenly remember the scripts and paper, if I give her a certain look she's learning that it means that she's already asked and already handled LOL.
Part of Alzheimers is the realistic dreams. She called me the other night to ask when she was going into the hospital for her tests. I said what tests and she said "The tests I need before I go into a nursing home" "Mum your not going into a nursing home yet, there is no tests. Who said you had to get tests?" "Last time we saw Sam he said I needed to be tested in the hospital." "No he didn't, I was there." "Oh must of been the other doctor" "What other doctor?" "The one I saw on Friday. You must remember you took me." "Ummm no, you went for a bone density test." "I'm sure it's true, didn't you find out about it when you went for your tests at the hospital? Or was it Tara?" "Nope, neither of us have done that Mum." "Well I'm going to call them tomorrow" "Okay mum. Bye" She never called, cause she forgot about it LOL. But when she was tested for her Alzheimers, she was telling the guy who did the test about having to go to the hospital for some operation, I said no it wasn't true. He was telling us that she was probably dreaming it, and of course she denied it, but apparently it is quite common. It also explains the phone calls saying she needs the car cause she needs to take Caryn and her kids to swimming lessons, this is the same daughter of mine,Caryn, who lives 6-7 hrs away LOL.But this is excactly what happens, oh and please don't think for a minute I'm letting her drive LOL.
One minute she is telling you she thinks the tablets are working because she is getting better, the next she is telling you some story about some surgery she is going to have that is totally not happening LOL. For some reason she is really obsessed with hospitals, if she isn't going in for tests, she's going for surgery. I turned up there one morning to discover she had packed an overnight bag, I asked why and she said "I just want to be prepared, you said there was a chance I might have to stay overnight." I asked her where she was staying, and she told me the hospital. I looked at her and said, "Mum, I'm here to take you shopping." LOL.
So this is my life at the moment, it's draining as all hell and I feel as if I have a 79 yr old child LOL, but she is my mum, she gave me life and I love her, simple as that. Plus the fun I have in telling her stuff she forgets is awesome LOL.
Catch yas
Cathy
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