I suppose, in the grand scheme of things, Alzheimer's isn't really the saddest thing. There are too many sad things in the world but I'm beginning to think that living with someone who is suffering from Alzheimer's is right up there at the top of the list. It's a hideous, horrendous disease that takes away reasoning and knowledge. Takes away an identity. Takes away a person's ability to know if it is day or night no matter if it is dark outside or not. The reason to turn the faucet handle from scorching hot water to cool has been forgotten. The non-working lamp is a crisis because the idea to put in a new light bulb won't come. The saddest of all? Nothing in the whole world makes any of it better.
I had to tell my mom last night that her parents were dead. It was terrible and now I wish I hadn't. I wish I had lied because it hit her like a brick. My mom is almost 90 years old and thinks she talks to her mother every day. She thinks her mom buys her clothes and is busy working in a store that closed in the 40's. I've come to a point where I just go along with all this because it is what she truly believes but last night she was in a panic and said that she couldn't remember their phone number. Where do they live? Why can't I go there? Where is my car? Why are you keeping things from me? Oh, God. She was so angry with me that I wasn't telling her what she wanted to know that I finally told her that they had passed away. She was shocked and began to cry. She wanted to know why nobody had told her this. Then she hung up on me. I began to cry because I'm sure I did the wrong thing and really....it's the saddest thing in the world to have to hear twice that one's parents are dead.
Mom doesn't recognize her house anymore. She thinks she lives someplace else where she has to do dishes and laundry for other people to earn her keep. She can't remember that she's looked at the same kitchen wallpaper for about 40 years. She doesn't know that she picked out the clock on the wall. She can't figure out how to put the dishes away in the cupboard so sometimes she just washes them all over again. And every other day she packs up to leave. To go back home to the house she is living in. When she goes outside to go into the garage she knows where she is but the back door is foreign to her and the house is not hers. I can't imagine.
I can't imagine living a life like this. To her there are people living in the house she doesn't know. She calls the operator to find out how to contact her mother on the phone. It must be frustrating as hell and more than a little frightening. When she told me the other day that she was moving out I asked her why. She said that nobody would talk to her and they made her feel uncomfortable. Ah, hell. I would be scared and worried and ...well, who knows how I would feel? Maybe that stuff goes along with the rest of it. She wandered away from her house in the middle of a pitch dark night two weeks ago...in the freezing cold...and was trying to find something. Lucky for her and for us the police found her and followed her footprints in the snow to bring her back home. She hadn't realized that it was dark or cold. She needs to live someplace where she won't be able to do that ever again.
But...here's the rub: she has no money. No insurance. No medical. No chance. She has relied on her military medical benefits all her life and they are leaving her dangling. There is no place for her. Nothing more they can do. So sorry. There is so little help for her out there and that is the truly frightening part. She lived her life thinking that the government would take care of her, I guess, because of her military service and that is not true. My sister and I are scrambling to try and find another option but there aren't many. Her 'paperwork' has been with the county for sometime and she has been reported as a vulnerable adult since the wandering incident but still we hear nothing and nothing can make anything move faster. Oh, if there was upwards of $5,000 a month to toss around we could move her into a lovely assisted living/memory care facility. It would be nice. But that won't happen. I believe we have all fallen off the fiscal cliff and are wandering around looking for where we should be.
It's just the saddest thing. To have no place to go. To not know where you are in the first place. And to not know that your parents are dead. Almost too sad to be involved in except that it's your mom and you have to.
I had to tell my mom last night that her parents were dead. It was terrible and now I wish I hadn't. I wish I had lied because it hit her like a brick. My mom is almost 90 years old and thinks she talks to her mother every day. She thinks her mom buys her clothes and is busy working in a store that closed in the 40's. I've come to a point where I just go along with all this because it is what she truly believes but last night she was in a panic and said that she couldn't remember their phone number. Where do they live? Why can't I go there? Where is my car? Why are you keeping things from me? Oh, God. She was so angry with me that I wasn't telling her what she wanted to know that I finally told her that they had passed away. She was shocked and began to cry. She wanted to know why nobody had told her this. Then she hung up on me. I began to cry because I'm sure I did the wrong thing and really....it's the saddest thing in the world to have to hear twice that one's parents are dead.
Mom doesn't recognize her house anymore. She thinks she lives someplace else where she has to do dishes and laundry for other people to earn her keep. She can't remember that she's looked at the same kitchen wallpaper for about 40 years. She doesn't know that she picked out the clock on the wall. She can't figure out how to put the dishes away in the cupboard so sometimes she just washes them all over again. And every other day she packs up to leave. To go back home to the house she is living in. When she goes outside to go into the garage she knows where she is but the back door is foreign to her and the house is not hers. I can't imagine.
I can't imagine living a life like this. To her there are people living in the house she doesn't know. She calls the operator to find out how to contact her mother on the phone. It must be frustrating as hell and more than a little frightening. When she told me the other day that she was moving out I asked her why. She said that nobody would talk to her and they made her feel uncomfortable. Ah, hell. I would be scared and worried and ...well, who knows how I would feel? Maybe that stuff goes along with the rest of it. She wandered away from her house in the middle of a pitch dark night two weeks ago...in the freezing cold...and was trying to find something. Lucky for her and for us the police found her and followed her footprints in the snow to bring her back home. She hadn't realized that it was dark or cold. She needs to live someplace where she won't be able to do that ever again.
But...here's the rub: she has no money. No insurance. No medical. No chance. She has relied on her military medical benefits all her life and they are leaving her dangling. There is no place for her. Nothing more they can do. So sorry. There is so little help for her out there and that is the truly frightening part. She lived her life thinking that the government would take care of her, I guess, because of her military service and that is not true. My sister and I are scrambling to try and find another option but there aren't many. Her 'paperwork' has been with the county for sometime and she has been reported as a vulnerable adult since the wandering incident but still we hear nothing and nothing can make anything move faster. Oh, if there was upwards of $5,000 a month to toss around we could move her into a lovely assisted living/memory care facility. It would be nice. But that won't happen. I believe we have all fallen off the fiscal cliff and are wandering around looking for where we should be.
It's just the saddest thing. To have no place to go. To not know where you are in the first place. And to not know that your parents are dead. Almost too sad to be involved in except that it's your mom and you have to.
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