Tuesday, June 20, 2006
"It may not look like it, but I feel like we accomplished a lot."
I couldn't believe what she'd said. I repeated it to her teasingly and continued, "Who are you, really? What did you do with my mother?"
She laughed and said, "Oh, I'm your mother, all right," as though, if she had a chance, she'd deny the distinction.
"Could it be? Yes it could." [Can't remember what that's from, probably a nonsensical double-dutch jump rope rhyme; I used to be a ferocious double-dutcher.] Once again, the heat of another summer is stirring my mother's reptilian soul, and, not secondarily, her body. Although she seemed to need to recuperate from her walkering yesterday, she was pleased with her performance and didn't consider the episode merely my insistence on putting her through drudgery. No back or knee "iffiness" either. She even looked good out there and stayed a bit, sitting on her walker seat, just to enjoy the sultry wind. I suggested that, today, "when we go out", she can walker around while I trim back the pyracantha. She was enthusiastic, noting that, "they sure need it". They sure do. I have, once again, high hopes. Although these hopes often surface and are often sunk, I figure, hoping is not a complete exercise in futility. Certainly, if I was in her position, I'd prefer a companion who hoped.
Although I noted over at The Dailies that she bedded down earlier than usual, she also arose about 45 minutes later. I thought it was just a bathroom visit. When I joined her, though, she was bright-eyed and she'd put on her glasses, even though she insisted she was going back to bed. However, while still on the toilet she asked, "Now, what have you heard about the folks (her parents) coming out?"
Despite her activity and alertness, yesterday, she spent an unusual amount of time talking about an impending visit by "the folks" (her parents). After the first mention of it, when I dutifully recited our detailed Review of the Dead, she continued to revert back to the possibility of the visit. I figured, today is not the day for continual reminding and, henceforth, responded, "I don't know. Nobody told me anything."
Last night, though, I said, "You know, Mom, you've mentioned this several times today. After breakfast we went through the review of all your dead relatives. I think you're just into remembering them as alive, today. So, you know, maybe we'll just stick with that."
She wasn't shocked. Her response, though, was peculiar, "Well, where are all these messages about the folks' visit coming from, then?!?"
This intrigued me. I had to follow-up. I assume that she's "receiving" these "messages" in a dream state. I was able to solicit that they come by phone (she never answers the phone anymore, in fact, most of the time, the ringer is turned off and I scan caller ID for calls that need to be returned), a "woman" calls these messages to her and the woman isn't someone to whom she's related, although she insists it's someone she knows, despite the fact that we went through the list of possible relatives, friends and acquaintances and it isn't any of them. So, we went through The Review of the Dead again. With each person (excluding my dad, whose death she remembered last night), about halfway through each recounting she'd say, "Oh, yes, now I remember that one."
Although she remained up until about 0130 last night (light out minutes before 0200), watching yet another series of M*A*S*H episodes I was able to scrounge for her when she decided she wanted to watch TV after our discussion, before her final retirement she asked yet another curious question, "What do you suppose it means, that I keep getting these messages that the folks are going to visit, since they're dead?"
I decided on a humorously depraved approach: "Well, maybe it means you and I are shortly going to be in a position where they can visit us!"
She laughed, then said, "That means we'd have to be dead."
"Well, yes, or maybe, we'll suddenly become mediums."
"Well, I don't know if I'd like that," she said. "We have enough visitors as it is."
Interesting, I thought, that she considers our rarely visited life full of visitors. Thank the gods. My position is, the fewer visitors, the better.
I couldn't, of course, resist pondering the conversation after she retired. It gave me the willies, though. Although I am more prone now, than ever, to not only believe but want it to be true that we are all unique and thoroughly mortal, when we're dead, we're dead, except maybe as an extension of what I consider to be the ultimate Buddha-head's nirvanic awareness of the innumerable lives The One has lived, is living and will live, I'm open to anything and, anyway, despite my desires in this respect, I continue my relationships with the dead and a resistant part of my brain assumes that the dead are continuing their relationships with me. Maybe these "messages" that my mother recently insists she's receiving are actually being received (always in sleep) and she, or both of us, will be soon checking out of "this hotel", as my mother's sister, in her dementia, referred to, first, the hospital she was in wherein she endured the several major surgeries that immediately preceded her dementia, then to life.
I've got a book on the final days of the terminal that I haven't yet cracked, even though I bought it months ago: Final Gifts. Maybe I'd better get busy and read it.
Completely unrelated to the above: Last night, CBS Evening News, my mother's preferred half hour of "national news", because of Bob Scheiffer and his white hair, featured a story on the "senior" game Brain Age. [As an interesting aside, last night, immediately after the news I looked up the story and it was not on CBS Evening News's front page. I had to pull a site search for it. I notice, now, it is. They must change the front page according to what is generating the most interest at any particular time.] Mom scrutinized the segment and suggested that we buy it. "I could use a little brain stimulation," she said.
I then searched it through the entire web, got a fairly good description of it and decided, even though I wondered if she'd even understand how to operate it, what the hell, it's only 20 bucks, why not?!?
So, a copy of the game is on it's way to our residence, due to arrive in about a week. As I mentioned to the author of Dementia Blues in a comment last night, in response to her wondering if pre-demential brain development and exercise of a variety of types, including an active life, could somehow forestall or eliminate dementia in the elderly, I no longer have an awful lot of faith in this theory, even though I previously subscribed to it. My mother seems to be an example of the opposite: After my dad died (she was 67) she threw herself, as many released-from-marriage older women do, into what I would consider to be, for her, an extremely active life, involving travel, including out-of-country, joining groups, taking a perceptive, active interest in investments, pursuing informal "senior" classes, joining groups (the joining of which was modified by her typically non-social purview), updating herself (she even owned a computer before I did), became extremely involved in the caring for her present-in-Arizona grandchildren, intensely pursued the genealogy of her famly, including traveling to this purpose; the woman was a whirlwind, for her, anyway. As well, she's always done crosswords and continues them, even though she cheats, now, much more than she ever did. Even after she asked me to combine households with her she kept up, including traveling alone, maybe even extended her activity, since she had discovered she definitely did not have a propensity for the lived alone life and felt better living with someone, which is why I was able to continue working outside the home for a few years after coming to live with her. Still, dementia stalked and caught up with her. On the other hand, my father, who announced at his retirement at 55 that he intended to "sit in [his] rocking chair and drink [himself] to death," which he did (although it took him 13 years; he had an astonishingly durable body), fervently wished to become demented as an excuse for his behavior, or, maybe, as a reprieve from his behavior. Never happened, much to his dismay.
So, I'm very curious to see what my mother makes of Brain Age and what it makes of my mother. I think she's past being disappointed by anything so I perceive no great danger in her possible discovery that it is beyond her. Something I read, too, seemed to indicate that the various levels include introductory segments that might suit her out of the box. I also noticed that the game involves using a stylus. I'm not sure my mother will "get" the device, but, you know, she might surprise me. We'll see. I'll definitely report back on further Brain Age developments.
Later.
She laughed and said, "Oh, I'm your mother, all right," as though, if she had a chance, she'd deny the distinction.
"Could it be? Yes it could." [Can't remember what that's from, probably a nonsensical double-dutch jump rope rhyme; I used to be a ferocious double-dutcher.] Once again, the heat of another summer is stirring my mother's reptilian soul, and, not secondarily, her body. Although she seemed to need to recuperate from her walkering yesterday, she was pleased with her performance and didn't consider the episode merely my insistence on putting her through drudgery. No back or knee "iffiness" either. She even looked good out there and stayed a bit, sitting on her walker seat, just to enjoy the sultry wind. I suggested that, today, "when we go out", she can walker around while I trim back the pyracantha. She was enthusiastic, noting that, "they sure need it". They sure do. I have, once again, high hopes. Although these hopes often surface and are often sunk, I figure, hoping is not a complete exercise in futility. Certainly, if I was in her position, I'd prefer a companion who hoped.
Although I noted over at The Dailies that she bedded down earlier than usual, she also arose about 45 minutes later. I thought it was just a bathroom visit. When I joined her, though, she was bright-eyed and she'd put on her glasses, even though she insisted she was going back to bed. However, while still on the toilet she asked, "Now, what have you heard about the folks (her parents) coming out?"
Despite her activity and alertness, yesterday, she spent an unusual amount of time talking about an impending visit by "the folks" (her parents). After the first mention of it, when I dutifully recited our detailed Review of the Dead, she continued to revert back to the possibility of the visit. I figured, today is not the day for continual reminding and, henceforth, responded, "I don't know. Nobody told me anything."
Last night, though, I said, "You know, Mom, you've mentioned this several times today. After breakfast we went through the review of all your dead relatives. I think you're just into remembering them as alive, today. So, you know, maybe we'll just stick with that."
She wasn't shocked. Her response, though, was peculiar, "Well, where are all these messages about the folks' visit coming from, then?!?"
This intrigued me. I had to follow-up. I assume that she's "receiving" these "messages" in a dream state. I was able to solicit that they come by phone (she never answers the phone anymore, in fact, most of the time, the ringer is turned off and I scan caller ID for calls that need to be returned), a "woman" calls these messages to her and the woman isn't someone to whom she's related, although she insists it's someone she knows, despite the fact that we went through the list of possible relatives, friends and acquaintances and it isn't any of them. So, we went through The Review of the Dead again. With each person (excluding my dad, whose death she remembered last night), about halfway through each recounting she'd say, "Oh, yes, now I remember that one."
Although she remained up until about 0130 last night (light out minutes before 0200), watching yet another series of M*A*S*H episodes I was able to scrounge for her when she decided she wanted to watch TV after our discussion, before her final retirement she asked yet another curious question, "What do you suppose it means, that I keep getting these messages that the folks are going to visit, since they're dead?"
I decided on a humorously depraved approach: "Well, maybe it means you and I are shortly going to be in a position where they can visit us!"
She laughed, then said, "That means we'd have to be dead."
"Well, yes, or maybe, we'll suddenly become mediums."
"Well, I don't know if I'd like that," she said. "We have enough visitors as it is."
Interesting, I thought, that she considers our rarely visited life full of visitors. Thank the gods. My position is, the fewer visitors, the better.
I couldn't, of course, resist pondering the conversation after she retired. It gave me the willies, though. Although I am more prone now, than ever, to not only believe but want it to be true that we are all unique and thoroughly mortal, when we're dead, we're dead, except maybe as an extension of what I consider to be the ultimate Buddha-head's nirvanic awareness of the innumerable lives The One has lived, is living and will live, I'm open to anything and, anyway, despite my desires in this respect, I continue my relationships with the dead and a resistant part of my brain assumes that the dead are continuing their relationships with me. Maybe these "messages" that my mother recently insists she's receiving are actually being received (always in sleep) and she, or both of us, will be soon checking out of "this hotel", as my mother's sister, in her dementia, referred to, first, the hospital she was in wherein she endured the several major surgeries that immediately preceded her dementia, then to life.
I've got a book on the final days of the terminal that I haven't yet cracked, even though I bought it months ago: Final Gifts. Maybe I'd better get busy and read it.
Completely unrelated to the above: Last night, CBS Evening News, my mother's preferred half hour of "national news", because of Bob Scheiffer and his white hair, featured a story on the "senior" game Brain Age. [As an interesting aside, last night, immediately after the news I looked up the story and it was not on CBS Evening News's front page. I had to pull a site search for it. I notice, now, it is. They must change the front page according to what is generating the most interest at any particular time.] Mom scrutinized the segment and suggested that we buy it. "I could use a little brain stimulation," she said.
I then searched it through the entire web, got a fairly good description of it and decided, even though I wondered if she'd even understand how to operate it, what the hell, it's only 20 bucks, why not?!?
So, a copy of the game is on it's way to our residence, due to arrive in about a week. As I mentioned to the author of Dementia Blues in a comment last night, in response to her wondering if pre-demential brain development and exercise of a variety of types, including an active life, could somehow forestall or eliminate dementia in the elderly, I no longer have an awful lot of faith in this theory, even though I previously subscribed to it. My mother seems to be an example of the opposite: After my dad died (she was 67) she threw herself, as many released-from-marriage older women do, into what I would consider to be, for her, an extremely active life, involving travel, including out-of-country, joining groups, taking a perceptive, active interest in investments, pursuing informal "senior" classes, joining groups (the joining of which was modified by her typically non-social purview), updating herself (she even owned a computer before I did), became extremely involved in the caring for her present-in-Arizona grandchildren, intensely pursued the genealogy of her famly, including traveling to this purpose; the woman was a whirlwind, for her, anyway. As well, she's always done crosswords and continues them, even though she cheats, now, much more than she ever did. Even after she asked me to combine households with her she kept up, including traveling alone, maybe even extended her activity, since she had discovered she definitely did not have a propensity for the lived alone life and felt better living with someone, which is why I was able to continue working outside the home for a few years after coming to live with her. Still, dementia stalked and caught up with her. On the other hand, my father, who announced at his retirement at 55 that he intended to "sit in [his] rocking chair and drink [himself] to death," which he did (although it took him 13 years; he had an astonishingly durable body), fervently wished to become demented as an excuse for his behavior, or, maybe, as a reprieve from his behavior. Never happened, much to his dismay.
So, I'm very curious to see what my mother makes of Brain Age and what it makes of my mother. I think she's past being disappointed by anything so I perceive no great danger in her possible discovery that it is beyond her. Something I read, too, seemed to indicate that the various levels include introductory segments that might suit her out of the box. I also noticed that the game involves using a stylus. I'm not sure my mother will "get" the device, but, you know, she might surprise me. We'll see. I'll definitely report back on further Brain Age developments.
Later.
Comments:
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originally posted by Deb Peterson: Wed Jun 21, 04:59:00 PM 2006
Gail--My mother, too, thinks that we have far more visitors than we actually have. But I see this multiplication in other areas, as well. She'll refer to my sister as "the girls." She often says that she is going "upstairs" in her house, which actually has only a basement (and she doesn't go down there anymore) and one floor--so the house has acquired multiple stories. I wonder if this is just a side-effect of her entire life becoming more complex as her brain suffers. She expresses it in her frequent use of multiples.
But that doesn't really explain why our mothers select certain deceased folks to resurrect. I guess I can understand her thinking about her own parents, but we had a very interesting development early on, right after she was diagnosed with AD. She began, quite suddenly, to call my sister "Barbara." We couldn't figure out where it had come from, but then remembered looking at some old slides and in a few of them were pictures of me and a childhood friend of mine named Barbara. Barbara's mother died when B. was only 8 years old, and my mother took her under her wing, to the point where Barbara will still send a Mother's Day card to my Mom. But what's extra interesting is that Barbara, who now lives in Florida, visited us last August and my mother had no idea who she was! We were trying to reminisce with my mother but she kept talking about Barbara in the third person, as if she were locked in a memory and had never grown up. So this is definitely more complicated than I imagine!
Gail--My mother, too, thinks that we have far more visitors than we actually have. But I see this multiplication in other areas, as well. She'll refer to my sister as "the girls." She often says that she is going "upstairs" in her house, which actually has only a basement (and she doesn't go down there anymore) and one floor--so the house has acquired multiple stories. I wonder if this is just a side-effect of her entire life becoming more complex as her brain suffers. She expresses it in her frequent use of multiples.
But that doesn't really explain why our mothers select certain deceased folks to resurrect. I guess I can understand her thinking about her own parents, but we had a very interesting development early on, right after she was diagnosed with AD. She began, quite suddenly, to call my sister "Barbara." We couldn't figure out where it had come from, but then remembered looking at some old slides and in a few of them were pictures of me and a childhood friend of mine named Barbara. Barbara's mother died when B. was only 8 years old, and my mother took her under her wing, to the point where Barbara will still send a Mother's Day card to my Mom. But what's extra interesting is that Barbara, who now lives in Florida, visited us last August and my mother had no idea who she was! We were trying to reminisce with my mother but she kept talking about Barbara in the third person, as if she were locked in a memory and had never grown up. So this is definitely more complicated than I imagine!
originally posted by Mona Johnson: Fri Jun 23, 05:49:00 AM 2006
Hi Gail Rae,
I found your site through Deb's, and am amazed by your chronicle of caregiving!
Interesting that both your mothers seem to remember specific family members (although they're confused about whether they're alive or not). Towards the end of his life, Dad didn't seem to remember relatives he hadn't seen or talked with frequently - at least your mothers have retained something of a history! The last time I visited my parents (for Dad's 73rd birthday), he somehow thought the two women I got off the commuter plane with were staying with us, and continued to look for them for a couple of days.
I'll be interested to hear you your mom does with Brain Age. I have to say all the recommendations about health and "Maintain Your Brain" irked me. I think the only reason Dad became less active mentally was that his brain was already damaged.
I'm glad I found your blog.
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Hi Gail Rae,
I found your site through Deb's, and am amazed by your chronicle of caregiving!
Interesting that both your mothers seem to remember specific family members (although they're confused about whether they're alive or not). Towards the end of his life, Dad didn't seem to remember relatives he hadn't seen or talked with frequently - at least your mothers have retained something of a history! The last time I visited my parents (for Dad's 73rd birthday), he somehow thought the two women I got off the commuter plane with were staying with us, and continued to look for them for a couple of days.
I'll be interested to hear you your mom does with Brain Age. I have to say all the recommendations about health and "Maintain Your Brain" irked me. I think the only reason Dad became less active mentally was that his brain was already damaged.
I'm glad I found your blog.
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