Mom & Me Four Archive

...I want to link to an essay I just read by Jonathan Franzen, published in the New Yorker and available online, also linked in Mike's journal Fading From Memory in a comment he left to one of his posts: My Father's Brain [9/30/08: Essay no longer available through The New Yorker except in abstract form].
    It is a spectacular, detailed, curiously exhilarating Alzheimer's journal in an essay. If you are here because you are acquainted with dementia, take the time to read it.

...on the immediately previous post, because it brought me up short and I want to acknowledge this. For those of you who don't make a habit of noticing or reading comments (I'm a fringe member of this group...I usually read comments only when they already exist as I'm writing a comment, although I do have exceptions to this rule), here's the part of the comment I'll be addressing, left by Mona, author of The Tangled Neuron:

I'm hugely amused by your mom's awareness of your attempts to stimulate her memory, and I'm sure she doesn't mind. But it occurs to me that some people with memory problems resent BrainAge, etc. and people's attempts to "maintain their brains."

    When I read this comment, I had to laugh, with chagrin. She inadvertently pointed out a critical split in my thinking about dementia. On the one hand, I do, indeed, work hard to stimulate my mother's memory, despite the fact that I continue to have mixed success. I'm lucky that Mom's amused, rather than irritated, by what I do (and luckier, still, that some of the stuff I present, like Brain Age, don't register with her as therapy so much as fun; as you may recall, she's the one who decided she wanted to try it when we viewed the news segment about it much earlier this year. If you've read me for any length of time, you know, too, that I'm more fascinated by my mother's dementia than concerned about it. At any rate, when I received Mona's comment, I remembered that I had expressed similar sentiments about brain stimulation and dementia just a few days ago, over at Fading From Memory, Mike Pritchard's journal (link will take you to the comment). Since I left mine, Patty Doherty, webmistress of The Unforgettable Fund has left a similar comment.
    This irritation of mine isn't new. It's one of the reasons why I have never bothered to have my mother's dementia tested. As well, aside from my dim view of question-and-answer dementia tests and memory boosters, my mother takes a highly ironic view of those that have been occasionally tried on her by well-meaning but thoughtless medical professionals, as well.
    At any rate, the point of this post is that living with someone with dementia is a circumstance that fosters confusion over clarity. As a caregiver (and sometimes, as in my mother's case, as A Demented One), one day you hit upon a idea to try that could be labeled "Brain Stimulation". The next, you realize how ridiculous and ultimately maddening it is to have people trying to prod a demented brain into some semblance of normalcy (or, at any rate, what those of us who pat ourselves on the head and refer to ourselves as "not demented" like to think of as normalcy). One observation I've made, of which Mona just reminded me, is that the Demented-Lite (and sometimes those further into dementia) sometimes have a less agitated view of their mental acuity (or lack thereof) than those who tend to them. A lot, of course, depends on the people who surround The Demented One. I'm sure, if I worried about my mother's dementia, she would be more prone to irritation over her creative memory than I.
    Dementia is a complicated phenomenon. It isn't exclusive to aging, as those who labor with conditions like schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder tell us. It comes in so many shapes, sizes and trajectories that many of its displays aren't labeled "dementia"; i.e., the last time you had a severe cold, felt awful all over and found yourself contemplating, in your feverish state, your life as though it was a series of nothing but miserable failures, did you consider yourself demented? Chances are, you were. But, you know, bed rest, fluids, maybe an analgesic and a little sympathy "cured" your "dementia".
    It'll be awhile, I'm sure, before we have a truly effective grasp of dementia. In the meantime, I intend to remember that every time I try to sneak up on my mother's brain in order to "stimulate" it, well, I need to stimulate my own, as well.

    Seven errands, all at different places, in exactly two hours, from the time I walked out the door to the time I walked back in! Amazing! I've been noticing, here and there, on the news, that various pundits have been predicting, based on "early statistics" and curious singular interviews of people stopped at shopping malls who are confirming they are "spending more this year than last", that this holiday season is supposed to be a economic block buster but, gladly, I still don't see it. I'm seeing just the opposite. I had to purchase some odd sized packing boxes at the only other mail facility (a commercial one) in town besides the post office today. I arrived at 0915. The facility opens at 0800. I was the only person there. One of my errands involved a stop at Costco. They have almost completely stowed all their Holiday stuff, including food, toys, special gift items and wrapping paper. I asked about this at the counter. "Oh," said the clerk, "sales this year aren't nearly what they usually are." One of my errand stops was at Walmart, for paper underwear (the cheapest place to buy it). I arrived there at around 1000. Only three check-out stands were open. I went through the one with no waiting. I had one item to pick up at Walgreens. No waiting there. In fact, I think I was the only customer in the store. I stopped at our usual local grocery for some salad stuff. I got right through in no time. Once again, only three check-out stands were open and there was no waiting at the self-check. I noticed that about half of their Christmas stuff had already been taken off the floor.
    Of course, online shopping may be replacing in-store shopping. However, last year when I ordered and sent gifts from online facilities, I placed orders around the first of December and every single gift arrived after Christmas. This year, I waited until last week to place orders and it seems that all gifts have either arrived at their destinations or will arrive before the end of the week. Could be, of course, that the online stores got their act together this year after multiple headaches last year, but, you know, I continue to wonder, and hope. I have a feeling that all those predictive stats and interviews are being manufactured by the Econocrats in an attempt to get people to feed the money machine by trying to get us to think that everyone's spending loads of money on the holiday, this year. It looks, as well, much to my delight, that it might not be working.
    Mom had one of those blips where her BG registered high regardless of what I gave her. It seems to have lasted only a week, ending yesterday evening, although today's stats will tell. I purposely fed her something with rice last night to see if everything has settled down. I remember freaking when this happened just before her last doctor's appointment. This time, I relaxed about it and reminded myself that any sort of blip will pull her HA1c up to where her doctor would like to see it. Speaking of which, I guess you've noticed, I haven't taken her in for blood draws since September of this year. Neither she nor I have been into it. She's doing well, no visible changes. I figure, I'll haul her in (I'm sure it will be reluctantly) in January and we'll get in three monthly blood draws before her March appointment. It's nice to settle back and not worry about this stuff. Sometimes I think I was driving myself crazy with stat immersion. I'm sure periods of compounded stat activity will happen again. No need, I think, to push the envelope when things are going so well.
    Mom is increasingly excited about Christmas. She continues to ask me, daily, if "tomorrow" is the day we head for MCF's. The only disappointment we've had, so far, is that her blood sugar was registering so high all on it's own over our baking days that I froze everything, and severely limited what I baked and restricted her supervisory tasting of ingredients to nuts only. If her BG remains easily managed, though, over today and tomorrow, I think we'll do some of the put-off baking this weekend so we can honor her desire to take a basket full of baked goodies to our Christmas hostess and her family. As well, since Christmas falls on Monday, I'm picking up our car rental in the morning tomorrow on a four day weekend special. She and I have made plans to use it over the weekend to very comfortably make the rounds of the lights at the Courtyard Square, which are always fabulous, and hit some of the streets that are known for their Christmas displays. We also have on our docket the ever amazing Gingerbread House (used loosely, many of the "houses" are actually landscape displays; last year one of the entries was of a tropical beach setting with a "little grass shack") Competition, as well as taking in any other Christmas events we can find. I expect our plans, which are numerous, will be shaved a bit, once the reality of getting ready and foreswearing naps hits, but we'll do as much as she's prepared to do.
    I remain the Holiday Caregiver Grinch, but we're having fun, anyway, and Mom is in full Mrs. Christmas mode. When I hesitantly approached her, yesterday, with my plan to leave our house at 0800 on Christmas so we can spend the entire day partying with MCF's, not leaving until well after dark, which, I carefully mentioned, would mean I'd be getting her up at 0600 on Christmas Day, she responded, "Oh, yes! Don't forget! We want to get down there as early as possible and stay until they throw us out!" Holiday partying definitely becomes her.
    Our snow days were a bust. We had a half hour of snow the first day. Although it stuck, it was a mere dusting. A snow day was predicted for tomorrow, but that has evaporated, as well. I'm disappointed but remain hopeful.
    Oh, last stop. Recovering Christmas memories seems to remain elusive. I hope being at MCF's will stimulate some, but I won't have my computer with me (on purpose), so, if any come to the fore, I'll simply have to remember and write them down. I've sort of given up. Every time I mention the subject, usually by asking one of the questions on the list published below, Mom says, "Still trying that, are you?"

...but she didn't take much of a nap, so her brain may not have had much of a chance to work according to plan. We had a good evening. I found The Santa Clause 2 running on yet another cable channel this evening, which thrilled Mom, as she remembered having seen the first one earlier today. I spent most of the movie making dinner and handling the evening chores, so I didn't see much of it. From what I saw, I think I prefer the first, but Mom made it clear that she prefers the second. So, later this evening I ordered both movies for our collection. Dinner, was a huge success, although it contained a variety of ingredients she claims not to like; rice, for instance, and peas, highly flavored left overs from last night's dinner. I combined those with chunks of last night's roasted chicken and flavored the mixture with the consomme from the roast. Mom exclaimed a couple of times how good it was. "Did you write this down," she asked, "so you can do this again?" Always a good idea to ask this, when I'm the cook, if I serve something you like.
    We also washed and set her hair, which relaxes her into a talkative mood. As well, I rubbed her legs down early because she was complaining about her back "bothering" her, which is unusual. I find that when I have her lean back and stretch out for a leg rub down, her back unkinks.
    It was during the leg rub down that I began to timidly probe the possibility of surfacing Christmas memories. Absolutely nothing. Except, toward the end of my probe, she chuckled and said, "You know, I remember [name of dead sister] and I questioning Mother about her memories. It was so frustrating for us that she couldn't remember anything. I remember thinking that it seemed impossible that she could have forgotten these things and being sure that I never would. And, well," she grinned her tight, ironic grin and shrugged her shoulders, "you can see how well that plan worked!"
    I was struck by how comfortable she is with her forgetfulness. I also pondered how the episode of her remembering the book throw out indicates that the memories haven't been erased, their paths have changed. It's as though her hard drive has placed them in different directories and the trick to accessing them, since I cannot access her hard drive directly, is to find the proper commands, so to speak, that will display her directories and grant access to both of us. It's funny because I can feel the heft of those memories I know remain stored. I have also fallen into the hole of her thoroughly deleted of memories. Different feeling altogether.
    Reminds me that Mona, on her website The Tangled Neuron, just published a series of unusually interesting articles about dementia as a disease vs. dementia as one of many possible conditions of aging. The link will take you to the first in the series. One of the related issues discussed is whether more effort and money should be spent on discovery and care for those already dementing, over research for "cures". It's an interesting question. Two of the aspects of this issue that have bothered me for some time are:

1. Our preemptive willingness to treat with drugs over person-to-person technique;
2. Our lather to ensure that Ancient Ones remain independent as long as possible.

    It seems to me that these two aspects are related. I don't believe our desire for independence for our Ancient Ones is pure. I believe it is actually a controverted desire for our independence from our elders. I also believe that this is what keeps us hoping for some sort of medical treatment, the application of which requires no more than a reminder to the recipient to apply the treatment. Person-to-person technique requires time, energy, thought and relatedness, four items of which we believe we are in short supply and which we would prefer to divert to areas of our lives which have nothing to do with our elders. I would, in fact, go so far as to say that we are much too quick to jump on the "independence for elders" band wagon; so quick that our leap seems to display a willingness to dismiss our elders as too far gone and not worth our life energy. I think that we grab for the illusory gold rings of long habitual statements made by our elders that they, too, want independence, when, in fact, these statements are vestiges of what they thought, in their middle years, they would prefer, when they discounted their ignorance about what being old would entail. Although we know that there are some elders who not only want but are capable of independence, for the most part, in one or more ways, our elders function better in webs of interdependence, varyingly tightly and loosely woven depending on the individual elder and that elder's functionality at any one time. This shouldn't surprise us. The truth is, we are all like this. Even those of us who identify ourselves as enthusiastic loners do so against societal webs of community. For some reason, though, we consider our own desires for interdependence legitimate, but not those of elders. We probably do this because our world, for the moment, as Dr. Thomas points out [in What Are Old People For?], is geared toward adult interdependence to such a degree that it remains invisible to us. Thus, interdependence with children is suffering, at the moment, to a certain degree. Interdependence with elders is completely dismissed as something to be altogether avoided or relegated to the activity of viewing our jewels, carefully polished for display by someone else. I think it is this prerogative that is directing not only our medical research, but our behavioral and relationship research, as well. We take it as a given that it is desirable to do whatever we can to increase the independence of elders and, failing that, find professionals to take care of them if they fail to meet our need for their independence.
    Ai, yi, yi. What a world we live in. What surprises await us as our boomer generation inexorably increases the ratio of Ancients to Adults and Children. This, I think, is good enough reason for us to make extraordinary efforts to consolidate ourselves with our own parents, so that we will begin to clear our own fog about what it might be like for us to be old, and begin to prepare our children for the possibilities that await us, and them as what I hope will be our Generationally Interdependent Yet to Be Ancient Ones. We must remember that the boomer generation is only the first of what will probably be many future generations who will look forward to a lifespan normally including Ancienthood. Any sins we commit in this regard will, indeed, be passed on to our descendants for payment.
    Anyway, I'm thinking, if there is success to be had in regard to Mom's Christmas memories, I may have some tomorrow. Although the inclement weather to which I've been looking forward is stalling a bit, it promises to settle in late tomorrow afternoon and continue in intensity through Tuesday. I've deliberately planned these as baking days. All baking with be done under my mother's supervision. This is always a super time for camaraderie, and it will be preceded by a full night sleep both days. I'll have the iBook and microphone set up at the table, which will function as our baking surface, ready to be triggered, just in case. No promises, just hopes.

...for what I'm hoping will be a Christmas podcast. I noticed, this morning, that the movie, The Santa Clause was showing this afternoon on one of the cable channels. This has been one of my daily duties since the Christmas season officially kicked off around Thanksgiving: Checking the daily TV listings for Christmas movies I know my mother would like (aside from also playing the ones we own). This isn't easy. She isn't a Christmas wimp. Just because a movie's about Christmas doesn't mean it will appeal to her. I was especially pleased about the appearance of this movie, because I rented it a few years ago and she loved it, although, today, she didn't remember ever viewing it and loved it anew.
    After watching the movie, Mom and I worked into a discussion of the "new" Santa Claus traditions and information contained in the movie and how these compare with old Santa data. This is a subject close to my mother's heart, since she is Mrs. Christmas.
    As we talked, I began wondering about what she remembers about Christmases in her past. I held myself back from asking, though, because, I decided, depending on what she could remember, this might make for an interesting (at least to our extended family) podcast. As our conversation dwindled, it occurred to me that, if I want to set the stage for the most memories possible, I should consider purposely trying the technique I accidentally discovered when she and I talked about her grandfather's book of worship, reviewed in this post, second part of the post.
    I hit her with the Christmas podcast idea and explained the technique I was planning on using. "You're about to take a nap, Mom. I'm going to run through a list of Christmas related subjects I'm curious about in regards to your life. I don't want you to respond right now. I don't want you to work at remembering anything. I just want you to listen, then we'll pack you off for you nap. We'll see how much you remember later this evening, after you've slept on it, awakened, and distracted yourself with our evening activities. Once you're relaxed, we'll warm up the microphone and hit the tracks." I mentioned to her, as well, that it took a night sleep for her to remember her and her soon-to-be aunt's attic cleaning adventure, and we're not limited by a schedule, so, if we don't get much tonight, we'll consider tonight a second prep session and revisit the subject tomorrow. Sounded like a good idea to her.
    As I rambled through a seat of the pants list, every time I noticed her brow wrinkling or her mouth opening to say something like, "I just can't remember," I'd stop her and say, "Mom, don't think. Just listen. Don't worry about whether anything's coming forward right now. Just listen to what I'm asking."
    For my reference, and use while we're recording, here is my remembered list of Christmas related subjects, probably including some new ones that I expect will reveal themselves as I type:

• What's the first Christmas you can remember?
• What's the first Christmas gift you can remember?
• What about gifts you bought or made for others? What were some of those? Do you remember reactions to them?
• Since your mom was a minister's daughter, did you go to church on Christmas? If so, what were the services like?
• What kind of Christmas decorations do you remember? What were some of your favorites?
• Did you ever believe in Santa Claus? Did you stop believing in Santa Claus? When? How did it happen that you found out "the truth" about Santa Claus? How did you feel when you found out?
• Did you or any of your siblings ever discover your parents being Santa Claus?
• When did you open gifts? Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, or both?
• Since you guys moved around a lot, where were some of the various places you spent Christmas? How were your celebrations affected by where you lived?
• How often were relatives involved with Christmas?
• What were the traditional Christmas foods?
• Do you remember any Christmases that are connected with tragedy? What were those like?
• What has been your favorite ever Christmas gift to give? To receive?
• When you made your own family and began your own Christmas traditions, how did they contrast with those with which you were raised?
• How did you spend Christmas as an adult, before you were married, when you were away from home? How about in the Navy?
• Was the stocking tradition something that came from your born-into family?
• Do you remember how your siblings felt about Christmas? Your parents?
• Did your family ever host a down-and-out person or family for Christmas?
• Was your family ever down-and-out over Christmas and, therefore, hosted by another family?
• What are your favorite Christmas songs and Christmas stories? Which of these songs and stories were introduced to you by your family?
• Do you remember anything about how [my] Dad felt about Christmas? Did he ever talk about Christmases in his youth?
• Any particular memories about any specific Christmases involving the family you made?
• When did you become aware that you have an unusual affinity for Christmas and Santa Claus?
• Have you ever experienced what you would consider a perfect Christmas? If so, what was it like? If not, what is your idea of a perfect Christmas?
• If you could meet Santa Claus, what would you say to him?
• If you could be Santa Claus, would you change anything about Christmas? If so, what?

    I'm sure I'll think of more before and during our recording session (or sessions, whichever the case may be). I'm not promising results. A lot will depend on Mom's memory. It's possible, too, that it will take more than one recording session to successfully bring forth all my mother's memories, attitudes, opinions and stories, assuming we are successful. We'll see how it goes.
    I may also include New Years material, depending on how successful we are with this project.
    So, anyway, we'll see what comes of all this...
    ...later.