My Mother's Shoes

My mother always used to lay out her clothes the night before she went to the doctor so I was not surprised to see her planned outfit hanging neatly from her closet door. I looked carefully over her choices; a long moss green skirt with matching jacket, and a short-sleeved beige summer blouse.  It has been cold and raining here so I was satisfied with her slightly autumn choices and thought nothing more of it. Big mistake! 

My mother 30 years ago

Now you are probably going to think it was a beautiful hot summer day when I took her to the doctor. Wrong, it was cold and raining yesterday which was slightly disturbing. It was going to be hard enough navigating her around. Remember she hasn’t been out of the house for years, the left side of her body has never fully recovered after her stroke and she walks with a cane. What was disturbing was the fact that she was waiting for me fully dressed, but had no shoes on her feet. I had forgotten about her feet, and I should have known better. I mean let’s face it; shoes have not been a big priority for someone who never leaves the house. Her loafers have not fit her for a long time so she only wears slippers.

We were already running a little late and none of my shoes fit her. Since I don’t have a closet (haven’t had one for years, yep…renovations…sigh,) I scurried around the house trying to locate my scattered shoes and then I tried them on my mom’s feet as if she were Cinderella. Finally I caught a glimpse of my bright blue trusty crocs under the coffee table. Thank god, they saved the day.

 

We did eventually get to the doctor and my mother, bless her soul, blamed having to borrow her daughter’s shoes for her wobbly walk. I will write more on this series of coping with dementia later.

This week-end my husband is dressing up like one of the Beatles characters from Serg. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Clubs Band, and he is preforming with the choir for their yearly summer concert. Maybe I will be able to get you some video of that. So what are your plans for the week-end? Whatever they are I hope you have fun doing them!

Tearing it all Down: Death and Dying

This is post number 400 and this one I am about to share with you is difficult for me so I need to tell it slowly.

Poison can seep inside you like a lusty spider crawling into your ear while you are asleep. At first you only get a hint or two of something being wrong. You ignore those until the poison is so obvious that you have to get medicine or die. 

Yep, that's me 1962

My mother has become that spider. She is slowly sucking the life out of me with her poison and no matter how hard I try to find medicine for my condition I keep finding an empty pharmacy. You would think that by now there would be a medicine that would prevent a person from having to suffer through the decay of a parent.  Maybe there is but I have not found it. Alzheimer’s is a hard thing for anyone to swallow, especially when it affects the person you love the most, your mother and your best friend.

She has been the center of my universe for as long as I can remember. A mother usually is. With the looks and charms of Grace Kelly this Norwegian beauty could have had any man but when she found out that she was pregnant with me she desperately grabbed her chance at a better life far away from Norway. She married a charming American, one that was not my father, but one that she had been dating and more importantly, one that was available. You have to remember that in 1957 moral conduct was viewed differently. A woman in Norway did not just get an abortion or raise a child on her own.

For the first time in three years since my mother had her stroke I am going to take her for a drive, the first time she has gone any further than her front door. As I am writing this I still wonder if I will get her out of the door and into the car. I have finally made a stand and it was not an easy thing to do. 

“Either you go to the doctor or you go to a nursing home because I cannot do this alone anymore.”

Many words were shouted and tears fell in secret, as they still do. There are other members in this “household” but they turn their head and say, “Deal with your mother on your own. “ I really can’t blame them because she has alienated everyone in her family. I am the only one she ever talks to anymore. She has made it clear that she wants nothing to do with her children, her grandchildren or anyone else. She has no friends, no hobbies except the television and daily newspaper. This is not the woman I remember.

The worst part is that we are living in the same house. Every single day my husband, my son and I have to share the same space with a woman that has changed from something beautiful into a troll. My mother has turned the walls of this household into deadly mold and everyone within these walls is breathing it in. I really hope that I can get her out of the door and into the doctor’s office and that he will be like the Wizard of Oz and give her some magic pills that will return her into the world of the living. If not, maybe he can give me some pills to deal with this.

I will keep you posted. If you have any words of advice on how to deal with a parent who is forgetting your name I would love to hear it! More of this story to come...........