Do You Ever Forget Anything?

My two mother-in-laws keep life very interesting.
They are both 88 and have very selective memories.

We went to see the step-mother-in-law the morning after my father-in-law passed. We talked about funeral plans--we are goimg to see her again today.

She has made the Nursing Home call us twice--very fearful that we won't have a service for Dave's dad.

Last night she claimed we didn't even know he had died.

Has anyone dealt with a situation like this?

We are thinking maybe we should write everything down--such as the date and place for the funeral so Elsie can refresh her memory.

I am also afraid one service will not do it--she will want another and
another. We will be sure to take pictures.

When my grandmother went into the nursing home, my grandfather had been gone for 10 years, and she had adapted well to living alone, but then, she started forgetting things. Not the little things that all of us lose track of as we get older, but big things. She forgot that my grandfather had died. There were times in their life together when he was gone for fairly long periods - a couple of months, maybe. She seemed to think he was on one of those trips, but she was worried that he was gone so long. She was sure he was due back, and would get sad and lonely. Finally, Mother told her that he had died years earlier. She was crushed for a few hours, but then went back to saying he would be home soon.

During the last years she was somewhat lucid, my mother-in-law would accuse her daughter, who was devoting a great deal of time to caring for her mother, of everything from abandoning her to trying to poison her food.

These mental wanderings, I've noticed, do not reflect the real person whom they had always been.

All you are doing, Alice, is a good thing to do, but it may not help for very long.

It would also be a good thing to accept the changes, and remember that they are not personal and have nothing to do with you and David or the care you are giving her. Sometimes, it just happens.

Ann

A few months after my brother died, my sister-in-law visited her father in hospital and he asked if my brother was at home looking after the children. She told her father that my brother had died and he accepted it but he couldn't remember the actual event.

Alzheimer's is such a devastating disease. I really feel sad for people that develope Alzheimer's because I have seen first hand what it can do to an individual. The topic was have I ever forgotten anything? I can not tell you how many mornings I have stood in front of the kitchen sink trying to remember if I had taken my blood pressure and diabeties medication. Hope I spelled that correctly. How many times have you walked into a room and forget what you were going after? Several for me.

Alice,

What was the question?

Ann

Thank you for your kind answers.

Nutter get a seven day pill box. Only take pills from the box.
You can then tell by looikng in the box
Veteran Pill taker.

From my experience, you just have to roll with whatever reality they are living with at that moment. After my sister died, my mom alternated between remembering the funeral and not recalling if/when she had died. Some days, she didn't recall her name, or confused her with her own sister who had died many years ago.

It is a difficult time. For sure. My heart goes out to you. Sometimes, I wonder if--especially with a loss--the lack of clear memory is a blessing in disguise. Maybe it helps them not feel the total impact.

WELL THE ANSWER IS THE LETTER ! I wrote
Elsie a letter and left a copy with the Home.

It detailed what was going on and she can read it when she becomes agitated.

She also asked me to write down where we took her on Tuesday. It has calmed her down considerably.

Rhett wrote:

Quote :

Sometimes, I wonder if--especially with a loss--the lack of clear memory is a blessing in disguise. Maybe it helps them not feel the total impact.

I know that was true of my grandmother. I often wished her children would let her live in her fantasy world, without insisting on telling her the truth.


Ann

Of course, there was a time she was in a panic because she believed she had joined the Army...

Things sometimes took a softer note, though. I was wheeling her outside one day when a frog hopped across our path. She said, "There goes Prince Charming."

My poem about her, The Rest Home, is on the Poetry Forum.

Ann

One of the most touching and humorous tales along this line...

One of my good friends was helping her elderly grandmother into the bathroom. They passed by the mirrored shower stall. Her grandmother grinned and said to her reflection, "There you are! I have been looking for you all day!"

Life is just chocked full of touching, yet funny, moments.

We shall all get to old age--if we are fortunate. We will say things that our juniors do not understand. We might live in a different reality, too.

As long as we help each other along, it's all good.

Oh, and Alice...

One thing that helped my mom--until she got much worse--was a large, easy-to-read calendar. I put it on a corkboard at her eye level and provided a marker on a string for her to cross off the days. I wrote important dates and times down for her.

When all the days seemed to run together, the calendar helped her remain focused. Of course, as the dementia progressed, she forgot to consult the calendar. It helped for a bit, though...

What was the question again?

My mother loved cats and every year she was at the nursing home I gave her a cat calendar. Each month we'd turn the page to a new cat.

The nursing home had a sign in big print with the day of the week, month and year, the season and the next holiday.

Just before my brother died, my mother spoke to him at his request. The next day she was silent, and the day we went to see her after the funeral (I needed to do that) she was completely loony tunes. (Those are the most descriptive words I can think of.)

She kept saying I should take her to my father, not to be stubborn, said he had visited her, calling to him down the hall to wait for her. I finally told the nurse, I didn't know what to do, that my brother's funeral was that day and I was having difficulty dealing with this. She said to push her into her room. I did, hugged and kissed her, and left.

She asked about my brother several times after that, asking if he died.

She also had difficulty with which children belonged to which grandchild and mixed up the generations.

Carol

cturkel,

Can you remember that Dick is after you?

Alice why don't you stop being a trouble-maker?

Not often I say that to anybody, but this thing of tweaking turkel for NOTHING based on stuff from other threads is really, and fanning flames between other people is really, really bush.

lin,

I am saying what I think--last time I checked you are not responsible for what I post.

In as much as this is my thread, I believe I am entitled to answer folks.

Perhaps you could be so kind as to interpet for him. I notice he likes to quote you.

Why might that be?

alj wrote:

Alice,

What was the question?

Ann

Ann was the originator--I liked it that time.

Then lin said it again, then
cturkel quoted it.


Sorry, but what is going on here?

Is our board just a bunch of quotes and "I have no pity."

I am runnng short on pity also.
I still have a bit left for deserving folks.

Goodnight--maybe I wiill get more if I sleep on it.
We can hope anyway.

Sleep, take some of those pills you've been skipping, go to Mass, talk to the surgeons again.... you'll be fine.

Lin,

When did you and cturkel become friends? I remember reading you going on and on about his negative statements on another thread.

Like Betty, Alice, Dick and even you, some of his statements and signatures bug me.

Alice doesn't like pills or surgeons and I don't know about Mass.

She's a survivor and inspirer with a great sense of humor.

Cturkel seems to be the one who is fanning flames and being "bush."

But I don't think we should give him all the attention he seems to be wanting, not for negative behavior anyway.

Carol

lin,

Which surgeon do you want me to see?

Obviously you've had no physical health challenges and I hope your good fortune continues.

You may have my thread I am leaving it-- You and cturkel enjoy!

Well, Carol, I don't understand all the sudden kissing up turkel is doing here. Perhaps it's intended sarcastically.

But look at it this way: one of the things that bugged me about turkel from the beginning was his dragging in disputes from other areas and flaring up the PA thing out of nothing.
And, yeah, I got on him about it. It's a flaw, I'm sure.

There really isn't much difference between that and Alice raking him up when he hasn't even posted, and doing this "let's you and him fight" crap. It isn't even thread-related and doesn't even relate to anything turkel SAID here. See what I mean?

Reading between the lines, lin, I think Alice's main objection is to his signature(s).