I'm Doing What I set Out To Do On This Trip
I haven't written up much about personal stuff in this space because I think the larger pictures are just far more important than our individual experiences. My story just isn't all that momentous and exciting anyway, and I've read enough diaries online to know I never wanted to be so full of myself to think people would give a shit anyway.
But I'm in the middle of doing something that might be of help to others in similar circumstances and hell, being on the road I don't have any time to cruise the sphere looking for outrage and incongruities I'm so fond of.
I flew down to Florida because my mother was just institutionalized with alzheimers and my father, who is 88, had successive surgeries and needed some help. Their home is a very nice place in a constructed community north of Tampa. With all the crap my father has gone through the place needed some attention and I came down here to help do the things he no longer can do like landscaping and fence painting, you know, just maintenance to keep the place up. Plus of course, a little bonding because I haven't seen my parents for a number of years, mainly because we were so far apart geographically.
I went to see my mother yesterday at the home where she's now going to live out her days. My work history includes nursing home environments so elderly care isn't a mystery and this place was top shelf. All trepidations about where she lived disappeared as my father led me to her room where I dropped off the flowers I brought, since she was probably in the social area. The place was clean and airy, and didn't smell. The cranberry juice committee was doing it's job.
After my father greeted and kissed my mother he introduced me saying this is your son, and for a brief second her face lit up and she said to me "I can't believe that you came here" and I was flabbergasted. Had my name triggered some memory synapse and she actually could remember her son? Maybe, but that's the vagary and frustration of this disease - how it attacks the memory is so arbitrary and unpredictable that flashes of recognisance can come and go at random. Within minutes she asked me my name.
Apparently she feels completely lost. There was a moment when she was listening to my father talk that I looked at her face and eyes and could see that she was barely home, a confused soul with such limited abilities to communicate and reason that she was looking at him in a desperate way that shouted save me from this bewildering mess, but he can't, because it's inside her.
We wheeled her down the hall to her room and my father showed her the flowers and she liked the colors. But her gig is to complain to my father whenever he has the time to go there and visit with her, and that's all she did while we moved her around in her wheelchair. The disease progression has gotten to the point where complaints come often and sometimes turn to vitriol, and I wonder if some of that stems from the frustration of a partially cognizant mind somehow recognizing the horrible mess it's in.
She's to the point where very soon she won't remember my dad when he visits her. He's OK with this - I can see that, as my wife says, she died about five years ago and my stalwart 88 year old father is resigned to the situation and is doing his duty like men of his generation were prone to do. He'll keep visiting her in the facility even though he'll be a stranger in her eyes as she gradually closes in on herself, and I've seen this, people with alzheimers secede from the world until their body follows and they're no longer with us.
But I'm in the middle of doing something that might be of help to others in similar circumstances and hell, being on the road I don't have any time to cruise the sphere looking for outrage and incongruities I'm so fond of.
I flew down to Florida because my mother was just institutionalized with alzheimers and my father, who is 88, had successive surgeries and needed some help. Their home is a very nice place in a constructed community north of Tampa. With all the crap my father has gone through the place needed some attention and I came down here to help do the things he no longer can do like landscaping and fence painting, you know, just maintenance to keep the place up. Plus of course, a little bonding because I haven't seen my parents for a number of years, mainly because we were so far apart geographically.
I went to see my mother yesterday at the home where she's now going to live out her days. My work history includes nursing home environments so elderly care isn't a mystery and this place was top shelf. All trepidations about where she lived disappeared as my father led me to her room where I dropped off the flowers I brought, since she was probably in the social area. The place was clean and airy, and didn't smell. The cranberry juice committee was doing it's job.
After my father greeted and kissed my mother he introduced me saying this is your son, and for a brief second her face lit up and she said to me "I can't believe that you came here" and I was flabbergasted. Had my name triggered some memory synapse and she actually could remember her son? Maybe, but that's the vagary and frustration of this disease - how it attacks the memory is so arbitrary and unpredictable that flashes of recognisance can come and go at random. Within minutes she asked me my name.
Apparently she feels completely lost. There was a moment when she was listening to my father talk that I looked at her face and eyes and could see that she was barely home, a confused soul with such limited abilities to communicate and reason that she was looking at him in a desperate way that shouted save me from this bewildering mess, but he can't, because it's inside her.
We wheeled her down the hall to her room and my father showed her the flowers and she liked the colors. But her gig is to complain to my father whenever he has the time to go there and visit with her, and that's all she did while we moved her around in her wheelchair. The disease progression has gotten to the point where complaints come often and sometimes turn to vitriol, and I wonder if some of that stems from the frustration of a partially cognizant mind somehow recognizing the horrible mess it's in.
She's to the point where very soon she won't remember my dad when he visits her. He's OK with this - I can see that, as my wife says, she died about five years ago and my stalwart 88 year old father is resigned to the situation and is doing his duty like men of his generation were prone to do. He'll keep visiting her in the facility even though he'll be a stranger in her eyes as she gradually closes in on herself, and I've seen this, people with alzheimers secede from the world until their body follows and they're no longer with us.
posted by nolocontendere at 7:05 PM
8 Comments:
Very moving post, Nolo, and even more so because you wrote such a clear and insightful description of what is surely a very painful situation for you.
I had a cousin who was in the opposite hell of your mother's. She had a serious stroke at a relatively young age. It left her physically unable to move much, but her mind was still as sharp and alert as ever. One day she managed to tell my mother, "I'm still in here." I'll never get that out of my mind. What a horror.
There's a lot of love that shines through your post. That will get you all through this.
Alzheimer's is truly a nightmare. It has to be very painful for you and your father to watch your mother become someone else. I had an uncle experience the disease. The changes in him were beyond description. I as well wonder if there is some part of the person that knows what's happening.
I like that you've shared this experience. It's part of what makes us human--connecting with one another through the sharing of our experiences, painful and joyful.
It's indeed a blessing your mother's in such a wonderful facility. You are in our thoughts. Bless you all.
Thank you, your comments are very kind.
She's luckily in an environment where her inability to care for herself is rectified. As her mind fragments at least she'll have competent and professional personnel easing her days. My concern is mostly for my father, who bravely puts up with the loss of his partner for 60 years and carries on like a trooper, now all alone.
Having lived through this with my grandmother I sympathize and send your family lots of positive energy. I personally don't believe the soul is still attached to the person and that it has moved on to somewhere better. You can tell because it is no longer in their eyes.
Thanks Lesley, I actually really saw that.
I'd say that happens frequently and unconsciously in human experience, probably a defense mechanism much like falling from a high place in a dream and waking up just before you crash. Or to take that falling metaphor further, people like the twin tower jumpers most likely discorporated as they fell.
I worked in a nursing home once. There was a woman who looked like a beautiful queen surveying her less than satisfactory, but adoring, subjects as she sat in her wheelchair throne. She had various visitors several times a week. Of course, she no longer knew them, but she looked at them with great objectivity and benevolence and never said a word while they talked to her. She was born and raised and lived her entire life on a farm. Her name was Clara.
asdzani
I think I remember you liked her, asdzani.
Nolo, thanks for sharing. My grandmother was in a vegetative state for 5 years with this horrible disease. It's so sad to have to witness.
FYI, cannabinoids are neuroprotective, so it's probable that they can help prevent or allieviate brain deteriation from diseases like Alzheimer's. That's one of the reasons I make sure to have a daily dose. Just sayin....
Next time you and Ms.Lipstick come through Texas, stop and say hello.
Post a Comment
<< Home