Thrown into the deep end of parenting

We've now had the twins for 4 weeks, and many things are settling into routine.  As much as I saw the twins being a burden on top of my Mom, I'm realizing that they are actually a big help with my Mom.  Mom is finally engaging with them and really getting a kick out of them.  She actually calls me and asks if I need her to come over and help me with them.

This week, Mechanic was out of state, doing some handyman work that he committed to long before things went wonky with Stepdaughter and the twins.  I've been on my own, and it's been really challenging.  I think I would have been OK if I wasn't still juggling work stuff.  I've still not finished up my end of year reports, and I've got a student working in my research lab this summer (again, committed to this long before things went wonky).  I've managed, but it's not been pretty.  I managed to lose track of the balance in the checkbook, and still haven't finished those reports.  On the plus side, I've found that the twins will take a short nap in their stroller in a darkened lab, BUT I will pay with extra pent up energy in the evening.

Thankfully, we start half day child care on Monday.  That will let me write/work with no distractions for half the day.   Not sure where that $ is coming from, but we're going to shake our checkbooks until we find it.

The most irregularly updated blog in all of blogdom...

Life just keeps getting more and more complicated for me.  Let's start with a quick rundown

• In my last post I was dreading a trip to the oncologist.  That turned out well.  It just so happens that the same proteins that are given off in ovarian and other peritoneal cancers are also shed by the pericardium when it is stretched.  Yep, the "tumor marker" was a side effect of the pericardial effusion.
• Mom's dementia has really progressed.  I don't know if it was the anesthesia from the surgery or the diminished oxygen when her heart wasn't pumping well, but she has really deteriorated.  
• Classes ended, we had finals and graduation.  Summer stuff officially starts next week.

And now the big news...  Handyman (my SO) and I have filed for temporary custody of Wednesday and Pugsley.  I imagine that many of you intelligent readers are not surprised by this.  Seems like Handyman and I are the only ones familiar with this situation that are.  Stepdaughter isn't sure that she's up for motherhood.  She'd like to give them up for adoption.   She's taking a few weeks "off" with some therapy to figure it out.  We have not had direct contact with Sailor to know for sure what his feelings are, but according to Stepdaughter, his vote is 'No'.

So, I'm a 40-something grandmother, who has never had children, raising my grandchildren.

And taking care of my Mom with dementia.

There's a lot to be figured out here, and it appears that a lot of the kid responsibility has fallen to me.  It kind of makes sense, since I've been off work the past two weeks.  But it kind of doesn't.  There's going to need to be big discussions about balance of duties etc.  Everything has fallen through the cracks, bill paying, reports for work, thinking, putting laundry away.   I'm not going to last long at this pace.

And then there's research.  That third leg of the stool of my career.  The thing that I really only get time to work on in the summer.  Yeah, the summer that now has twins in it.

Changes for the worse

We interrupt a dementia story for other health concerns... It's been a long three weeks. Mom was hospitialized when her we all realized that her fatigue, "feeling lousy" and out of control blood sugar wasn't just the cold/flu/crud going around. To make a very long story short, she had a massive buildup of fluid around her heart. She had to have surgery to have it drained and she's now recovering. But with as a dementia patient, I'm not sure that she will truly recover. As I saw with her two ankle surgeries, she's slipped a notch or two cognitively. But this time, she knows that she's very confused and she's very frustrated about it. I think I'm grieving that I've lost a little bit more of her. That on top of managing all of the post-hospitalization follow up appointments and catching back up at work have left me feeling pretty strung out. But we're not done yet. While in the hospital, some elevated tumor markers were found in her blood. I'm still not very clear on what else was found, as I had a hell of a time getting the doctors to communicate with me. We're following up with an oncologist in a a couple of days, and I'm really worrying about what kind of decisions may be on the horizon.

Coffee with Dementia Part II

Mom got settled back in with her coffee maker.  It didn't take long to realize that Mom's "stock up" mentality, combined with her dementia was leading to an awful lot of coffee accumulating in her apartment.  At Costco, she'd been thrilled to find a three pound can of decaf, and we'd bought it.  But within weeks, she was claiming that she was out of coffee, and was buying more.  By the time I got a chance to snoop in her kitchenette, there were at least 6 cans of coffee in there, all open, and all missing a few scoops. 

She began mentioning that her coffee didn't taste good.  I didn't think too much about it, until she told me that her coffee pot wouldn't turn on AGAIN.  I stopped by her apartment while she was at dinner, and once again reset the GFI.  I then opened up where the filter and coffee go, and was startled to find mold.  A lot of mold.  As in a "grossed me out despite having a biology background" quantity of mold. 

I cleaned up the coffee maker, then headed to the local mall, where I picked up a small, red, Keurig coffeemaker.  I mention the red because my Mom loves the color red.  You can get her to do nearly anything if it involves getting her something red.  She still struggles a bit with the directions.  Right now I have big stickers on it with numbers showing her which order to do things in order to get her coffee.  About once every two weeks, I go over and have her make me a cup so I can see where she's getting hung up on the numbers.  I've not really told her where to buy the K-cups for her coffee maker, so she can't "stock up".  But now she's hoarding coffee mate...




This week was a big week for me.  I realized that I've not been very patient with Mom lately, and I finally went to the local Alzheimer's support group.  It was awesome.  I was able to remind myself that she doesn't do the things she does on purpose, that I'm not alone, and that it isn't a bad thing to get help.  In fact, I've finally broken down and called a local "companion care" service, and will hire them to come by 4 hours a week.  I'm hoping that the companion can help Mom make her shopping list and take her to the grocery, hopefully avoiding the food hoarding.  I wouldn't care if Mom bought duplicates and I could sneak out the extra stuff and take it to the food pantry.  But she opens each new container or package, then "puts it away".  We wind up with a dozen or more open packages of sugar free cookies!  When  I try to talk her out of buying more, we wind up arguing in the grocery aisle. 

That's the think about Alzheimer's, you can't reason with a loved one with dementia.  Their brains just can't connect the dots any more. I'm actually lucky; Mom's dementia hasn't made her angry and paranoid.  But it is still really hard to accept things that they do and say.  I've linked to a list similar to the one that I received at the meeting.
http://www.alzheimersreadingroom.com/2010/03/ten-tips-for-communicating-with.html

There is no "getting ahead" of the decline.  You just do what you can to keep your loved one safe, make them feel like they still have some control/independence, and not lose your own mind in the process.   

Back to caregiving/Coffee with dementia

I haven't blogged much about caregiving since restarting, so let's get to it!
Mom's dementia is progressing.  When I first started caring for her, I liked to think that I was always a step ahead in preparing for what she'd need, but now I know that I'm always about two steps behind whatever ability she's lost.  And when I realize that I've got to do something, actually finding the time to do it becomes even a bigger challenge.  I'll share a few stories that show this part of caregiving.  Please feel free to laugh, because you have to laugh or you'll cry your eyes out.

Mom loves being able to make coffee in her room.  At first, she had a microwave, but after turning a dinner roll into a piece of charcoal, she had it confiscated.  Then I got her a small drip coffee pot, and that was working really well for her.  I got one that turned itself off after an hour, so that we couldn't have any fires.

First problem arose when Mom started saying that her coffee pot "quit working".  I'd go upstairs and find that the GFI plug that it is plugged into had been tripped.  When I asked her about it, she said that she had no idea how that would happen.  Finally, I came by and noticed that she's unplugging the coffee pot when she's not using it.  Then when she plugs it back in, she hits the test button on the GFI, cutting the power to the plug.  We talked about how the pot turns itself off, so she doesn't need to do that, and I even hung a sign reminding her not to unplug it. 

Problem solved!

Or not.  Tune in next week for the next installment of "Coffee with Dementia"

Family of 6? But I used birth control?

As I mentioned in my "Upside down again" post, my soon-to-be-stepdaughter (Stepdaughter) has moved in with her infant twins (Wednesday and Pugsley).  She married her babies' Daddy yesterday (Sailor).  This is the short version of several long stories.  

Stepdaughter has been in touch with social services to get her benefits all lined up.   Sailor is active duty Navy, and he's now married to Stepdaughter, the whole family is considered to be part of my household. Add in my fiancee (Handyman) and myself, and I've suddenly got a family of 6! And here I thought I'd been using birth control!


Handyman and Stepdaughter moved in when I went on family leave to take care of Dad.  A few years Stepdaughter went to live with Mom.  There she met Sailor, and along came Wednesday and Pugsley.  The situation at her Mom's wasn't the best, and everyone wound up out here with us.


 Sailor and I are the only ones with steady income.  My income put Stepdaughter well out of the range for social service type benefits.  Sailor will be doing better once he's got new little family on the book,  and his housing allotment increases.  Handyman has been un- or under-employed for two years now.  He's working side jobs and thinking about starting a business, but his income seems to go right back out to his bills. 

This isn't easy. I'm worried about my own financial standing.  I thought Mom and Dad had a decent nest egg, but I'm seeing how quickly being elderly can work that down.  I'm not on the same track that they were in their early 40s.  I get scared.  I get resentful.  I imagine that to the outside world, I look like a total doormat with a house full of freeloaders.  Sometimes I look like that to myself too!