Up and Down and Round and Round

Again, a long lapse in posting. Emotionally I'm a roller coaster tonight.

Mom and I went on vacation to a lakeside resort that we have gone to since I was a teenager. This year, we went as guests of the owners. The owners had actually come to Dad's funeral. It was an amazing trip in good and bad ways.

Dad and I had always fished together in the evenings. We'd get our gear, float it on an innertube and head out to the sandbar to fish for white bass. We rarely caught anything large enough to keep, but we got time to be together with no one around and without Mom. I never realized how important that was. We'd come in when I got cold or when there was barely enough light left to swim in safely, whichever came first.

So I went fishing in the evenings, but I fished on the pier. I didn't feel as safe looking for the sandbar by myself, and the water temps really weren't high enough for swimming. I'd never had to pull together the gear alone, and I've added "getting fishing reels ready" to my list of things that Dad made look amazingly easy. My reel was crudded up from years of neglect, but I finally got one setup working and headed down to the pier with a cooler of beer and a pack of cigarettes. As I started fishing, I found myself talking to Dad. It had been a heck of a couple of days with Mom and her memory, and I was telling him how awfully things were going and what a hard time I was having with things. Just then, a tug on the line. I had actually caught a fish. When I reeled it in, it was a lake perch, about the size of my hand, bigger than anything I'd caught in years. As I took a picture of it and got the hook out, I had this amazing feeling of "it will be OK". I wish I could have bottled it and kept it.

We did all of the "usual" family things and went to most of the "usual" places. Except I was driving and I really didn't know exactly where some of them were. We made a lot of wrong turns, but in the end we got where we were trying to go. I hadn't been to this area since grad school, so it was interesting to see what had changed and what was the same.

Having Mom out of her own environment made her memory trouble even more obvious. There was a never ending chorus of "where's this , where's that". A blood sugar testing machine got misplaced and forgotten, leading to a 20 mile return trip for the machine. Mom's need for constant entertainment and activity crashed into my desire to just sit and read and be left alone. I ultimately decided to let that vacation be hers, and I'll get my vacation next month (more later).

On the whole, the trip was a success, but since returning home, my patience is just GONE. I just can't take the never ending dependence alternating with the accusations of making Mom feel stupid. The constant "I can live by myself" followed by a glance at a piece of mail and "I don't understand this, take care of it". Last night blood sugars were going up and down like a yo-yo.

And finally, I just don't feel like I'm grieving for Dad at all. I posted about this on a forum where I'm a regular, and got kind of dressed down because someone felt that I was comparing my loss to someone who lost a young spouse in a tragic accident. They felt that my comments were unworthy to the discussion because Dad's death was "better". So the one place I finally felt "safe" to talk about this, I was told it wasn't appropriate.

I just want to go back to where the biggest problem in my life was poorly written lab reports.

I think I need to clarify

That last post would lead one to believe that I'm dreading going back to work, and I'm not. I'm actually looking forward to it!

Somewhere in the visit home I felt myself being pulled by Mom and my boyfriend and realizing that (once again) I can't seem to make anyone happy with whatever it is I do. Nothing is ever enough.

And I think I've just realized that I'm really not "taking care of myself" this past month or so.

Since nothing ever seems like enough when one is on the tenure track, I was just imagining what adding that in will feel like.

Vist Home, Day 5

Wow. I just can't wait to move back here for good. Right now I'm just made to feel like I'm not doing enough for my Mom and my Boyfriend. Once I'm back I can add not doing enough for my job to the list.

Grrrr.

Test Driving the New Normal

This week has been big for Mom and I. She's staying alone in Parentville, and I'm in TenureTrackville for a week of visting, running errands and switching winter clothes for summer clothes.

So far, all is going pretty well. The neighbors and community center have helped her deal with a telephone outage, and her blood sugars and shots are going pretty well. She's been pretty busy this week so I don't think she's been lonely. Last night was the first time that she asked "When are you coming back?".

And I'm doing OK. I've done a bit of needed housework here, but not too much. I've been to the office twice and tied up several loose ends. Unfortunately I forgot to do 2 things and can't find a couple of other things, so I'm headed back to the office today.

I'm really going to hate to leave. There is so much here for me to do, so much that needs to be restarted, and I hate to leave it all in limbo AGAIN. But this time leaving seems really short - my moving back day (M-Day) is only 50 days away!

I'm bit worried that I'm going to have a hard time shifting back into "work mode", so I've got 50 days to be useful again. Maybe try getting back on a schedule, getting serious about fall course preparation, and spending less time on the internet.

Forgetting what you've forgotten...

It's been about 6 weeks since Dad passed away, and my role here has clearly shifted into caring for my Mom and figuring out what she needs to have in place to successfully live on her own. I still don't think she can do this long term (and some who know her agree with me), but I need to find a way for her to be safe until she figures this out for herself.

The hardest part is trying to suggest "tricks" that will help her to not forget important things, when she doesn't remember that she forgets them. Case in point, insulin shots. Mom takes 4 a day. Here and there, her blood sugar readings suggest that she's forgotten to take a shot. Since taking her shot is darned near second nature to her, she has a hard time knowing if she really has or has not done it. Imagine if someone asked you "Did you go pee today?", you know you must have, but you may not specifically remember it, unless something eventful happened while you were in there.

She gets very defensive about it, and will usually only admit the next day that forgetting the shot is the only reasonable explanation for the crazy readings. But then she forgets that the entire thing happened.

So when it happens again the following week, I get "I've never forgotten my shot before!". I'm trying to come up with some sort of memory jog, maybe using a test tube rack to hold the 4 needles, but until she accepts that she needs the trick, I'm banging my head against a wall.

Is this scary? Yes. Could one of these forgettings be lethal? Yes. Do I care? Yes. Do I think that dragging her out of her home against her will is the answer? No.

The good news is that some of the plans that she HAS agreed to, may actually help her remember her shot. I'm also seeing that once she accepts that one of her older systems has failed, she does accept a new system, when it is presented to her as "you can try it if you want". After many suggestions to use labeled boxes to sort and hold bills and such that met with defiance, when actually given the boxes, she began using them and thought they were neat.

Dementia is scary, frustrating and downright depressing to watch.