You know as you grow up you have thoughts of when I grow up I want to get married, have kids and get old with your loved ones. If you’re lucky you get everything you wanted when you were thinking when I grow up. The thing they don’t tell you or warn you about is all the stuff in between. Life is an amazing thing you have ups and downs, hard ways and easy ways, amazing things and not so amazing things. As you age so do your parents, grandparents and friends. On this adventure of life why is death one of the hardest things to talk about?

As I get older my kids are growing and hitting those special points in life with getting their drivers license, graduating high school then soon college. You see your youngest one at the half way point in high school and know soon they too will be graduating. What is a mom’s heart to do? Keep letting them know I am here for them to direct them the best way and hope and pray they have enough to make the right decisions and choices.

Great lead in to the last visit with my mother. We decided with everything going on the week or two before school starts to visit Nana on her birthday. Now for those who are familiar with dementia this could be interesting to say the least. We have a plan that works for us is we visit over lunchtime. This way she seems to be distracted by her meal and we can kind of chat while she eats. So we go and get her moved to another table with just us. Hoping this doesn’t affect her and sit and visit. We each notice a few things that are different, but don’t call them out as to make her aware of them. So she finishes her main meal with two desserts since it’s her birthday. Then we give her what she wanted her Hershey’s chocolate bar and a card. Which is musical. She loved it. But with watching it later I could see her looking around and seeing her smile and was able to see her old self shine through for a second or two. We only visited for an hour since we had other things to do before school started and therapy showed up as well for her so it was time to go. You would think that was the end of our day experience with dementia… well you would be wrong…

The aftermath of dementia is something people might not talk about. It’s your feelings of how you saw your loved one how they have changed, how they can‘t do something they use to be able to do before, others who where with you and how they saw things especially your kids, just feeling I don’t know how I should feel.

This lead to conversations with my kids about how they felt, what they noticed, etc. Biggest thing was she doesn’t use their names anymore, but she knows that they are her grandkids. This time too she didn’t use my name either just she knew I was her daughter. I was told earlier by someone that you look at it that they aren’t getting worse that they are digressing becoming younger where you are teaching them how to eat, talk, do things, but will never really remember. One good thing is that she has kind of forgot that she forgets again which is a Blessing in disguise.

Talk to each other about what is happening how you are feeling get it out in the open. It’s ok to talk about it, death. Really it is. We ended up talking about how to say goodbye now even with your loved one still living. But coming to terms with it while they are still here is so much better than later. This doesn’t mean you don’t keep visiting, but it makes it easier in a way that when your loved one does die, past away, etc. to except, at least that is how I feel.

I pray for all of you for wherever you are on this adventure we call dementia and know you are not alone.

Blessings

For those who are knee deep in this may think this is a strange question. After my visit today with my loved one this thought of what dementia looks like came to me after looking at a few photos that we took during our visit.

With that being said you look at this face and wouldn’t think of dementia. Just think that is a nice photo of a daughter and mom. I see a smile that I haven’t seen in a long time, I see that this is a good day, and I think how many more days do I have with her before she starts to forget about me. This would be after the fact once the visit is over and we are heading home and she stays behind. Don’t get me wrong I am very thankful that she is getting wonderful care 24/7. This is just things those who are knee deep in this adventure we are calling dementia.

No matter how many Mother’s Day’s you have been through the hardest has to be when you have lost a mother. Now I haven’t lost my mother yet, but the dementia adventure makes you think how close that is versus being further away.

My Mother’s Day’s have never been normal per-say. I have two mother’s since I was in elementary school. Then when I got married I added a mother so three mother’s total is what I have. They are all special in their own way and I am a lucky girl.

I said that all my mothers are special in their own way just a sentence ago and that is so true. Then I became a mom which is an amazing journey in its self and my moms became grandmothers.

Grandmothers and dementia you wouldn’t think that would be something you would need to explain to your kids. In the past five years has been where I have been there for my kids and how they have felt with their grandmother having dementia. Not only do I have to deal with my feelings I worry about their feeling and how they are doing. Dementia doesn’t just affect one person, but the whole family.

I did mention earlier in a previous post that I am part of the sandwich generation. Which I am still taking care of my family and kids and now taking care of my mother as well. I never thought we would be where we are at this time frame. There is a lot of that going around with where my mother is at in her journey of dementia. I have learned that you need to meet them where they are in their journey. Which is hard at times since this can be dealing with people you have never met or just don’t remember them. And your loved one thinks they are still around just like they remember them from the last time they saw them. This is where I wish I could talk to my mom and ask her about her own mom, but that is not possible.

So as this year’s Mother’s Day approaches it become surreal with time. Time is always running away it feels like it is so fast then it feels so slow. The key here is what you do with the time you have left. So as I have these mixed feelings I need to remember to use my time wisely and enjoy the time we have together. Years from now that after she has passed I will look back on these times together and will feel good that we all used our time wisely.

I would like to wish all the mothers out there a Happy Blessed Mother’s Day!

On a day like today you might be spending it with family and friends or you can be spending it thinking about the past memories.

This Easter I am doing the latter one. Due to unseen circumstances this years Easter is not like what I am use to. One is off to college, one is helping with family matters and the rest of us is left to pick up the pieces and have an Easter like we aren’t use to.

Strange thing about memories are they like to sneak up on you when you least expect it. I am looking back on when my guys were little waking up having breakfast, going to church and having dinner with family. Recently I have been having these times of thinking of past memories of when I was little. Trying to think of any memory of that I had spent with my mom. They aren’t really coming to mind. I am thinking about my kids and their time when they were little. Not to say I didn’t have Easters with my mom, but they were spent with having a meal with family and sometimes I got to spend it with a weekend of being with her. I remember having Easter with my dad, step mom (but she is my mom) and siblings. Having breakfast together, going to church and having dinner as a family and with family. Sound familiar…

There just seems to be so many changes happening these past few months that seem to make these memories come up when you least expect them to. I know change is necessary part of life, but it doesn’t stop you from having these feelings.

These past few months have been a bite of a challenge with my mom. I never thought we would be where we are at with her care or who she is at this point of our adventure. I am dealing with what was said the best I can with what came up over past memories that I didn’t realize I had. That is what is strange about this lovely thing I call dementia. This adventure can take you up, down, over, around and upside down in a way you never thought it would go. Just remember to go with the punches, crying is perfectly fine, take care of yourself while you are taking care of your loved one and remember you are not alone.

I know I do. Especially I feel I need a hug more often than I use to.

Since I last posted things have changed a bit for my mom. I never thought we would be where we are now on this adventure we call dementia. Mom has been moved to a unit where she can’t just walked out on her own. I assumed she would be in the wing she was in since she arrived there over a year ago. As I am coming to realize you can’t rule anything out when it comes to dementia.

I started this post over six months ago and got distracted with this thing we call life.

As I was saying earlier that things are not as what I thought they would be at this point on this adventure we call dementia.

We went through this rough patch of what seemed to be irritability, not herself, etc. It was a very tough, emotional and rememberable time. I find it ironic that as our loved one loses their memory we maintain all those good and bad memories.

As we go through this adventure I find myself reminiscing on memories from when I was a kid. With these memories comes additional baggage that I have forgotten since I was younger. Since I have been going on this adventure I found I have needed help in understanding what is going on with all these feelings of past memories, new current memories being created, my home life with my family, job, you know life still goes on with all of this other baggage. A therapist is a must. You may think you don’t need help, you’re ok, etc. Please if you don’t think you need a therapist please have someone to talk to. Life is hard without adding anything additional to it. So, if you need help it is ok to ask for it. I have learned to, to take some time for yourself. This can be a nap, read a book, take a bath, going antiquing, etc.

Just remember we may be on different adventures, but I am here for you. With a hug just waiting…. Blessings

There was this mom and daughter just minding their own business when all of a sudden a big, bad dementia appeared. It attacked the mom and started to make her forget things, from remembering to take meds to what day it was. Now this wasn’t all the time. So the big, bad dementia was good at hiding it self until it couldn’t anymore. The daughter tried her best to keep her mom happy and safe. In turn, it came a time that she couldn’t and God knew it was time to help her out. Doctors got involved due to that the mom got sick and had to go to the hospital. After she got better it was time to decide where should she go. There were only a few options and a choice was made. So the daughter would travel about every weekend to see her mom. It would take the whole day, since it was a distance away. There were days that you didn’t know what this big, bad dementia would do to her mother, but she went anyway. There were days that the daughter would cry and be just mad at everything. The daughter decided she needed help and she reached out to someone she could talk to. The daughter worked for a few years to get her mom moved closer to her. Finally she was able to get her moved closer. The place is very nice and so are the people. Now the big, bad dementia seemed to be content just showing it self every once in a while. The daughter could handle it for the most part. Until this big, bad dementia said, “ I need to cause some havoc I’ve been calm for too long.” The daughter knew she was . . .

I don’t know if any of you have ever had to tell a story for your loved one to be ok, to not to upset them, etc. That seems to be where I am at right now now with my loved one. It seems so strange to step into their world at whatever moment they are in. It can be that they live in a nursing home and believe they are at a restaurant and their family home is across the street. Which in reality none of this is true except the nursing home part. Trying to talk to them about people who have been dead for years and they believe are alive and well. That is the hardest story to tell since some of these people I have never met or if I did I was a very young child. The other side of this is that I was raised you don’t lie to your parents or anyone. It has been hard, but it is something that I find that I need to do at this point.

So where I left off in the story it has been a few interesting weeks. My mom seems to have it in her head she needed to leave the nursing home. Well it got to the point she just had to be put in a place where she wasn’t able to get out on her own. Now as I am sure you all know any change to a dementia patient can affect them for a while. This is just the start of this chapter on to this next portion of this story and adventure that I like to call dementia.