Into the mist!

Having Alzheimer's must seem like disappearing into the mist. This week has been fraught with episodes so numerous and different from past ones that I feel as I'm spinning out of control! I can't keep up with where mom's brain is taking her and when I'm fatigued it's even more difficult to figure out what is happening or what she wants. Her list of complaints and needs grows daily and if I acknowledge the complaints and say that I'm sorry she's having a rough time like freezing at the dialysis clinic then her mood shifts. If I say that I'll look into whatever she thinks she needs she either drops it completely or brings it up over and over until I do something about it.

Last Wednesday Stacy didn't sit in her usual chair from treatment. Mom sits in a folding chair next to Stacy (I run errands and tend to things for the 3 hours they are there). This treatment station is near the AC vent and you'd have thought mom was in the deepest part of Alaska. She was so bundled up by the time I got back that everyone was looking at me with question marks plastered on their faces. I smiled and said, "Perhaps Stacy can sit in her usual place from now on. Mom seems to freeze in that spot." Of course the rest of the day was a bust, "they" had ruined her day and she must have been punished for something. PARANOIA strikes again. Personally, I would have loved that spot seeing how I'm always hot. Mom seems to be either freezing or roasting; her thermostat must be way off.

There was the episode of the missing book that simply got up and walked off of her bed while she was in the bathroom. Seeing how this isn't the first book that has gone missing I assume that she either finished it before the bathroom visit and put it away, or she hadn't been reading at all. She can never remember what book it was . . .

The missing outdoor figurines didn't get a rise out of me. I was beyond being able to deal with anything yesterday afternoon when she announced that they were no where to be found. "Maybe you put them away," I said. I had spent hours and hours in the yard planting more perennials, staking vines, fertilizing, re-potting plants and cleaning off the patio. An attack of vertigo struck and I was on my bed. "You'll never guess where they were," she announced about 10 minutes later. "I have no idea how they got there but they were under the sink in the wet bar area." Mmmmm, so she must have been worried about them be stolen seeing how the gate we've ordered is now 2 weeks behind schedule. Most things she misplaces and then finds are blamed on the fact that the gate hasn't arrived so she needs to hide things. I wonder what she'll blame the missing items on once the gate is installed. Should be interesting.

The overhead fan seems to be possessed as it turns itself on. A remote control is required to turn it on . . . For three months we had the chocolate obsession where she announced daily that I must go and get her more Dove chocolate as she was running out. Six bags in one week?!?!? "Well I certainly don't have them so you must have thought you bought them for me." In self-protection I had stocked up with a dozen bags and when the announcement arrived early one morning followed by a note on my shopping list I handed her the dozen bags. "Well, I don't need that many!" Two days later she sheepishly told me that she had about 19 bags of chocolate and she couldn't figure out where they'd all come from. It seems that she'd been putting the bags in different places and not into her nearly empty candy drawer!!! Sheesh! At least she hadn't been eating all of that chocolate. I've stocked my hiding place again in readiness for the next "empty drawer" announcement.

She had to have a way of having ice water in her room. Maybe a small refrigerator? We've been through this about a dozen times. I walk out to the casita with her, "Where would you put it?" She looks at me like I'm some evil person. "Well, if my apartment were larger I could have one."

It took me three stores to find an insulated carafe that is fairly easy to open and happily the ice cubes fit into the narrow opening. I felt like I'd won the lottery! But last night, "If I had a freezer in my room I could have ice cream when I want it." We had a dish of chocolate ice cream for dessert.

This morning she couldn't find the bread for her toast. It's either in the bread keeper next to the toaster oven or in the freezer. It turns out the bread wasn't in either place. The loaf was on the second shelf from the top which was beyond her comprehension. I asked her if she'd like waffles. "Well, that would be better anyway. How am I supposed to remember where you keep the bread in your house if you keep moving it." This from a woman who was the best problem solver in the world!

Lots of other incidents but the most tedious one is that the chocolate necessity seems to have been replaced this week by the need to wash the sheets. "I haven't washed the sheets in weeks! Is it okay that I do them today?" Sure thing, I'll get the machine started. Five times this week already!

Four times today already we've had the possessed fan problem, plus, the gate delivery anger, plus the need to change the ice and water in the carafe. And then there is the magazine saga . . .

I'm beginning to wonder, not for the first time, whether I should shut done my ExpressionVillage yahoo group. I can't seem to keep things together enough to post anything of substance. Membership has once again dropped and I'm certain it's out of boredom.

Quote:

Be pleased with what life serves you

and you will be pleasantly surprised

by dessert.

Sally Huss