I'm tired of cooking/preparing 3 meals a day. It's just the two of us but boy oh boy can that woman eat!! She stays slimish, I get fattish. It's bad enough I do everything here much less start making her one thing and me the other. At times I feel guilty when I buy her fast food cuz of the nutritional value....not to mention I eat it too.
At her facility, they are having a Christmas in July week. They had a door decorating contest, ugly sweater day, "cowboy Christmas" theme day, and yesterday was a banquet.
She asked me Saturday if I could bring her a cowboy hat and if I could help decorate her door. Gave me a list of those things plus some other things to bring. So hubs and kids and I went Sunday evening for our visit and decorated her door all cute with wrapping paper. We even brought her a stocking and a lighted wreath.
Then Tuesday, while we were getting some more of her things from her house, we found a cowboy hat, so we made a special trip that evening to bring it up there.
Well when we got there, she had taken her stocking and wreath down. She said her neighbor's door was better than hers so there was no point. Also complained about the fake pine needles from the wreath.
Talked to her yesterday and she said she didn't bother with the cowboy hat after all, and that she went down to the banquet but didn't like it. I asked if it was the food. She said, "They had turkey, dressing and ham (foods I know she likes), but I just didn't like it." I have no idea what the point of us was in bringing any of the stuff that she asked us to bring for her to participate.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. A visit with her goes pretty much like this too. And I was seriously about to pull my hair out when she lived here.
Hubs and I joke that she could win a $10 million lottery and she would be complaining about how terrible things are.
When the displays went up, my picture was there on the wall. I never said anything, and my form teacher never said anything, but the only possibility is that he saw what happened, retrieved it from the bin, smoothed it out and pinned it up. I think that teacher understood me better than I did; actually he was such a good teacher I expect that was true of practically all of us.
The thing is, I think I understand your mother's point of view. It's about dashed hopes, the futility of life, and fear. Fear of? - oh goodness, you name it, everything. Depressing for you, yes of course it is; but believe me that's nothing compared to the kind of despairing dread that's behind it. Low grade, you understand, bubbling under the surface, but there all the same.
One approach you might try is to shift your mother's focus onto the *point* of her participation. Which is not to have the best-decorated door (or the nuttiest jumper) but to contribute to the community spirit and not be a wet blanket. Not the winning, but the taking part; the doing her bit for everyone else instead of thinking only of herself.
If you were ever a Girl Guide or similar you'll know the jolly no-nonsense tone you'll need to adopt.
Or, if she really is happier being miserable, sigh...
But I bet she isn't. I bet she'd be happier complaining that you nagged her into it :)
Those weeds of CM' s.....
Considering landscaping my neighbor's section of driveway, I smile too. It is a little evil smirk, can I do it?
Well, looked up feverfew, it is very pretty, with little yellow flowers.
Conflicted. What to do, hmmmm. Revenge, I should not take revenge, I think.
Then, I am thinking, offer a blessing instead. Yes, I know! I will plant some feverfew with the pretty little flowers. Yeah. That'll do.
Is your area cold even in the summers?
I thought feverfew was pretty too. And, how interesting! - it is an effective anti-pyrexial (hence the name), much used by apothecaries before the Germans invented aspirin. Just the thing for my modest herb garden, I thought.
But not just the thing for the rest of the half-acre I had at the time, and which it had spread itself all over within two seasons.
Thanks for the warning. Such a cute little plant!
At the counter, dropping off my car keys for repair: "They are not in yet?"
I answer, "No, it is not 8 a.m. yet".
Hubs says, in a separate conversation: "They should be open by now?"
I answer, "No, it is not 8 a.m. yet".
And so it goes.
Hoping no one is relying on me for the time, I found my $12.00 watch, and I am wearing it today, armed and dangerous.
During the course of the conversation, being her normal mopey self, she says, "I'm having episodes again." I asked what kind of episodes. She said, "Well, someone is listening on my phone, and I'm afraid someone is gonna break in here and kill me, and they are gonna kill you guys too when you come up here." This is a rather "normal" occurrence as she has struggled with paranoia for a long time, so I did the usual talking her off the ledge and redirecting the conversation to something else. It actually seems to have improved some from a few months ago.
But after I got off the phone, I started thinking, since she said she was having these "episodes", does this mean she recognizes to an extent that they aren't real? I think on some level she does, but then part of her really believes them.
When she was here, she said she would forget her diagnosis (paranoid schizophrenia/possibly Parkinsons or dementia - we go back to the neurologist in Sept), and would ask me to write it down. I really hated doing that, as I don't see that she needs to obsess over it. But she would insist that I do it. She would take out the slip of paper at least 3-4 times a day, look at it and put it back where she had it. I don't think she has it written down in her new place, but I feel like she still hangs on to her illness for some reason.
But once in nursing care, all the things that happened starting with her getting sepsis, spending six weeks in hospital and then another six weeks in rehab, then Home health care for however long that lasted, my Mom could not remember. Funny that, considering I'll probably never forget that period of time. It's etched in my memory forever considering I spent that time in a constant state of waiting for the other shoe to drop, frenetic worrying, running around like the proverbial chicken with it's head cut off.
Anyhow, Frazzled forgive me for digressing. But what you describe sounds quite normal under the circumstances.
It does seem like it's been helping some. She still believes them most the time, and she will tell me she's scared but it's not the kind of absolute panic and terror that I've seen in the past. I've seen her in tears and afraid to sleep or do anything like take a shower, go outside, etc. when it has gotten really bad. When she lived alone a few years back, she was calling the police all the time terrified that people (usually her neighbors) were trying to break in or plotting to harm her.
Gershun, I can totally relate to the hand-wringing anxiety waiting for the other shoe to drop. I feel better knowing she has staff there to assist her where she is, but still yet, when the phone rings and it's the nurse or aide line there (usually letting me know her meds need refills or something), or even if it's mom, I still get a knot in my stomach. I'm just so used to crisis mode, it's a hard habit to break.
Usually when it comes to older folks, Dr. Phil has the "catfishing" shows where the parent sends their life savings to a person who isn't real [scam].
It would be nice if ANYONE would have a program (or10) on dementias and the people who care for them. Throw in a lot of statistics, numbers, graphs, and dollar (or equivalent) costs. Also the fate of the c/g's and THEIR health problems stemming from c/ging.
Do personal interviews in homes showing what the c/g goes through every day for absolutely no compensation.
Put it on a well known channel that airs programs like 60 minutes or a good PBS channel.
Get information from the government as to what people with dementia are entitled to. (Think of all the folks who come here looking for info.) Then play it once a month for a year.
Maybe, just maybe, then we'd get some recognition and assistance to this world-wide epidemic of brain dysfunction-dementia and the c/g's who are saving the federal government billions for their donated time.
More exposure is definitely needed.
Dr. Phil has become too commercialized to effectively get the point across,(IMO).
Yipes.
Does anyone else have some really hot degrees?
is it the site or my new iPhone?
Wednesday’s temp is going to be even hotter, Send
Remember Bullwinkle.
Also, the way he walks out with his wife at the end of each show nauseates me. Yeah, we are soo happy.............our marriage is so great. Eye roll here.
Did it come with Siri or Nathan giving you step by step misdirections? Turn left, turn left, turn left? I tell my hubs......turn that thing off, I know where we are! Is it against USPS laws to mail that thing with a battery in it, back to it's owner?
My therapist recommended just taking the battery out. No, really, he did.
But how could I do that to my dear, dear dH.???? I recall Sharyn saying something about getting the cell phone wet? Aren't they expensive?
I don't know how we ever survived without Nathan, Uber, $200 bicycle tires, and Starbucks.
Is tyrannical entitlement a word?
Lol Gershun, Dr. Bull Winkle?
Does anyone find themselves clicking on "see more", but it is so tiny, and you have clicked on "see less" instead?
The squirrel is Rocket J. Squirrel, "Rocky" for short. He was a flying squirrel. He and his moose friend, Bullwinkle, lived in (fictious) Frostbite Falls, Minnesota.
They occasionally had run ins with Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale who both worked for Fearless Leader and both had wonderfully phoney Russian accents.
Dudley DoRight would come on once in a while as would Mr. Peabody (a talking, intelligent beagle) and his "boy" Sherman.
Oh those were the days!