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Poll: Rep Retirement Lodge 205: Are you a hockey fan?

Poll: Rep Retirement Lodge 205: Are you a hockey fan?

  • Total voters
    11
Scarlet said:
Howdy Lodge. Hope all is well with everyone. I think I have mentioned a few times here about my mother having been diagnosed with Alzheimers back in January. She thankfully is not too bad yet. But what I find really fascinating is - I'm here with her now and her cousin called her. This is a woman who was born in Greece and Greek is her first language so when she calls to talk to my mom, my mom converses with her in Greek. How does she remember how to have a conversation in a totally different language when she can't remember if she took pills or something?
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As I'm learning with my mom, only their short-term memory is affected (at least in the beginning). Recently she drew pictures of her childhood home during WWII with details like green shades on all the windows so the German's couldn't see which houses were occupied. She remembers so many minute details of things that happened 39-40 plus years ago. Yet, she too can't remember what was for breakfast today.

It's a scary, heart-wrenching disease that eventually totally consumes the mind.
 
On Christmas Day, we were over my brother's house and watching the Celtics game. My mother told my niece's boyfriend how, back when she was pregnant with my brother, my dad made her go the the Boston Garden and wait in line for playoff tickets. And how someone brought her a chair to sit in, etc. She remembered everything about it, and then proceeded to tell my niece's boyfriend the same story five times because she didn't realize she had already told him.

It is totally scary, but interesting as well. Her moments of lucidity are so random and sometimes funny. Before I asked her doctor about combining all her pills to take at once, she used to take a few pills before bed (in addition to a few more around lunch time). Despite making signs and calling her to remind her to take them before bed, she forgot. And even when I stay over, she would say "Why can't I remember to take those??" Or she would take them into her bedroom with a bottle of water and I would go into her room and they would still be there on her nightstand. So now, her PCP said she can take all her pills at the same time anytime of day. And now, before she goes to bed she says "Don't I have to take pills?" I can only laugh. And before you ask about missing her pills, she's really only on maintenance pills, plus a couple of vitamins. For someone who will be 90 in the fall, she's on so few drugs and thankfully nothing so crucial that if she misses a day, it's not a big deal.
 
Scarlet said:
On Christmas Day, we were over my brother's house and watching the Celtics game. My mother told my niece's boyfriend how, back when she was pregnant with my brother, my dad made her go the the Boston Garden and wait in line for playoff tickets. And how someone brought her a chair to sit in, etc. She remembered everything about it, and then proceeded to tell my niece's boyfriend the same story five times because she didn't realize she had already told him.

It is totally scary, but interesting as well. Her moments of lucidity are so random and sometimes funny. Before I asked her doctor about combining all her pills to take at once, she used to take a few pills before bed (in addition to a few more around lunch time). Despite making signs and calling her to remind her to take them before bed, she forgot. And even when I stay over, she would say "Why can't I remember to take those??" Or she would take them into her bedroom with a bottle of water and I would go into her room and they would still be there on her nightstand. So now, her PCP said she can take all her pills at the same time anytime of day. And now, before she goes to bed she says "Don't I have to take pills?" I can only laugh. And before you ask about missing her pills, she's really only on maintenance pills, plus a couple of vitamins. For someone who will be 90 in the fall, she's on so few drugs and thankfully nothing so crucial that if she misses a day, it's not a big deal.
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My mom was the same way with her meds. Constantly forgetting. Thankfully she's in a place where that's all taken care of for her. It was a hard decision but the only one that could be made.

While I still worry, I'm able to sleep at night knowing I don't have to babysit her.

And I have NO help. My sister is in AZ and ain't coming home. My wife helps when she can but is starting to deal with the same issues with her parents.
 
MarkEagleUSA said:
As I'm learning with my mom, only their short-term memory is affected (at least in the beginning). Recently she drew pictures of her childhood home during WWII with details like green shades on all the windows so the German's couldn't see which houses were occupied. She remembers so many minute details of things that happened 39-40 plus years ago. Yet, she too can't remember what was for breakfast today.

It's a scary, heart-wrenching disease that eventually totally consumes the mind.
Click to expand...

When my mom was in the nursing home, where she spent the last 3 years after her condition progressed beyond my ability to help her, she was confusing me with my father, and stuck on a visit to the beach with her sister and BIL from the time before either my mom or aunt had children. She was going on, in detail, about what they needed for the picnic, etc. At the same time, she couldn’t remember my name - a >50yo memory at the time vs. me, who was 34yo at the time. It’s a disease that is basically out with the new, and in with the old. And then it’s out with the slightly less new, and so on.

The enlightening aspect of the disease is when the memories are still mostly there, but the internal filters are gone. There was a day when she told me how I and each of my four brothers ranked in her view - I was given the enumerated list. That was both funny and sobering, not realizing at the time what a parent truly retains about their children.
 
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