Deborah doesn't live here anymore

I am so tired lately from getting pulled in all directions: my mother, the aides, contemplating redoing the kitchen, getting dinner on the table, cleaning the house, doing the laundry all the usual stuff that goes on in everyday households. There just doesn't seem to be enough time in the day for all of this and play Bridge!

Let's look at my dilemma.  The cleaning, cooking and laundry is normal, but adding my mom and the aide into the mix just about puts me over the edge.  Aides are suppose to keep the patients general area clean.  They are to bathe and dress the patient, cook and in some cases, when necessary, feed the person too.  I have taken over cooking dinner because I have family living in the house, however, sometimes my family is not around and I would be content to just eat a salad, or an omelet.  That isn't good enough for my mom.  When I try to pass off a meal like that or order out she complains about the poor food in the restaurant (my house).  Cleaning her space is the aide's responsibility, but since it encroaches on everyone else's space it's a battle not worth fighting.   However, my mom's bedroom should be the aide's responsibility, but I have learned that you fight the battles you can win and this one just isn't as important as some of the other issues like the bathing and feeding.  Forget about keeping mom engaged.  One of the problems with dementia patients is that they don't concentrate on any one thing for any real length of time.  If they like 40's music that's fine for a while, but I have put the music on in the morning and gone out and come back late in the afternoon to find them still sitting in the living room listening to the same station.  I know I would go crazy and I don't have dementia imagine a person that is locked in limbo.

I don't work full time anymore.  It seems this is a common situation for caregivers.  Statistically, more than half of caregivers either quit or lose their jobs within the first two years of taking over the care of a parent or family member.  Caring for a parent is a full-time job even if you are not the one bathing and dressing them.  There are days, however, when the aid calls out sick and a replacement is unavailable, so I have to take on the duties of the aid.  Sometimes it is just easier for me to do it because at least my mom is not always calling my name.

When my mom first came to live with me almost two years ago she always called me by my sister's name; maybe because she'd older and her visits are a big todo because she doesn't live close by. It used to make me angry because I was always doing the grunt work, yet she couldn't get my name straight.  I thought mom was just being difficult, but things have changed since she moved in with me and my family and now I want to change my name!  Familiarity is the culprit especially with someone who has dementia.  They hang on to everything and everyone because forgetting is frightening.  Be careful what you wish for it may come true and than you'll find yourself wishing your name was anything but what it is.

She calls me constantly; it doesn't matter if the aide is sitting right next to her mom will call me to come in from the next room, or upstairs, or wherever to get her a tissue which is on the table right next to her chair.
If I go out, I don't make it entirely in the front door without hearing, "Deborah.  Deborah." She can sense when I'm in the house.
I told her today, after she insisted that I come into the room and than she asked me for a tissue, that I was going to change my name.
"To what?" she asked.
"Oh no, I'm not going to tell you."
"But than how am I going to call you?"
"Exactly my point!"

I want to tell her "Deborah doesn't live here anymore,"  next time she calls my name, but I don't think she would get it.  She would probably ask me where I moved to and than I would have to explain and explain and tomorrow I would have to explain all over again when she sees me in the house.

The Midget

Today is Easter Sunday and I always put together baskets for my overgrown adolescents, their husbands, boyfriend, girlfriend and now my mom, aka The Midget.

The Midget, as she has become affectionately penned by my daughter and known to my children's friends and college buddies all over the country, got her first singing bunny rabbit and a Pez dispenser today. We listened to the big pink bunny sing and flap its ears through most the afternoon.  
She sat in her recliner in the living room with the bunny on her lap, Smalls at her feet, all the while sporting her golf visor and dark sunglasses.  She reminded me of Hyman Roth, the mob boss in The Godfather as he sat with Michael Corleone on his terrace in Miami discussing the future of gaming in Vegas.  Michael had the nickname 'The Don' and Jeanne earned the nickname 'The Midget'.  Four-foot noting, but like Hyman, you don't screw around with her.  There is definitely something eerie watching her sit with her pink bunny, her Rottweiler and her Pez dispenser offering candy from her basket to each of her grandchildren as they came into the room.
At one point she called my son-in-law over and showed him a small yellow candy egg.  "Do you want this," she asked?  "No, thank you," he answered.  So, she put the egg in her mouth.  The look on her face should have prepared him for what happened next. Her lips curled down like you do when you are about to spit your food out and that's exactly what she did, directly into his hand.  What could he do?

I don't know why he is always the target of my mom's weirdest moments; perhaps it's because he is soft spoken and seems like a push over, an easy mark.  Nevertheless, he was left to discard the yellow candy egg The Midget didn't want!  After all who is going to argue with a 92 year-old wearing a golf visor and dark sunglasses in the middle of the living room with a pink bunny on her lap?
Besides the bunny, her next favorite easter toy was her Pez dispenser.  I gave her a yellow duck.  After a few tries she got the hang of it and began pushing on the back of the duck's neck so it would tip up and a candy would pop out.  As she tipped it up she whispered, "Quack, quack," and a miracle occurred, the candy popped out.  "Wow!  It talks back." Seriously, I can't make this stuff up.  It's too rich!  Jay Leno should come to my house.  The material around here never dries up.

As I have read and researched the various things that happen as you age the one thing that keeps coming back to mind is the old adage, 'life comes full circle', and my house is living proof.  I don't have to have easter egg hunts for my kids anymore, and in their baskets they prefer lotto cards to candy (except for Reeses), but because of The Midget the Easter Bunny still lives on at my house; she has brought the child out in all of us this year.

Pizza Again!

Today I went shopping for kitchen tiles and cabinets, and also spent the better part of the evening arguing with Bell Audi over my A6 '06.  It has been in service more than 300 days in the last three years.  Even my mom who has dementia knows the service history of my car.  It is amazing that she can remember when my car is in service and she can't remember from day to day that she is sitting in my living room and not a fancy hotel where the service is good but sometimes the chef is not in so she has to eat pizza.

Yes, you guessed it.  I am the chef and tonight we ate pizza.  It's not that she doesn't like it, but she would rather eat calzone which I ordered as well.  The aid tried to cut my mom's slice, but she would have none of that.  After all my mom is Italian and more importantly a Sicilian!  Obviously, the aid is not Italian, and worse than that is not Sicilian.  I'm sure you can guess who won this argument.  Don Corleone has nothing on my mom, dementia or no dementia.  Crazy Joe Gallo wasn't half as crazy as Jeanne, my 92 year-old mother.
As we ate, Smalls, the rottie, was in the kitchen, which is not the norm, but tonight I forgot to put the gate up.  He was under the table with his head between Jeanne's legs trying to catch the morsels of food that escaped my mother's dentures.
"Can you believe this guy," my mom says.  "What does he think I have there, food?"
It was so hard for any of us to keep a straight face.  We never know whether we should laugh or cry because she is just so funny in her simple innocence.  In the meantime, Nathan, the dachshund is under the table under her chair waiting for the droppings that Smalls misses.  The scene was like watching Cirque du Soleil - The Crazy Edition.  I could sell tickets for seats at my dinner table.  It's better than the Marx brothers falling out of a closet.

Anyway, tomorrow night the dogs shall remain in the hall during dinner.  At least this way we can avoid a three ring circus from occurring under the table.

Now for a little levity

One of the side effects of some of the meds my mom is on is constipation.  We (the aids and me) have to be very careful what she eats and the aids (I relinquish this duty - no pun intended) have to keep track of how many times my mom has a BM (bowel movement) for those of you who do not have children.

So last week my mom was having a hard time (again no pun intended) having a movement.  I think you get the gist of it now.  When the moment finally occurred she or it plugged up the toilet bowl.  Thank goodness for the trusty ole plunger.  Alas, after a few pushes, of the plunger that is, all was clear and ready for use.

Well today my mom is calling my name, yelling my name.  I come running into the room, "What! What are you yelling about."

"Take me inside." 

"Inside where?"

"In the bathroom."

So naturally I tell the aid my mom needs to go to the bathroom.

"No.  I need to fix it."

I'm confused at this point.  "Fix what?"

"I have to plunge the toilet. Take me."

Laughing I said, "Mom, the toilet is fine.  You don't have to.  It's all fixed."

"Deborah, Deborah, I have to fix it.  I just want to plunge it."

I had to walk away because I knew she wouldn't stop.

My son walked in the room not two minutes later.  "Alex,

 come here."

"What Nan?"

"I have to go inside.  I have to fix the toilet."

After asking everyone is the house to take her to the bathroom so she could plunge the toilet I realized that the culprit was my husband who came home from work and asked her, "So Mom, did you clog the toilet again?" 

He left the rest of us to clean up the mess.

Just another day in the life of the ham between the bread.

The Sandwich Generation

When my mom moved to New York seven years ago I thought it would be easier to maintain her health and well-being because she was close by.  What I didn't figure on was who was going to help maintain mine?  Why is it so difficult to for a child to take care of an aged parent when a parent can take care of a house full of children?  In the past the role of a woman was to take care of her family, raise her children, maintain her house and love her man.  Today a woman has to work in the rat race of jobs, raise children in our ever declining educational system, maintain a household and somehow find time to keep the marriage alive.  Wait... that's not all.  Let us not forget the elderly parent who unless they lived in medicare housing, would not be able to live on their own.  Hence, my mom lives with me.

I remember coming home from college after being away for four years and thinking, "I can't live with my parents anymore. " It was crazy having to answer to them after being away for four years.

Well, it is just as crazy for parents to live with their children.  They can't answer to their children and their children can't answer to them, but that is exactly what happens as time wears on.  Why is this so hard?

The Sandwich Generation

What exactly does The Sandwich Generation mean?  Well, for one thing you have to be a baby boomer, born after WWII from the late forties through to early 60's.  I qualify for baby boomer status.  Secondly, you have to still have children at home and an elderly parent that lives with you.  Right again, I qualify on that point as well. So, I am sandwiched between my kids and my mother.  Like the ham between slices of bread.  On one end I have three children: 21, 24, 27 and on the other end my mom is 92.  It is more difficult to care for my aged mom than my three overgrown adolescents. To make matters worse my mom has dementia-Alzheimer's.
So I am blogging about this dilemma which is effecting everyone I know in their late 40's to early 60's.  I am writing a book to share with you.