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.