Smiling

I went to Eldervilla yesterday.  I hadn't been in a little over a week.  She was at the kitchen table eating her lunch when I arrived.  I sat down with her and we had a nice visit.  She joked with Mala, the care giver who was cleaning up the kitchen.

 

The thing I noticed most about her is how relaxed and happy her face looks.  She really does feel at home.  And she is definitely treating Sandy like her boyfriend, which he handles well.

(notice she has a new manicure)

 

I'm not sure who she thought I was but we talked about her parents and what they were doing today and I made comments based on things I knew about things when she was growing up.  It was a good conversation.

At one point she went to the bathroom and when she came back, she sat down and looked at me in amazement.  She had no idea I had come.  She said she had been talking to someone else and was surprised to see me there now.  Of course who "me" was, I don't know!  I know that many people feel very upset when their parents don't recognize them.  I guess after all these years, I'm just used to it.  It's not one of the things that upsets me.  I'm more upset when she has no connection to Bri and Lacie at all, just that they are "cute kids."

I did have a bit of a pang when she told me that my "glass paper" was pretty.  "Did you mean my hair?" I asked, since she had gestured toward my hair.  "Yes," she said, "your glass paper."  It gave me a pang because the subject of my hair has been an almost constant topic for decades.  One of the things my other has been VERY disappointed about all of her life was that she did not have curly hair, as some of her sisters did--and as I do.  She never failed to mention it for a long time  Every time she saw me she said "Oh look at that hair! It just makes me sick. That makes me feel so DISGUSTED."  Of course she meant it as a compliment because she wanted hair like mine, but I finally told her years ago how it made me feel to be told that she was disgusted whenever she looked at me.  She actually never used that word again and rarely mentions my hair now except to say it looks nice.  I'm not sure if I'm sad or happy that I never disgust her any more.

Sandy and I talked a bit.  Nancy, the woman whom the police picked up last week, fell in the ER and broke her hip, so she's been in the hospital and is moving to a convalescent home.  And I never dreamed that Jeannie, my mother's best friend at Eldervilla, is almost completely blind.  You'd never know it to watch her.

While we were talking my mother got up and went into her room and to bed.  I had been there for about an hour and a half, so I just left and didn't bother trying to tell her goodbye.

I often left Atria fighting back tears.  I have never done that at Eldervilla, and usually leave feeling so happy and grateful that we found this wonderful place.

Things Winding Down

Last night we went to see a wonderful production of 42nd Street at the Woodland Opera House.  I sat in the gimp section at the back, but they gave comp tickets to Jeri and Alice Nan too and they were able to sit together closer down.

 

Today was Alice Nan's last day here.  Jeri, who made a delicious dinner last night, pulled together the contents of the refrigerator and made a delicious breakfast.

 

In the early afternoon, before Alice Nan turned her wheels south she came with us to Eldervilla to visit my mother.  She was eating lunch with two other women when we got there.

 

It looks like she's grumpy, but she actually seemed to be enjoying herself.  We sat at the table with her for awhile and I was able to get a nice 2-dog picture.

 

Alice Nan liked her bedroom and she stayed to chat for a bit longer, but finally had to get on the road.  Jeri and I stayed, though Jeri was very sleepy and fell asleep on her grandmother's shoulder, while Simba napped on Jeri's knee and I watched the MSNBC coverage of the newly released Mueller report

 

We finally left and my mother didn't seem to be stressed by our leaving her.  It feels like she is settling in, thank goodness.

Jeri and I came back to Davis and stopped at Borders for an asparagus quesadilla and a nice chat, then home for a bit.  I took a short nap, then cooked dinner and everyone (but me) was off to an early sleep.  Jeri will be going back to Boston tomorrow and we will miss her.

The Last Supper

Well, it wasn't really the last supper and it wasn't really supper, but I took my mother to lunch in the big dining room today, hoping to see my favorite server, Piyush, and maybe the woman we ate with all the time, Margaret.  I was in luck; we saw both.

When I got to Atria at 11:15, they told me they thought she must have been awake all night because she was sound asleep.  I guess sometimes she spends the night walking the halls (I wonder what she'll do at Eldervilla).  I managed to wake her up and she was quite verbal, but making no sense.  Talking about "she wanted me to it but I didn't think it was right."  She couldn't say who "she" was or what "it" was but she certainly was emphatic about it all.

I tried to get her dressed and put her in the shirt she wore yesterday, but she told me it didn't fit, so I put her in a different shirt and when I tried to get her pants on she said she had to go to the bathroom to pee.  I said "OK...go to the bathroom" but that was entirely too confusing for her.  She kept asking what she was supposed to do and when I answered "go to the bathroom" she accused me of trying to confuse her.

Anyway, she finally disappeared and I assumed she was going to the bathroom but when I went to check, she wasn't there.  I had visions of her wandering the halls in her shirt and Depends.  I got Ali, one of the staff, to look in other people's rooms for her and she finally found her--in the bathroom.  I don't know where she had been when I looked there.  Maybe her roommate's bedroom?

I tried to get her to put on her shoes.  The new shoes I bought her are too small and the second pair I bought has disappeared, along with the framed photos of seven of her siblings and several photo books I had made for her.  I wonder what we are going to find when we start packing up the place!  I finally got her to understand she needed to put shoes on her feet (which was also too confusing for her to understand) and as soon as she had completed that, she took them off again because I hadn't explained that she should leave them on.

We eventually were able to leave the memory unit and go to the main dining room, where she ate 3x a day for 4 years, but she didn't have a clue where we were.  Even seeing people being served food she didn't know what kind of place it was.

We both had chicken soup and then fish and chips.  The chicken soup came with visible herbs in it, which she was convinced were bugs.  She took the "bugs" out of every bite, but managed to finish the soup, leaving a pile of herbs at the bottom of the bowl.

Piyush came to say hello and I told her it was the last time we would be there at the dining room.  Then I saw Margaret leaving the room.  I called to her and she came over.  Margaret is someone my mother ate with every day for about 2-3 years and it's weird her reaction to my mother.  She acts as if she is not there, never looks at her and didn't say anything to her, but did ask me about her.  My mother, of course, had no clue who she was and just kept eating and picking "bugs" out of her soup.

The strangest, most surprising thing about Margaret is that she mentioned that Robert, a veterinarian we used to eat with, just celebrated his 102nd birthday.  She said "He's just doing great.  I'm 79 and not nearly as good as he is."  I always assumed Margaret was in her 80s and I still can't believe she's Walt's age!!!

My plan had been to take her to SuperCuts after lunch because she sorely needs a haircut and I wanted her to look nice and tidy when she moved into Eldervilla.  But I left my purse in her apartment when we went to lunch and I didn't think she could make it all the way back to the memory unit and then all the way back to the car...and even if she could, I wasn't sure I wanted to.

When we got to her apartment, I sat down to call the Atria beauty parlor again (there was nobody there yesterday) and found out they have an opening at 2 tomorrow, so that took me off the hook for SuperCuts.  When I turned around to look at her, she had taken off her shoes and was back in bed, so even if I wanted to try SuperCuts, she wouldn't have wanted to go.  But this will be better.  The timing is perfect and they can get her all fixed up and she won't sleep on the hair until that night, so it will be fresh for Eldervilla.

I was glad we didn't have to go to SuperCuts.  Days like this just take so much out of me, trying to deal with her dementia.  I had planned to go the CVS and buy toiletries for her but didn't have the energy.  I'll do that before I go to Atria.

When I left the memory unit, there was one woman letting us out the door whom I recognized and I told her that we would be moving her tomorrow.  She asked where we were going and when I told her she said her husband works there occasionally had has nothing but good things to say about it...and he loves Simba (the dog).  Another good review for Eldervilla!

When I got home, I had a call from Sandy about her arrival.  He's a like a few other people I know (like Mark, the guy who has helped us find this place) who won't let me finish sentence because he has to interrupt to give me his opinion but I got most of the information I wanted from him.  I'm so excited for this new adventure to start and sincerely hope that she will adjust.

Toenails, TB, and Turkeys

We have had so many people in and out of the house in the last few months that, with the aid of the magic button I bought which emits an ultrasonic sound that Polly can hear and humans can't, living with Polly has become much easier.  She barks when Ned comes, but not her "go away or I'll kill you" bark, her "oh it's you...give me a treat" bark that she gives both Walt and me when we come home.

She unquestioningly accepted both Walt's brother and sister, and also Jessica, our "on call" helper who comes when we need something and Ned's not around.  She even behaved herself when Mark, the guy from Seniorly, came.

So I've become rather blasé about her attitude toward visitors.  Today was an exception.  Ashley said she would come by and cut her nails and as soon as I opened the door Polly was in full "kill her" mood and even the magic button only caused her to wince and then move far away and continue to bark.  Ashley has taken care of her so often I can't understand her attitude.  She hadn't even taken her clippers out to try to cut her toenails.

But eventually with lots of help from Walt and holding her in a better position (Ashley's a pro) the nails got cut, but Polly was definitely not happy about it.

In the afternoon, I took my mother back to Kaiser to get a chest x-ray.  It was faster than the TB skin test and I could move my mother to Eldervilla sooner since we would have the results back in the morning. 

Oh I will be so glad when I don't have to go back to Atria to pick her up.  The staff seems to be mostly new (the director says no, but some people who have been there for years have rescheduled their time she says).  It didn't ring true for me and I asked the one holdover this morning and she said that yes, the staff is new.  I have not been impressed with the new staff and will be glad not to have to deal with them. 

We got the x-ray mostly easilyl but while we were sitting in the waiting room, a chatty woman joined us and happily asked me "do you like Mr. Trump?"  I said that I did not and she said "Oh dear...I love him"  Fortunately we were called for x-ray right about then.

 

On the way home I decided to drive through the cemetery since so many of the trees are in blossom.  These days my mother is less interested in trees and more interested in cars (she can't believe there are CARS parked on the street.  Everywhere.)  But I pulled over to take a picture of some of the trees and realized that the cemetery was alive with turkeys

At first I thought it was just these two,  but then there were dozens of young turkeys flocking across the road.

For a bit they blocked me into the cemetery as they paraded out across the exit and then headed off down the sidewalk to...who knows where?

My mother wasn't nearly as tickled about the turkeys as I was, but we were almost home, a place she had never seen before.  I called to have them come out and meet her, but as it was all afternoon, the phone was not answered  Fortunately someone was coming out to her car at the end of her shift, and she agreed to take my mother in.

One more day....one more day.

Tomorrow I think I will take her to lunch in the big dining room and hope we see my favorite waitress (or have all those servers been replaced too....?) and then take her for a haircut, since it's really too long and she should arrive at Eldervilla looking as neat and tidy as possible.

Win Some, Lose Some

I feel like I've gained 100 lbs today.  And that's not because I've been binge eating.

It was not a good Atria day and I came home with the weight of the world on my shoulders and did what I usually do after such a day--turned on Criminal Minds, which made me cry, and then took a long nap.  But I still felt 100 lbs heavier when I woke up.

I mentioned in yesterday's entry that I had a call from Atria saying she was going to need new shoes.  I assumed that meant that her shoes, which have been looking pretty ratty, had finally fallen apart.  I sent a text asking what happened with all the rest of the 10 pairs of shoes she moved in with and someone said they would look around.

When I got to the community room, someone greeted me with "Hi, Bev-- your mother needs shoes."  She was sitting there, barefoot.  That's what they meant by "needing shoes."  I took her back to her room to find some shoes.

On the way, we passed Tony (her "boyfriend") walking down the hall holding hands with his wife.  My mother put her arms around him and gave him a big kiss.  His wife was NOT happy and told her to leave him alone.  I grabbed my mother before she could punch someone else.

We got to her room and there were NO shoes there.  Not one pair.

 

I checked all her drawers and found a pair of slippers for her to put on (though the slippers I bought for her were not to be found), but it seems that I am going to have to buy her shoes.  Someone told me she "takes them off in odd places" and I asked the memory care director what happens if they find the shoes somewhere and she said they put them in the laundry room and she would have someone look, but since there are several pairs missing I am not hopeful of their finding anything.

I tried talking to her about punching people and as I knew she would, she was very offended because she just never did anything like that.

This was a very, very bad dementia day.  It was one of those days where she has to go through grief over the death of everyone in her family.  I thought we were OK when she said "Mom's dead, isn't she?" and I said yes, but later she asked "what's Mom doing these days?" and then was angry that nobody told her that her mother died 60 years ago.

She seemed to be talking about her high school and when I asked her how old she was, she told me she was 17.  Then she looked at a picture of Tom and said he was one of her classmates and was a very nice boy.

She doesn't talk gibberish, but her conversation has noting to do with anything that is going on and she often forgets words.  At one point she asked me how her sister's bombs were going.  I don't have a clue what that meant.  (It may have been bom-boms, not bombs.)

I talked with the director of the memory unit as we were leaving.  I have to say that when she took over, I really liked her, but I have come to not like her much.  She never answers e-mails (which she promised would be a great way to communicate with her), never answers questions, and I know she's not going to attempt to find her shoes, like the two pairs of prescription glasses that were lost (one of which labeled with her name).  It seems like she just doesn't care, but talks a good game.  I get billed $40 every 6 weeks or so for podiatry care, for a doctor who comes to Atria.  Her toenails are very, very long and I asked the director to find out what I am paying for.  She said she would ask.  She never got back to me.  

I asked her what about this punching business and the only thing she could recommend was that we hire an outside caretaker to be with her all day long.  She is going to check on how much that will cost, but thinks it will be something like $20 an hour.  It's coming at a great time, when her long term care insurance has just run out and we have to pay $2,000 more per month that is no longer covered by the insurance.

I was feeling so good after the nice day I had on my birthday and my good experience at the DMV, but left Atria with the weight of the world on my shoulders.  I was trying to figure out how we could move her here, but the house is just not set up for it.  Even if we make the living room a bedroom, which is possible, she would have to go up and down stairs to get to the bathroom, and it's hard enough for me to get upstairs.  I don't know that I could help her upstairs too.

I just don't know what to do....don't know what to do....don't know what to do.....  the theme that seems to repeat in my head over and over again whenever there is a day like today.  And today was one of the worse ones.

In the meantime, I guess I need to go shoe-shopping for her today.  But there is no guarantee that if I buy her shoes, she will keep them.

Oh yeah.  I mentioned that it was my birthday, which went over her head as if I had not spoken at all.  But then at least I knew it would.

Miss Congeniality

Alice Nan's last day here.  We had a quiet morning.  AN and Walt went off to Mass and then came home for breakfast, so Polly could have her Sunday sausage.

At 2, Alice Nan and I went to Atria to visit my mother.  It's good for people who don't see her for long intervals to come and visit.  The distraction is good for her and it helps people to understand how she is now.

All of my life, my mother was the perfect hostess.  She threw wonderful parties and always kept the conversation going. She was such a good conversationalist that it is amazing to me how tongue tied I get when I should be chatting.

It used to drive me crazy when we drove to Santa Barbara with my mother and Walt's mother.  My mother has always been uncomfortable with silences and she kept the conversation going for 300 miles till I just longed for a bit of silence.  What she said was often interesting, but there was just never a chance to sit back and enjoy the scenery without having to be in a conversation.

(Ironic how much I miss conversation these days!)

But even now that she is in the throes of dementia, she has not lost that need to fill the silence with conversation.  Only now she makes no sense.  She is also losing more and more words so that the thought she's trying to express, which is already unintelligible, often ends in "blah, blah, blah..." with waving hands and a laugh because she can't find the words.

I took a picture of her and Alice Nan.

I texted it off to Jeri and Tom and within 5 minutes the phone rang and it was Jeri.  Jeri tries to call her grandmother often and 99% of the time gets no answer.  I haven't figured out if it's because she not in her room or if she just doesn't know what that ringing is.  But since Jeri could see that I was there, she rang and they had a nice, brief conversation where my mother asked what she always asks "when are you coming to see me?"  But it was nice that they touched bases with each other.

We went off to the market to do "a little" shopping.  Nugget Market has added a ton of new products and my "little" shopping ended up costing $155.  Good thing I wasn't doing a "big" shopping!  Fortunately (or not) the total can be somewhat explained by the fact that I bought more meat than I usually do.

We watched the Grammys, which is weird since NONE of us is into today's music.  In fact, I think I only knew the name of about 5 people involved but it took more than an hour for us to admit that nobody was watching it and we were looking forward to turning it off.

Walt and Alice Nan went upstairs early and I was going to watch the one episode of Outlander that I watch each night (I'm working my way through Season 1).  However I started watching too early and ended up watching three episodes, which was great fun.  I'd forgotten how terrific Season 1 was.

It is 3 a.m. as I'm writing this.  I have wrapped a birthday present for Alice Nan, whose birthday is today, and I'm going to make her some French toast before she gets on the road and heads home to celebrate her birthday with her husband.

Numbers

My Creatnine number last time, two weeks ago, was 495. which I was thrilled about.  But this week was even better:  253!  Normal is less than 200, so I should be within the normal range next week.  My never-loquacious doctor sent a notice:  "numbers are looking good."  Which answers none of my questions like -- do I keep having regular blood tests? 

I may have said this before, but I never realized how bad I was feeling for how long until I started to feel normal again!

Ned was here in the morning and we visited with Walt, talking about his upcoming surgery.  Then Ned took me to Kaiser for my blood test, then to Atria to visit with my mother.  She was in good spirits, making no sense, but in good spirits.  Tony came into the room where we were sitting and she didn't remember him, though "thought she had something with him."  I guess he is a thing of the past now that she has Max.

After we left, we went to the supermarket again.  Walt told Ned not to let me spend $250 again, but it wasn't necessary since I had bought all the tings we were out of the last time I went.  I have to admit that thrill of that "first time back in the store" feeling was gone, but it was nice to be able to decide on the fly what sort of things I wanted to buy.

Ned, bless him, put away all the groceries for me.  He's soon going to realize that now that my numbers are getting back to normal, I really can do all that stuff for myself.  I don't want to take advantage of his good nature for too long.

I keep looking at the walker and feeling guilty that I still use it.  But then I think of my friend Jeri, who also uses a walker "because I keep falling."  For the most part, I no longer use the walker in the house, except first thing in the morning when I need to get my legs working again.  But I take it when we go out.  I still feel uncertain when we are in crowds, and since I've fallen stepping UP, I am nervous stepping up onto a curb and there are other times when I am glad I have it (I walk better down the long Atria corridor, for example, without weaving back and forth).  So I guess I'm better with it, though I may try going with a cane again when we go to see "Waitress" in December because that theater is so difficult to maneuver with a walker.  Cane and bannister should get me there.  I hope.

We are looking for the arrival of Jeri, who flies in from Boston tomorrow night.  She has a plane change in Minneapolis, though, and the weather throughout the middle part of the country has been iffy, so I worry that she might be affected by storms, which would be terrible since she is only here until Monday.  

My mother actually remembered who Jeri is and seemed pleased that she would be here.  As it happened, Jeri called Ned while we were visiting with my mother and so he let her talk with Jeri.  She always lights up when she has Jeri on the line, though it doesn't look like it here.

---

 

In the afternoon, I pretty much finished my Christmas shopping, all on line this year due to not driving.  I got mostly books for Brianna, one more than I had intended because I forgot I had ordered it.  Now I have to early wrap gifts because Jeri will be here for "Christmas" this weekend and Tom will be here with the family the week before Christmas.  Maybe I'll cook turkey three times.  No.  Probably not.

---

mini rant:  Lately I have heard far too many people using 'less' where they should use 'fewer."  In fact, I don't think anybody ever uses "fewer."  "There are less Christmas trees this year"  It's sometimes frustrating to be a grammar nerd.

California Today

This is what it's like in California these days.

The big fire is ~100 miles north of us, but the smoke is affecting many cities for many miles from the source.  

Everyone is watching the AQI (Air Quality Index) these days.  Normal is 0-50, which is satisfactory and contains no danger.  Moderate is 50-100 which is acceptable but may present some health concerns for some people.

This was us last night:

And we aren't nearly as bad as other places.  Walt and I stayed home all day yesterday, except for a brief trip Walt took to the hardware store, when he wore a face mask.

Ned and I went to Atria today and I wore my mask for the first time.  It's uncomfortable because it cuts right across the place where the wound from the biopsy that was taken the other day rests, but it's not that far to Atria, so it was OK.  And today, the air is much better, only 195, which is merely "unhealthy" not "hazardous."

We learned that my mother has a new "neighbor" in the apartment where Marge used to live.  I have not seen her, but she is one of the homeless women from Paradise, the town that was totally destroyed by the fire, which is now only 45% contained.

The details from the fire are horrendous.  The town of Paradise is gone and you can't really understand the extent of the damage until you see an overhead shot of it from a helicopter.  You can't believe how many homes were destroyed.  Paradise obviously turned into a living hell.

So far 63 have been confirmed dead and 631 are still listed as missing.  Obviously a lot of them will eventually be found, but it's also pretty certain that many of them will be added to the death list.  Such a terrible terrible tragedy.

Trump will be coming to view the area tomorrow.  You'd think those poor people have enough problems already but maybe--not likely--the sight of the damage and the hoards of the now-homeless will trigger a bit of empathy, though since he seems to be unable to be empathetic without the help of speech writers, I'm not expecting anything.

But, heck, Stephen Colbert raised thousands of dollars for flood victims by putting together a book written entirely of quotes Trump made when he went to view the flooding following Hurricane Florence.  Maybe this will give him fodder for another book.

currently #1 on the NYT list of books.
#5 on Amazon (it used to be #1)

We had a decent visit with my mother.  Ned got to her apartment first and she was just getting out of bed, so was not groggy, and was in a good mood.  We visited a bit while Ned set up the bathroom for me.  Then I took a shower and when I returned to her room 10 minutes later, she was surprised to see me because she hasn't seen me in such a long  time.

We took her to lunch in the big Atria restaurant, which she always thinks she has never seen before and always complains that there are so many people there that she doesn't know.  But she ate a good lunch and Ned is so good at keeping her laughing.  She gets to talking, making sense, and then talks faster and faster until it becomes just gibberish, but she eventually realizes that she's not making sense.

We returned home and there was a catalog from Lands end here.  I found a couple of things I thought I'd order and then realized that the catalogue was offering me a 50% discount, so I ordered two things and with the discount the total was more than one of the items cost, so it was a great deal.

Now I'm going to a show tonight but Walt decided not to go, so someone from the theater is going to drive me out to Winters so I can review it.  Sure will be nice when I can drive again.  I tried sitting in the chair in my mother's apartment, which I used to have problems getting out of.  I figured I was better enough I might be able to get out this time, but no.  I needed Ned's help.  But I am getting there.

Best Laid Plans

For your edification and enlightenment today:

Anatidaephobia is defined as an irrational fear that one is being watched by a duck. The anatidaephobic individual fears that no matter where they are or what they are doing, a duck watches. Anatidaephobia is derived from the Greek word "anatidae", meaning ducks and "phobos" meaning fear. The person is not necessarily afraid of the duck. They only fear that the animal is watching them, keeping tabs on what they're doing throughout the day. 

Stay away from Disney cartoons.

---

When Ned was here Monday, we made plans for our Wednesday.  He would pack up his moveable spa, we would go to Atria, I would shower, we would take my mother to lunch in the main dining room and then he would take me to Nugget (our supermarket).

Walt tells me that the last time I shopped for groceries was June.  (He also tells me they have reorganized Nugget so much I won't recognize it.)  I am feeling strong enough to use a grocery cart as a walker and I miss those impulse purchases I like to make!  So I was excited about our day.

After Ned went home, I remembered that this is blood test week and my doctor had also asked me to get a blood pressure check.  That all sounds very simple, but my BP checks are NEVER simple.  The BP is always borderline and the pulse is always one point above the high normal, so they try to get it back down again, and never can.  Last time I was there for nearly an hour while they tried every trick to get me to be "normal" until they finally determined that I was not in danger of dying on my way to the parking lot and let me go.

Anyway, with the potential of a very long stop at Kaiser, I realized that it might be more time than Ned wanted to spend so I told him that the stop at Nugget could be optional, depending on time.

THEN I got a call from Atria that my mother had a lesion or something on her arm and that they had contacted her doctor.  The doctor's nurse called and we set up an appointment for her for Wednesday.  So now THAT was added to the mix.

I suggested to Ned that we just get my mother, go to Kaiser, and then take her to IHOP for lunch and do all the rest some other day.

So I was up most of the night watching election coverage.  It was addicting.  And I finally fell asleep around 6:30, to be awakened 2 hours later by another call from Atria saying that she had another of her "spells."  Not sure I'm exactly clear on what happened, but this one seems to have been while she was walking and just stopped, bent over and was unresponsive for a bit.  Fortunately she already had a doctor's appointment so I could talk with the doctor about that.  I think her body is trying to die and she won't let it, frankly!

But we went to Atria and found her passed out in the community room, but not non-responsive, like before.  I found out she had been "out" for about 10 minutes but eventually came to.  We took her to Kaiser, where the doctor checked her wound and had it dressed, though there really wasn't anything wrong with her that time wouldn't cure.  But it is now bandaged for the week and they even took my blood pressure to save me from having to make an extra stop.

I still had to get a blood test, but that went effortlessly and then we back to the car.  My mother got in the car moaning "let's go home....I'm tired of all this."  But she was up for lunch, so we went to nearby IHOP, went in, sat down and ordered coffee and water and started to look at the menu when my mother said "OH!  I need to leave NOW."  She had to go to the bathroom, but by the time she got up, it was too late.  Her Depends got a lot of it, but not all and she was upset that it was running down her backside. 

 

We left the coffee sitting there.  I tried to pay for it, but the guy said that he couldn't just ring up coffee on the cash register, so he didn't charge us.  We hadn't drunk any anyway.

We got her back to Atria and Ned took her in, leaving her clean up to the aids -- it's why we pay the big bucks (rising to >$7000 next year).  He said by the time they started to clean her, it was really bad, and more like diarrhea.

After we left Atria, we drove back to just past Kaiser so I could stop at Office Max and buy cartridges for my printer.

We didn't even think about going to the supermarket.

Ned must be so exhausted after one of these days, dealing with two feeble old ladies, trying to keep both of us upright with only one walker.  But he never complains.  I hope he doesn't go home and kick the dog.

I can't beleve she ate the whole thing

Good lord...I'm getting dementia!  It wasn't until Ned mentioned it this morning that I realized I had not posted an entry yesterday!

It was on the whole for the most part, a quiet day yesterday.  Ned came over to install a new shade over the kitchen sink.  Silly to get so excited about it but it was a type of shade I had not seen before and, having lived with one that is very old and ripped for years, I was thrilled to have this new design brightening up the room.

Things went as every day, with Walt taking some time out to go to lunch with office buddies.  I don't even remember what I did, other than taking a nap.

But around 5:30 came a call from Atria.  My mother had gone into someone's room and "grabbed her" and since they have observed her behavior as "off" this week, they thought she might have a bladder infection.  I said I'd get her in to the doctor this morning, but they wanted her seen NOW.  Too late to get to the local Kaiser, so we drove her to the ER in Vacaville, where after extensive waiting, and lots of complaining, it was determined that there was no sign of infection.  I was pleased that the catheter insertion went well.  Last time she screamed so loud and kicked at the nurse and threatened her and I was just dreading it this time, but the nurse was great and it was over before my mother even knew it was happening.  And there is no sign of infection, which was good.

She was, of course, very unhappy to be out at the doctor's and complained a lot.  When we got into the car to go home, she said, very plaintively that all she wanted was for something nice to happen and that nothing nice ever happens to her.  She wants to go home, close her eyes, go to sleep and never wake up.  So I asked if she'd like to go out to dinner.  At first she said yes and then when I mentioned it again, she got that very submissive tone I hate and said "I'll do whatever you want." I just wanted to do something that might shake her out of her now-perpetual funk.

We went to Denny's and she was happy to be in some place new.  This was the placemat at our seats

My mother kept looking at it as if she knew she was supposed to eat the food, but couldn't figure out how.  She asked me which she should eat first and I told her we would order off the menu and then eat.

I ordered her a broiled chicken off the senior menu and hoped she could eat it all, since she seems to eat so little these days.  It came with soup, salad, bread and fruit and each thing came in a separate bowl.  She is easily overwhelmed, so when the soup came first and she started eating it (but didn't know what she was eating and wasn't sure she was eating it properly) and then two more plates arrived, I moved the soup out of the way and gave it to Walt because surely that would push her over the top and she couldn't eat it all.

Walt and I each had a cobb salad, which was huge

(shown with my mother's fruit bowl)

She started eating her salad and just kept putting one bite after the other in her mouth untilshe had finished everything, including dipping her bananas and grapes into the salad dressing and then eating the extra salad dressing with her spoon out of the bowl on the side, spreading it on her chicken and then picking up her chicken and eating it like a biscuit, etc.  

She started clearing away her place, including putting her napkin in what was left of her glass of water, then she lifted it out, spread it out, tore it into quarters and started eating it.  I told her it was a napkin.  "I KNOW it's a napkin," she said, continuing to put it into her mouth.  I took it away from her after she finished the first quarter.

Then she took her spoon and tried to eat the ice cream on the placemat.  I couldn't believe how much she had eaten already but asked her if she wanted ice cream and she said she did.  I ordered a sundae for the 3 of us to share and she ate most of that and then tried to eat the placemat ice cream again.  When I mentioned that she had already eaten ice cream and she said she didn't remember eating anything, but she would not object if someone gave her a bowl of ice cream.

I decided she didn't have an infection she was just starving!  Actually, I think she has lost the ability to feel hunger or to feel full.  Put it in front of her and she eats it.  No food in front of her and she doesn't feel hungry.  She obviously doesn't TASTE anything since she didn't know what she was eating with the soup and saw nothing odd about the taste of the napkin.

But I think it did perk up her spirits briefly to be in a restaurant and I told Walt we need to take her out every 3-4 weeks or so to a restaurant just to give her a change of scenery.  Preferably a place with linen napkins!!

As for my mother's attack on another "innmate," I don't know what to do.  I'm afraid she will be thrown out of Atria (as her own mother was thrown out of the rest home where she was living) for aggressive behavior...and if that happens I don't have a clue what to do or where to take her, given that we (she and I in the pre-dementia days) long ago realized that with Polly, the stairs, and the bathroom being upstairs this is not the ideal place for her to live, even if we created a bedroom out of the living room for her.

The Enforcer

Wow.  2:30 p.m. and I'm just starting this entry--and it's the one for today, not for tomorrow.  Usually if I'm writing FTW at 2:30 it's the one to be posted for tomorrow.

Last night was one of those insomnia-horrible nights.  Finally at 6 a.m., after a night of crying for being so sleepy and so unable to get to sleep I decided to go into the couch, even though I wasn't sure I could get off the couch, but figured it was late enough that if I got paralyzed on the couch, as I have before, it wasn't that long before Walt would be up.

So, Linus-like, I trailed my blanket along behind me so I could cocoon under it and finally sleep, sat on the couch, punched my pillow into a nice soft lump, laid my head on it, and realized there was no way I could lift my legs to the couch.  I tried several things, but they resolutely refused to budge.  I thought of sleeping with just half my body on the couch but realized my muscles would really rebel at that when I woke up, so I got up and went back to the recliner again and, finally, slept for about an hour.

When I woke up, though, I realized I had to finish a review and get it to the paper by noon.  Walt was going to take me to the lab to get my blood test, but I told him I would have to finish the review first.  It was a good review and I had fun writing it, but it was 11:30 before I got it sent off to the paper.

Ned was coming to pick Walt up to take him to his Urology appointment in Vacaville (we are all appointments, all the time around here!) and I had this feeling that the lab at Kaiser in Davis closed over lunch time so thought it was too late to go and I had it in my head that his appointment was at 2 and knew that if we waited until afternoon, he would not be home in time to meet Ned, so I suggested that we either went when he got home from his appointment or go tomorrow morning -- I just have to have a weekly blood test and a day or two late isn't going to make that much difference.

But back to yesterday, Ned, the enforcer, arrived around 10 or 11 or so.  He had been to the senior center where, we heard, you could borrow walkers.  Turns out this is where people take their equipment of old age when they are no longer needed and they have such a surplus that when Ned asked how long he could keep something, they told hi forever.  So I now have two free walkers, one the metal kind that you put tennis balls on and one the kind with a seat on it.

He informed me that he had brought my spa bag and that we would take the walker, go to Atria to visit my mother and to get me a shower.  He said that he would not take me to the side door, but to the front so that I would have to walk the entire hallway because I needed the exercise.

I found out that it was MUCH easier to walk the hall with the wheeled walker and I didn't have to stop at all.  My mother was in her room, sound asleep, flat on her back, which was unusual for her.  She usually sleeps under covers, curled up.  She looked like she was laid out, but she was breathing.  

While she slept, Ned set e up in the bathroom for a shower, and left me to my own devices.  more difficult this time than last time because last time my legs worked.  But the job got done and the aide who came in to empty the garbage was definitely surprised to find me there dressing.  It was good, though, because she was able to help me get my legs in my pants.  I swear, I'm going to move in with my mother any day now!

It was a relatively good day for her, meaning she woke up and was alert and talkative, if making no sense, but she smiled and reacted appropriately and we had a good time with her.

When we got home, Walt's brother was here visiting, but he and Ned left soon because we all hoped to catch Jeri's live streaming concert from Berklee College of Music.  I thought this was her personal concert, which she does with a pianist friend of hers, but it was her musical theater students doing a concert version of Jekyll and Hyde, with Jeri the orchestra conductor

Ever the mom, I sat at my computer hitting "print screen" from time to time when the conductor showed.  I was tickled to get this shot.

As a critic, I was mentally comparing the performances with the full show we had seen here in Davis recently.  The kids did a good job and one can certainly see how much emotion they put into their performances.

So the day ended.  As "night" arrives these days, I hate it, knowing that I have several hours of trying to sleep ahead of me.  Maybe tonight will be better....

In the meantime, The Enforcer is going to make sure that I get my exercises done, that I have the equipment to make life easier, and I hate him for it because I'm, at heart, lazy , but love him for it because if I'm ever going to get over this "whatever it is it will be because Ned is so diligent and so loving.

Bang, Bang, Bang

I noticed that my mother was wearing glasses when they wheeled her out to the car for her annual medical exam.

Of course they weren't her glasses, and I don't know whether they do anything, pro or con, for her vision, but she was happy to have "her" glasses on.  I also notice that her eyes, which have been red lately as she rubs them, seem to be fine now, so who am I to complain?  At least she was wearing her own clothes this time.

She didn't know where she was going....or why....despite several explanations, but what else is new?

Going into the exam room was silly, since Anne, Dr. Akanda's nurse was helping my mother while I was struggling to get out of the chair I was sitting in (Walt finally helped me).  

We had our pre-exam meeting with Anne who then gave my mother a gown to put on, which she couldn't understand at all.  As Anne was leaving the room, she was struggling to get the gown over her shirt.  I stopped her and told her she had to take her shirt off first, but that was too complicated for her to process and she continued to put it on over her shirt.  I started to get to my feet to help her, but my knees wouldn't work.

Talk about the blind leading the blind!

We did finally get the shirt off and the gown on (though with how little "hands-on" the exam was, it really was unnecessary).  And now the annual exam for her 99th year has taken place.  Next time she has an annual exam it will be just before her 100th birthday.  The sad thing about that was how excited she was for several years at the prospect of making it to 100 and now it doesn't even rate a blip on her awareness meter.  If you tell her she's about to be 100, she just says she refuses to be that old.

She'll be 99 in just under 2 months.  Hard to believe.

You can tell how much her ability to read has been compromised by her Alzheimers.  There was a brochure across from where she was sitting.  It said "Everyone deserves a safe relationship."  She struggled to read "everyone deserves a safe..." but "relationship" was too long a word for her to read.  Sigh...this is the woman who was an avid reader all of her life and was proud of reading two newspapers, back to back, every morning.  :(

So we have now done annual exam for her and for me, physical therapy for me, neurology and dental exam for me, and upcoming dental exam for Walt and eye exam for me.  We may be good to go for the next year!

I'd like to say that it was an otherwise quiet afternoon, but it was anything but.  There was a point where I was sure that there was going to be a hammer smashing  through the wall of my office.  And Walt had to remove things from the walls for fear of them being knocked off.  We are having the siding replaced on the house and, ultimately, the house repainted.

There was so much pounding and other noises that even Polly decided it was useless to bark and just fell asleep.

But there was much productivity going on and they got a good start on the house.

 
When they are finished it will be like having a whole new house, but there is much more pounding to go before the job is completed.

Their afternoon nap