Saturday, October 15, 2011

Lola Doesn't Know and Alzheimer's Stages

Most of the time I make Lola get up by 1:00 in the afternoon. Today I just let her sleep/lay there. Finally at 3:00 I went and stood, arms akimbo in her door. She sat up, sat there looking at me and eventually said, "Who are you?" "Your daughter, Gayle. Who are you?" I replied. You could see her face relax, and she laughed and said, "Your mother."

I asked her if she was going lay around in bed all day, so she started getting up. I left to go get her medicine and a "breakfast." When I walked back through to get her dentures, she was just turning around to sit down on the bed again. I asked her if she was going back to bed. She said, "Well, I just didn't know where I was or who was here or where to go." Sigh. So I told her to go to the living room.

I got the dried tissue brushed off her dentures, and she had just put them in when Katherine Dubrock came by for a visit. When Katherine asked Mom about Joe, I had to answer for her. Mama didn't know anything about where he was or his condition. All she could say was we had to put him in a home. I swear the thing she says most often now is, "I don't know."

In addition to sometimes shredding the styrofoam cups, she's also taken to turning any drinking glass upside down on the table next to her. Sometimes they're mostly dry. Sometimes they're not.

Since Joe's Alzheimer's diagnosis is recent, I don't really know a lot about the progression of the disease. So today I went to an Alzheimer's page (click here to see) and read over the stages. From their descriptions, in my opinion, Dad is at Stage 6 out of 7. I'm just at Stage 3 (tongue in cheek.)

The dietitian from the new facility called me today, per my request, to discuss Joe's eating. We had a good discussion. I came away feeling that they do go farther than the other institutions I've experienced so far. She mentioned one man that ate baloney sandwiches every day. It's what he would eat, so they gave it to him. She said they monitor what the patients eat and try to make adjustments where possible.

Oy, I've felt about as bad today as I did Wednesday. Hopefully, it's just reaction to three weeks of high stress. A lot of times when I've had bad stress, I've caught a cold. Today I've felt achy in my throat, itchy in my nose, and droopy. That could just be hay fever, which I also get worse in the fall than the spring. Keeping my fingers crossed it's not a cold.

Non sequitur: I don't understand non-touch soap pumps. If you're washing your hands to get rid of dirt and germs, aren't you washing off anything you might get from the soap pump?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'd say your mom is moving pretty far along in the dementia as well. My mom didn't so much SAY "I don't know" as she would look to me. "Barbara knows" got to be her mantra. Good news about your dad - sounds like a good placement. I hope you're not getting sick either, but stress really does a number on your immune system. Try to get some extra sleep if you can.