The other morning for breakfast, I sat Mom's plate down and asked her to tell me what was on it. She looked at it and said, "I can't." It was toast, fried egg, bacon and grits. Sigh.
Last week, though, my husband helped me a lot with my hardest issue - that Mom is perfectly comfortable sitting and laying in soiled clothes. He said perhaps she realizes something is wrong but simply doesn't know what to do about it. That different point of view helped me. I've had no problem with the fact that her body has quit working properly and she can't make it to the bathroom in time. That sitting around in it - well, I've had problems dealing with that.
She's also reached the point that whenever she has to change her clothes she has to be told how to do it. She can't be told over 2 things to do without becoming unable to do anything. If you tell her to take her pants off and take the underwear off, you have to wait for her to do it before telling her to put the new underwear on.
I'd thought it would be hard for Lola to become more uncommunicative than she is, but it's happened. Unless I tell her to open her mouth and talk, she won't say anything. In the morning when I wake up and she's already up, she might wave at me. She never ever says "Good Morning" or anything at all, though. If I say it to her, I have to say, "Reply, Mother" before she'll open her mouth and talk.
The other day I sat a roll of toilet paper on the end table - sorry, we're cheap a lot of the time and use TP as tissues. It had to be moved because I got tired of picking it and it's trailing 10 feet of paper up off the floor where it landed after she lobbed it at the cat.
One good thing has happened. Yay! Didn't think there could be one, did ya? She's become much easier to feed now. She's gotten over all her little eccentric quirks and will eat almost anything you put in front of her. She had weird things in her mind - like for ages she existed almost entirely on crackers and ice cream. She wouldn't eat hot chicken. That one was a pain in the patooty as it ruled out any kind of chicken fresh from the pan, along with any chicken casseroles or chicken and rice dishes.
She wouldn't eat a salad for the longest time. Now she's merrily scarfing them down. I followed my own dentist's advice re eating salads with dentures and chopped everything up pretty well. Now, without complaint, she happily eats any kind of chef's salad you serve her and any side salad you serve with supper. She loves tuna on a salad and really enjoys a taco salad. This makes life easier as I like a lot of salads. Neither does she argue about the dressing. Whatever mood I'm in, I put the same dressing on her salad as mine - oil and vinegar, blue cheese, green goddess. She's fine with any of them.
Beef however, is a different story. She really can't chew it well, and I certainly understand that. If I give it to her it has to be either hamburger or very, very tender roast. If roast, it has to be cut in very small pieces. If it's at all tough I have to pick it up off the floor. Sigh. You have to wonder just what neural pathway got fried that controls leaving uneaten food on the plate. Oh, I know, it's right beside the one that says, "No, don't turn that glass upside down."
That one's a puzzler, too. I had cleaned and sat a shallow bowl for flower arrangements on the dining room table. At some point, she wandered in there and turned it upside also. Now, though, she doesn't do any wandering that I'm aware of.
She does however continue to pull things out of drawers and throw them on the floor. I had put some incontinence pads for the bed in her night stand. They were scattered all over the bedroom floor one morning. Most of the fingernail care tools stay on the floor now instead of in their drawer. Every morning lately her box of tissue, flashlight and other bed pillow are on the floor. Along with her upper dentures on a regular basis.
I've started putting the bottom ones in a different room every night. That was because she kept loosing them. God only knows where she was sticking them. They'd be missing one day but turn up the next. The uppers though, she can wear for a couple days at a time without removing. Keeping up with them is sometimes a problem but not one to be dealt with immediately. Maybe in time.
That's how things are going around here with Lola.
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