Posted 12/19/18 late
Had a pleasant visit with mom today. She seems more lucid and, although the quantity and quality graph of her words go in opposite directions, it was nice that she was talkative. Her words were many, not unlike a slightly Nyquilled 3 year old. They were generally all full words too, not mumbles/brain bandit babble. She would start a sentence then derail quickly. She was trying… Look at our shared picture to see exactly what I mean. I, obviously, wrote the printed words and the dark sun shape while the rest was largely her. She wrote of her love, wished a merry Christmas, and also wrote a few odd, random statements about women and other nouns…not sure.
Mom was also less nervous today and less Birdwoman of Alcatraz (trying to find a way out). Those are important factors in getting her out of the hospital and back to the nursing home.
I really liked our shared drawing. 🙂 Her little creatures were super cute albeit somewhat more Dali than I usually see in her doodles.
She mentioned my daughter Lindsey’s name today (who has seen her recently) and she wrote my brother’s name on her drawing page. Yesterday she greeted Pam as “Sis”, which is super sweet too. This is the first time in months, of not a year, that 2 names were mentioned correctly in a day. She didn’t know me from Adam nor did she know my stepdad, but you take the good with the bad…
One of the residents had her autistic daughter with her and mom processed and tried to talk to the 17-year-old daughter as being a small child based on non-verbal cues. She is still a very loving mom and does her best to express love. She also begs us to share her food, not because she doesn’t like it, but because she is mom.
It is so hard not to be too optimistic and end up sad when the changes the next day revert. I often find myself dreaming of her returning to normal. While that is natural, I need to remember to be prepared to love her in any context and in any state of mind.
Very interesting and nice visit and generally encouraging. Alzheimer’s is a Minotaur’s maze that only leads one place……. as of now…… so we just pray for her comfort, we enjoy for all the time we can, we watch for treatments and ways to help, we believe/pray for a cure, and all the while we fix our gaze heavenward and yearn for the future with no need of cures.
#EndALZ
BTW…new pix won’t be available until she busts that Popsicle stand. No personal items allowed in and we now have metal detector checks as we enter. Prisonesque, but safe. 🙁
— with Pamela Gavin.