Posted 3-27-19
Yesterday was a fun time with mom. She still struggles with Alzheimer’s-generated hallucinations and/or perhaps doesn’t have the words for what she wants to say….but she was happy.
Boiling all of dementia life down to a smiley face or a frowny face is simplistic, but it I guess it makes for a starting point in describing how micro-changes within the Long Goodbye play out. 🙁 The long goodbye of Alzheimer’s it is not unlike comparing ripping a Band-aid off (dying suddenly) and wrapping your scalp in duct tape and trying to remove it.
I am not trying to downplay the death of a loved one suddenly at all. Death is a formidable foe (Undefeated......almost) to deal with whether 2 or 122. But, in my journey with mom, this disease feels like a duct tape hell. Slowly trying to separate clumps of hair from the gray death tape is trying to salvage dignity where there becomes none. Then you get a slight break…there were no locks in that inch of tape, so you exhale…only to discover a huge mess. Sundowners? UTI? Violence? Screaming? Night Terrors? Arguments with otherwise sweet Sweet 17ers? Falls…oh the falls? Meds? Clump after clump has to be dealt with before you can remove the stinkin’ stuff from your world. Then, when it is over, you are left frazzled, with a bad hairdo and exhausted…spent. And just think…we have the easy part. It is infinitely harder for them. 🙁 All we are trying to do is help them remove the duct tape…they are wearing it. 🙁
So, on we go, doing our best to make things easier for mom as she slowly has the hair duct tape removed. Yesterday was a smiley break…a duct tape gap. We march onward knowing more clumps are coming.
#EndALZ
(Note: I know second-ish-hand this duct tape thing is terrible. When I was a kid I put some of it in a friend’s hair to tease him. What an idiot bully I was sometimes… Sorry, Stuart. You should have hit me with a tack hammer. 🙁 )