Posted 8-13-19
Today’s topic is hay!!!!
<Whispering to self- Where did everyone go?>
Come on, give me a chance! I have had stranger topics in past articles!
For those who have endured, I give thanks.
So, hay. This word popped in my mind several times yesterday for some reason while I had a nice visit with mom. (She had a really good day, all things considered. She was sleepy, but what else is new? She smiled, ate well and had some laughs.) Hay…
- “Hay!” “Hay!!” “Hay!!!” Hay!!! is the relentless call of a lady I will call Mrs. Cumulonimbus because her name means “thunder” in a very different language than I speak. (Momma used to say “Hay is for horses, not mom’s!” to break me of this…) However, this darling damsel in distress has dementia, and unfortunately she has a slew of other debilitating conditions. She keeps yelling “Hay!!” until you drop everything and talk to her…and keep talking to her, because she has very few if any visitors. On the surface this is irritating because, after all, I am mainly there to talk to mom, and mom gets stressed at the racket. However, on second thought, it is quite sad because this poor princess is desperately lonely and needs to share stories before her timer is up and the stories disappear like hay in a tornado.
- Hay Hey Haye, It’s Faaaaaat Albert. (Isn’t English Great?!?!) I am not calling mom fat in any way, but she is gaining weight rather quickly. She had lived such an active life until the last ten months, it really wouldn’t matter what she ate. However, being glued to a wheelchair and unable to cognitively process much in the way of upper body exercises, mom has gained around 30 pounds. We talked to the medical team and we are going to whittle down her pureed food a little to compensate for the lack of exercise. Type 2 diabetes is a common killer or enhancer of symptoms for many seniors, so those with dementia need to be far away from it. There are correlations between dementia and diabetes so much that dementia, in some circles, is called Type 3 Diabetes. Therefore, we watch mom’s weight. (By the way…it still makes me sad how Bill Cosby turned out. He was such a creative mind in Fat Albert and other shows as I grew up.
- Heyday. Back in their heyday, people in nursing homes/memory units were inventors, soldiers, CEOs, teachers, policemen, farmers, pianists, technologists, businessmen, etc. Don’t let their current situation keep you from learning about them and getting to know the history volumes of their lives. Chronicle it while you are at it, otherwise, when they are gone, their story goes too. That is a tragic second death result.
- Mom, among many talents, used to be quite a softball player back in her heyday. She could hit, throw and run quite well. Someday she will enter heaven with even more excitement than Willie Mays Hayes from the movie Major League, free from this stinkin’ disease!
- There are patients with dementia that struggle with frustration and stress so much that they lash out physically, even from a wheelchair. It is more common than you know and something to watch for. (Nobody wants a haymaker to the jaw by a patient or loved one that used to be quiet and gentle.) Remember, it is the disease, not the person. Talk to your medical team should aggression become a concern.
- Speaking of unexpected behayvior: “Rolling in the hay“. Be aware, dementia patients can become hypersexual at times. It is, for some, an unavoidable aspect of the damage to parts of the brain. Talk to your medical team should you see signs of that. There are treatments and there are considerations that they can help deal with in this area.
- These last 10 months in memory care have been a haze! Where did they go??? It has been both fast and slow…kind of hard to explain. Hard…
- Hey scientists…how about a cure or at least some good treatments for this stinkin’ disease? 🙁 Mom, the Sweet 17 and millions others are running out of time. Don’t bale out on us!!! (See what I did there?)
See, that was worth your time, right? 🙂 I hope you didn’t have to search for something useful like a needle in a you-know-what stack! (Overheard: This dude’s humor is heinous!!!)
#EndALZ