The Heartache of Dementia

One never knows if and when it will happen to them. People from from 30 years old & up! The common age is 65 and up and 1 in 14 people that age will get diagnosed with it. My mother was diagnosed at 73, but I believe she had symptoms a year or so before that, but I missed them. My father (they divorced when I was 6) was diagnosed with cancer in every organ of his body and I had moved away from home to take care of him until he passed away. When I came back home, she seemed a little different, but when she couldn't tell me what a tulip was or a daffodil.... I KNEW something was VERY wrong!

My mother's mother had it when she passed away. And she had taken care of her second husband until he became combative, before she was diagnosed. My mother's oldest brother now has been diagnosed. He is only a couple years older than mom, but was diagnosed at a much older age. I believe that none of the types of dementia that each of these people had are hereditary, necessarily. But, supposedly Alzheimers is and my mother's neurologist has said that she has vascular dementia AND possible Alzheimers! So, as I watch what happens to my mother, I know that I have a 30% higher chance of developing Alzheimers at some point. What do I do with that information? Especially since I already have a chemical imbalance in my brain. I am bipolar. My sister is also at a higher risk, because she has Multiple Sclerosis. So as she and I care for mom, we have to wonder how it feels in her reality and what we can do. But, there is NOTHING we can do! Nothing we can do to help her and nothing we can do to help ourselves. They don't know the causes, they only have drugs to try to slow it down and to treat symptoms as they arise.

When Mom was first diagnosed, she was still ok to drive, she and her husband, who was 15 years older but had all of his faculties (even planted and harvested a large garden alone until he was 91), lived together and he took care of her as he always had. I made sure to get her medical power of attorney taken care of as soon as possible and explained to my stepfather that as long as he was of sound mind it would never be used, but I also tried to get him to sign his medical power of attorney to me too, so that if anything happened, I could keep them together. He refused, thinking that he would never have any problems concerning that. THAT was a big mistake on his part, but that is a tragic story for another day. What I can say is that EVERYONE should find the person that they trust the very most and give them your medical power of attorney NOW!!!

I would go to their home daily to wash linens & make sure they had their morning medicine. And my sister or I would go in the evenings to give their night medicine and a good hot meal. She would tell the same stories over and over and could tell you if something was good, "All OK" or bad, "It's Crazy!" And they both just watched TV and did Search-A-Word books, but they were happy, content & physically healthy.

So, fast forward and my stepfather was taken from us by his children. That was when my sister and I took over full time care of our mother and really started finding out what dementia is all about....kinda. It is the craziest, most unpredictable thing either of us have ever encountered! We had seen a few cognitive changes before that day, but it was a dramatic change after. She went from asking when Pop was coming back or when were we taking her back, for about the first month or so, to not being able to really communicate at all. She will sing, "I love you a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck and a hug around your neck" or say, "It's OK, whatever". That is all we can get out of her anymore, for the most part. She can still do Search-A-Word puzzles and play rummy like a champ, but doesn't realize that her bathroom habits are atrocious or that she's hungry. When we put a meal or her medicine down in front of her, she used to eat and take them. Now we have to tell her to eat and take them and sometimes we will get, "It's OK whatever." and we have to push and push.... and other times she will slowly eat. She doesn't know how to even eat with utensils anymore so we give her finger foods.

She wants to run away from all the confusion in her head by sleeping, so she tries almost constantly to get us to allow her to go there. I hate to say it that way, but that is exactly how I feel it. We do everything we can to engage her, keep her healthy and "Happy"....occasionally, only :-( But we know in our hearts that she would NEVER be wanting to live the way she is now. Sometimes, I feel like my mom is gone and that I am taking care of a sweet, little lady that is using my mother's body. I SO MISS MOM!!! And I HATE DEMENTIA!!!