Many of the reasons for choosing the current memory unit had to do with proximity to my father’s apartment, 2 floors below my mother’s room, as well as the choice of amenities available for them to enjoy together as a couple. Everything changed when my father died.
Comments closedAuthor: Nancy Peterson
Mom was not getting regular haircuts anymore so her hair was long and greasy and stringy. I decided it was time for a haircut and good washing so I told her we were going for a haircut. She just screamed at me that she didn’t want a haircut. It never occurred to me that she wouldn’t want a haircut.
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Under the nursing home plan, my mother accesses Medicare benefits that help her live more comfortably. For example, she receives therapy to prevent and ease some of the leg and muscle contraction that restricts her sleep positioning. As appropriate, the nurse will assign other services and advocate for my mother’s comfort while she lives. This plan does not supply comfort measures for the dying but helps the living live better; it fills a different need than hospice.
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After my parents left home together in an ambulance, the course of diagnoses and events that unfolded for them directed me toward a single, obvious solution to their living arrangements. They clearly could not go home together. The key thing for me at that moment in time was that my parents were safe, fed well, clean and together.
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My father was declining my help. It was not my choice at that time to do nothing but also not my right to impose or interfere. I also did not want to alienate my father. So on I went waiting for things to fall apart. It was agonizing.
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Every once in a while my mother reminds me that she is not just a late stage Alzheimer’s patient. She is an adult woman who still has the capacity to enjoy elements of living. One Friday night I saw a look of contentment on her face. Her expression conveyed a satisfaction that she was present and thoroughly enjoying the moment.
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But I had weeks to embellish this fantasy that people cared about us, or at least about mom, and they were going to swoop in and garnish hugs on us. I received several more texts leading up to the visit. It seemed they understood that caregivers need emotional support and their visit would be just that.
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I believe that even though mom suffers from late stage Alzheimer’s, she can still subtly express herself with some truth and intention. She still communicates with me subtly but very clearly in non-verbal ways when she is present. The mother I’ve always known is still there, although blurry or distant or fragmented. Perhaps now she is living more from a place of her own truth than she ever has before.
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The best quality time is simple quality time. In the past, I wanted everything to be perfect. It seemed important to have the right music on the radio, serve the right food on the right dishes or take her to the right ice cream stand. I wanted mom to have fun with me. For some strange reason, I thought all these extraneous details made our time together better. Truthfully, nothing else matters if we can just look at each other and smile.
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During one visit, I observed mom’s escalating separation anxiety and my father’s response to her anxiety. Any time he left the house, my mother paced and worried. She paced nervously all the while looking out the windows and opening the front door repeatedly to see if his car pulled in. She could get locked out in the heat or wander off and try to find him. And at his age, I worried that something could happen to him and he wouldn’t get home to her.
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