Dean Martin and Death

This is one of those mornings when Betty vacilates between longing for the tranquility of The Big Sleep and hoping her Dean Martin DVD's arrive soon.

Acknowledging My Limitations

I've been hearing radio ads for "Senior Helpers," so last week David finally called them. I think he could see that I was losing it. Just the stress of wondering how each morning is going to be--especially Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, when MIL is supposed to go to the adult day care that the VA pays for (God love them), has been making me perpetually angry. Some mornings she gets up and goes without much fuss, and other mornings it's hours of nagging (from me) and procrastinating (from her). Now that my mother is in Assisted Living and doesn't have a drivers license, I have to take her places as well, and the stress of trying to combine these duties and keep to a schedule wears me out. I start stressing the night before, wondering if it's going to work, and wake up already crabby at MIL.

So Senior Helpers is coming on Mondays and Wednesdays, they'll get her up and dressed, DRIVE HER TO THE SENIOR CENTER, and PICK HER UP IN THE AFTERNOON AND BRING HER HOME! We're using some of Betty's money to pay for it, which seems reasonable to me, as this may prevent my psychotic break and keep her alive.

No, It Was a Temporary Glitch in my Bad Mood

Could be hormones, but MIL is driving me nuts today. I had an impossible schedule to meet, with three people needing to be taken to three different places at virtually the same time. I juggled things, called in favors, etc., to handle it all, and had pretty much decided not to take MIL to the Senior Center, although it was Friday. Her home health aid, Devonna was coming to get her showered and ready to go, but it still wasn't going to work well.

So I should have just smiled and said, "OK" when she started saying she didn't want to leave the house today, and that all she does at the Sr. Center is watch television, but instead, I lost my temper. Stupid, but I've heard it a hundred times and I'm sick of it. So I yelled at her, ran a few frustrating errands, came home for a few minutes to eat lunch, and she started in again, asking if I wanted to know WHY she didn't want to go to the Senior Center...

Knew, didn't care...

But she wouldn't stop talking about it, and I lost my temper again. She's going to live forever, and I'm going to give myself a heart attack.

Am I Developing a Better Attitude?

When little things that Betty does tick me off, like taking her teeth out at the dinner table, I write the blog entry in my sarcastic little head, and yet I haven't been writing them in my sarcastic little BLOG. I think I'm accepting the situation for what it is--something she can't help--and feeling a little less snarky about it.

Then there's the fact that I spent a week with extended family, and Betty's lookin' better and better to me... Yeah, there are those teeth I have to hear about every day, and see in the bathroom (and sometimes on the kitchen table), but on the other hand, she doesn't criticize anybody, doesn't pick on my kids, is generally grateful for things we do for her, and pays her own way around here. She worries that she's not contributing to the running of the household, when in truth, we couldn't live here without her.

There's a lot to be said for that.

So maybe I'll start being more INFORMATIONAL in my postings, instead of VENTING MY SPLEEN. At least until the next time she takes out those damn teeth while I'm eating.

We're Trying Aricept

The VA doctors finally agreed to prescribe this, and I gave Betty the first pill last night. It's supposed to be taken at bedtime because of potential side effects. While the TV ads say "well tolerated by most people," when you read the medical disclaimers in the box, it apparently causes everything short of SUDDEN DEATH... and maybe I just didn't read far down enough to find the part about SUDDEN DEATH.

Betty is worried this morning becauses she's having very vivid dreams, and she's afraid it's a sign that she's losing her mind. She doesn't remember getting the diagnosis of Alzheimers (despite having been told it 50 times), but she remembers seeing the diagnosis on a paper in a doctor's office (actually it was sitting on our kitchen table). She's sad and worried about it, and can't stop talking about how real the dream was. I'm reassuring her that the fact that she DID figure out it was a dream is a sign that she's not completely crazy yet.

I on the other hand...

Life at the VA Hospital

Well, it FELT like a life sentence, anyway. I took MIL for her 6-month checkup, and just as we were ready to leave, she got sick and ended up with full-body tremors that came every 3-4 seconds. Damn spooky, and we ended up spending the rest of the day in the Veterans Administration Hospital emergency room.

I'd brought my iphone for entertainment, but the battery died, and I couldn't leave Betty sitting there while I went to my car to recharge it so I could keep playing Scrabble. Well, I could have, but it would have looked bad...

So we ate lunch out of the vending machines (her blood sugar was low, a possible contributing factor), and I made horrible faces when nobody was looking and suffered through MIL saying, "I feel so guilty ruining your day" almost as often as she had the tremors.

They finally checked her in for overnight observation at 5pm, and I went home. If my kids weren't so weirded out by adults drinking alcohol, I would have self-medicated. As it was, I met my family at TKD class and we went out for dinner. I don't remember any of that.

From now on I'm not going near the VA hospital without my charger. YES, IT'S ALL ABOUT ME.

Oh, I suppose I should mention that MIL is fine--they think it was low blood sugar and needed another dose of restless leg medicine that messed her up that day. David picked her up in the morning and she's been fine since.

My Two Moms

Well, not really. One's Betty, and one's my mother, but I'm starting to see worrisome similarities. My mother lives one neighborhood north of me, and is older than Betty, but comes from a line of women who live long lives, free of dementia. I'm afraid my mother, 89, is going to break that winning streak. She agreed to give up her car last week, but she's having more and more trouble keeping details straight in her mind. I took her shopping yesterday, along with the Korean student who lives with us, and Ra Youn helped my mother carry her groceries into her house. My mom had her keys in her hand and seemed to be trying to open her front door with the electronic car opener thingy. She covered herself quickly when it didn't work, but still...

We have a follow-up appointment with her neuropsychologist on July 1. I'm going to insist he take a look at her list of medications to see if there's something there that explains this, and that he put her on Aricept or something like it.