I REALLY feel like the past five years have been enough. If you look back through the pages of this blog, you’ll see the “troubles” began in December 2017 (although with dementia, we all know that trouble was brewing long before that) and here we are, well into June 2023, so 5.5 years. Enough!
But, no.
I don’t really believe in reincarnation or past lives, but if I did live in the past, I must have done something horrible. Was I Genghis Khan? One of those “kill them all” Roman emperors? Or a mean girl in a rural village, yelling “shame, shame!” at some poor soul passing by? Whoever I was and whatever I did, I feel as though I’m paying for it now.
And I’d like to say that I’m really, REALLY sorry and just be done with this already!
Auntie Mame (AM) and her dementia have been ramping up – because, of course she has. Dementia is a bastard that can’t just sit still. It keeps coming at you, taking away little pieces of who you are and what you know until there’s just a shell left.
It was almost EXACTLY one year ago that we moved AM into an independent living facility for senior adults. All her meals were provided for her and we sold her car, so she couldn’t get lost and start out on a 10 minute trip home and end up 45 minutes away in the next county. It wasn’t perfect – nothing is – but it worked, for the most part. Of course, AM wanted her car, wanted to come back to her hometown (where I live,) and she wasn’t as diligent about walking her dog and getting herself to meals as she needed to be.
As time went on, we started hearing stories from residents in the community that AM was wandering around in the neighborhood behind the community and getting lost or wandering in the shopping center next to the community and getting lost. Then there was the day I received a phone call from the eye doctor’s office that is located next to the senior community where AM lived. She had walked over there, without her walker, and was asking for a ride to town. Fortunately, they asked her if there was anyone they could call for her and she had her cell phone with my number on it – so they called me.
With all the wandering and her tendency to take off without her walker, the family decided we needed to move her into memory care, where she would be safer. And even though you need something like that to happen right away – it never goes like that. You want to take your time and look at different communities. And then you can’t be sure the community you choose will have an opening. So, during that “in between time” – all four days of it – AM came to my house and stayed with me.
Wow. That’s all I can say about it. Just wow. AM was up and walking around the house at all hours during the night. Which wouldn’t have been so bad except every overhead light got flipped on in every room she entered. As we went through the day, and she got tired, she went into my room and got into my bed to take a nap. Now, I don’t know about you but for me, there are certain spaces in your world that are sacred spaces – and my bed is one of them. Sorry, no – let’s go take a nap in your room! Then one afternoon, she asked me what we were having for dinner. When I told her I was making spaghetti, she said, “I don’t want that!” There’s a phrase about beggars not being choosers that came to mind, but I kept my mouth shut. And I was very glad when it was time for AM to move into her new memory care community and for me to have my house back!
I know there are a lot of diseases out there that need to have a cure found for them. Dementia is just one of them. But with as many advancements as have been made in modern medicine, one would think something could be done for this terrible disease.
