My mother wanted to return a pair of shoes. We plan to go on Sunday. I have told her SUNDAY is the day repeatedly. She lost the shoes (in the bag) in her house. No small wonder either... so much stuff.
Anyhow, I said, "Put the shoes in my car. Leave them there. We will return them on Sun and will know where they are."
She left them in the car.
She has called me and asked me FIVE (yes 5) times where her shoes are, today alone.
YET, she can remember to tell me to watch HGTV to call in for the $25K sweepstakes without fail.
How IS that???
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Five times in a day? Yes, you need to do some reading up on dementia. As the disease progresses it will become five times in five minutes or less. I would suggest you check into caregiver support meetings or classes at the Alzheimer's Association, they are very helpful. It is a very hard disease to watch especially if you do not know what to expect and it is different for everybody. Best wishes as you begin this heart wrenching journey.
Like picturing a graph. You see the line go up, then drop down... level out, drop a little more, up even less... until you realize that the ultimate end point is very low compared to where your loved one started at, maybe a year or two before.
When she asked what turned out to be 6 times about her shoes today, each time she began the question, my heart sank a little as I heard her innocently repeat herself about where her shoes were. Yes, it happened 1x after I posted this question this evening.
Again.
It's a little heartwrenching watching your only surviving parent slowly get "erased", for lack of a better word, and knowing that it really won't get better... then wondering how long until it dips again and falls even lower until it gets to the point where she is a shell or a ghost of my mom.
Sometimes I think that will never happen and that something will take her before she becomes a 'shadow' of who she was.
Other times, I fear she will go through the whole lengthy process; one where the biggest sufferer is the one who loves her and watches the decline..... I don't understand why things like this happen to people.
I don't understand cancer.
I don't understand child abuse.
I don't understand starving people or tortured people.
Nor do I understand suffering of animals for that matter, or dementia.
It's scary to me.