Best Alzheimer's Videos of 2012

Check out Healthline.com for the 14 best Alzheimer's videos of 2012:
http://www.healthline.com/health-slideshow/best-videos-alzheimers

… and other duties as assigned

Yesterday I swept earthworms off my parents’ front porch. When I stopped by to be sure their basement hadn’t flooded in our recent deluge, I noticed about a hundred worms had apparently washed up—or wiggled up from the garden to avoid drowning—I’m not a worm psychologist, so I’m not sure their reason. But there they were. (1) I couldn’t step anywhere on the porch without squishing a worm … eeewww. (2) Should it stop raining one of these weeks, the worms would bake in the sun and be rendered impossible to get off the concrete.

You kind of expect your eldercare job description to include paying bills, bringing groceries or meals, arranging appointments, and the like. But every so often, the “… and other duties as assigned” surprises you with worm duty. LOL

Pascal, Passports, and Past Regrets

Sometimes you get to a time in your life when losses that used to trigger tears bring a sentimental smile. The last two years, sadness over my parents’ losses of freedom and vigor has been like a wide-brimmed visor worn low on my forehead. I saw gray shadows round every turn. Lately, however, that visor seems to be stuffed in a back pocket, because I see bright rays in most corners. Take today, for instance.

My mother and I rearranged her “live” and “dead” storage files so that ones she needs regularly would be at a comfortable level for her. This would mean less risk of aggravating her arthritis or losing her balance in her daily paperwork. When she came across a fat envelope, she laughed, “Here are Dad’s and my passports. Well, that’s dead storage!” Sometimes I think how much fun it would be to give Mom or Dad the pleasure of a trip—and it would—but more importantly, they chose to travel when they could, and she’s come to terms with the fact that their traveling days are over. I sensed no regret in her voice. My mother has always moved gracefully into new seasons of life.

While reorganizing files, I dashed downstairs to Dad’s old office to find extra tabs, since he always had extensive, neatly labeled files. Before retirement, he was a mathematics teacher and textbook author, and his file tabs reflect that. Today I saw a tab labeled “Pascal’s Triangle.” Curious to have my high school math lessons refreshed, I peeked in the folder. Alas, it had been emptied, along with Parametric Equations, Metro Math Club, and my father’s other interests, lost now to Alzheimer’s. I admit to feeling a tad sad looking at vestiges of his once full life. But the familiar crushing sadness did not appear.

During my nursing home visit with Dad today, I talked about odds and ends of my life and current events. As I talked, I watched his smiling eyes. They clouded when I mentioned Blue Angels, brightened when I explained they were airplanes and pantomimed their formations. His eyes hazed over when I mentioned Florida, but looked with interest at my video of royal terns on the beach. Some words he gets, others he doesn’t. I just have to experiment. When I see in his eyes he doesn’t understand, I try to describe differently.

For some reason I told him about how in 1960 he and Mom (no clouds) packed up us four kids (slightly cloudy, so I named us all) in their station wagon (totally cloudy so rephrased as “car”) and drove (with my hands gripping an imaginary steering wheel, no clouds) the whole family to New England (surprise—no clouds) … In this fashion I related many incidents from our year in New England. His eyes never registered the hurricane or snapping turtle stories, even after I found a photo of a turtle to show him.

Then I told him how upset I had originally been that he and Mom would yank me away from my friends, but then how happy I was that they gave me the best adventure of my life. I confessed I felt bad that I’d given them such a hard time. He patted that regret on the head and sent it packing with a huge grin and fatherly reassurance: “That’s what happens when you grow up and up and up.” The words "regret" and "maturing" are no longer in his repertoire, but he got it; he totally got it. Just when you think the cloud cover is too thick, the sun breaks through.

Mom, To You with Love

I'd like to share a heartwarming Valentine's Day story from the Alzheimer's Speaks blog. I hope you go to that blog to read the rest, because you really must see the most wonderful kiss photo.

"Today I went to visit my Mother in the nursing home to wish her a Happy Valentines Day.  Although she was not able to give me hug, eye contact was minimal to say the  least, and she was not able to speak a word to me; the love between us is still strong.  The connection between Mother and daughter is undeniable ..." Read more of the Mom, To You with Love post at https://alzheimersspeaks.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/mom-to-you-with-love/

Caregiver Tip: Alzheimer's Repetition

Here's a caregiver tip from the Alzheimer's Association's website:

http://www.alz.org/care/alzheimers-dementia-repetition.asp

Possible causes of repetitive actions and words are explained, as well as recommended responses.

For more info about dementia/Alzheimer's stages and behaviors, visit www.alz.org and click on the Caregiver Center button, or use this link: http://www.alz.org/care/overview.asp.

Their 24/7 helpline is 1-800-272-3900.

Granny Pod MedCottage

Yesterday, our local paper carried a Washington Post article about a "best of both worlds" option for families caring for elderly loved ones. It's a way to give aging parents their own apartment in your backyard and provide for some of their medical needs as well. Here's a link to the article:

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-11-25/local/35509146_1_care-granny-population

When I Googled Granny Pod, lots of other website links showed up, so if this interests you, you can get more info on other sites, too.

Hats

Dabbing napkins at our lips after finishing tuna salad, spinach soup, and the ubiquitous melon slices, Mom and I sat in the dining hall a little while. I grumbled to myself about why food service providers cannot seem to come up with any fruits besides melons (Hello? Perhaps you’ve heard of apples, pears, bananas, grapes?) when I was distracted by a dapper elderly gentleman nearby droning on to a trapped tablemate about generations of his German ancestors. “Gee, his voice is loud,” I commented. Mom hadn’t heard him. I found it a bit hard to hear her soft voice because of his, but we both felt too relaxed to get up and go. Other than this man, his victim, and four gray-haired folks playing cards, aided by light from a small goose-neck lamp they’d brought, Mom and I were the only diners left.

From my vantage point, I could see two of the long hallways leading to apartments, the little gift shop and mail room. As I watched residents come and go, I noted to Mom that it must be “argyle day” since I’d seen several argyle sweaters. I happened to be wearing one myself; maybe that’s why I noticed. She replied that argyle is popular this year, and she has an argyle sweater, too. I didn’t mention my socks were also argyle.

“I’ve been looking at old family photos, and there’s one of Dad and his dad on the beach in Connecticut,” I began. “Grandpa’s got his usual beret on, and Dad’s wearing a hat with some kind of decoration on it. I don’t remember it and can’t figure out what kind of hat it is.”

Mom said she knew the photo and wondered if it was a hat she’d bought him. “You know, when Dad and I met in the forties, all the men wore fedoras. But once hats became passé, Dad no longer liked to wear any hats—until he retired and took up tennis—then he wore tennis hats.” I nodded. I have Dad’s tennis hat in my car so that it will be readily available to shade his eyes when I wheel him outdoors in summer. I asked her if the hat in the old picture was one she had bought him.

“In the fall of the year we lived in Connecticut, Dad was invited to be on a panel at a meeting in Ann Arbor or Detroit, I forget, so Grandma came to babysit you kids, and Dad and I drove all night. When we got to Toledo, we went to the hospital to visit my father, who was there for a gallbladder problem. When we walked into his hospital room, he cried … My father cried because we had come.” Mom was quiet for a moment. Her clear, cornflower-blue eyes seemed to be seeing the scene afresh. “Then we went on to Ann Arbor or Detroit, and after the panel discussion, we got back in the car and drove all night to get back to Connecticut.”

“So it was on that trip that you bought that hat for Dad?” Mom returned from her reverie and strained to remember where that particular hat had come from. I wondered where that particular reverie had come from. She finally mentioned she always liked him in hats.

From there conversation wandered back into passé fashion trends, especially women wearing hats, and always dresses or skirts. She said that one frigid winter day in 1966 she sensibly sent my sister to sixth grade wearing smart, wool flannel slacks to protect her from the cold on her long walk to school. The school immediately called her to say my sister would not be allowed into class until my mother brought a dress for her.

Vacuum cleaners whizzing around our table signaled an end to our lingering after lunch. We left to drive the few blocks to her house, where she explained to me how to take care of Dad’s bills “in case anything should happen to” her. It was pretty simple, but I’m grateful she told me how she does it. I sat on the floor and organized papers into piles: nursing home bills, prescription bills, laundry service bills, long-term-insurance payments. Paper-clipping the piles, we put them away. Earlier we had decided that it would be unwise to make our usual visit to Dad because of the nursing home’s dire warnings about rampant flu strains there and all the quarantined hallways, and we would instead play a game. But when I asked what game she wanted to play, she blurted, “I’m worried about Dad. When I was there the other day, his eyes were all red.” When I volunteered to dash over and check on him, she urged me to.

I walked back past the dining hall to the nursing home. Bracing against the wind (in my hood and warm slacks, haha), I questioned how smart it was for me to be defying the nursing home’s warnings but hoped with a wing and a prayer and a mask grabbed at the front desk that I’d escape unscathed. Further, I decided I would relish this visit. I would wear not only my eyewitness-report-to-mom hat, but also my light-up-dad’s-day hat.

Once I wheeled Dad into his room in the Alzheimer’s wing to listen to his favorite music cassettes, I could see his eyes looked painfully bloodshot. My mother had requested I feel his forehead for a fever, and his temp seemed normal. I went and got a nurse, who told me his eyes weren’t bloodshot because there was no hematoma. I asked her why they were so red then, and she said she’d have the doctor look at his eyes. Perfect. His brown eyes smiled though as he gyrated his hands to Boots Randolph and Billy Joel. Was it a Talking Heads song he danced in his chair to? First one shoulder jutted out, then the other. Then he shrugged them to the beat. Then he pulsed them out again. So cute. Was it when Crystal Gayle sang, “When I dream, I dream of you” that he swayed dreamily? What a delight to see him responding to music with pleasure. He has so few pleasures left—indeed so few responses.

I told him about the picture of him and his father on the Connecticut beach. No sign of understanding in his eyes. I yammered on anyway, reacquainting him with the fact that his father was an artist who liked to wear berets, trying to describe the unusual hat he himself was wearing, finally promising I’d bring the photo to show him someday. Then I launched into ages, figuring he was almost 40 in that picture and his father would have been in his early sixties, about my age now. Since Dad had been a mathematician, sometimes he shows signs of understanding when I talk about numbers. He didn’t today.

Now it was his suppertime, so I wheeled him to the Alzheimer’s hall dining area where the nurse greeted him with a tiny paper cup containing the pills my mother had just taught me how to pay for. The brisk wind carried me back to my mother’s, where I assured her Dad seemed not to have the flu but the doctor would check his eyes. And more good news: Although many wings still struggle with four strains of viruses, the Alzheimer’s wings that have been on lockdown for more than a month have now been cleared because they have no more flu. I had made an appointment for Dad to get a haircut Monday, which pleased Mom. Since he doesn’t wear hats, she likes his hair to look nice.