December 30, 2012 · 6:14 pm

Midnight munchies curbs Alzheimer’s wandering?

I found this article about the steps a dementia care center took to reduce the amount of middle of the night wandering by their dementia patients very interesting. The solution was simple and not nearly as expensive as medication. They simply offered the wandering residents snacks (a mix of naughty and healthy food) and the midnight snacks really seemed to curb their wandering tendencies.

I’ve written many times before about how Dad would wander at the nursing home. He was in a secure dementia care wing, so he couldn’t get outside, but he could still fall, which was the concern of the nursing home referred to in the article above.

When Dad wandered, sometimes he would have to be lured back to his room by a treat. One time it was a lollipop. Another time it was a piece of chocolate. The small bit of sweets seemed to calm Dad’s wandering spirit, at least for that night.

As the article mentions, the staff provided safe snacks for their diabetic dementia patients as well. I fully support care centers such as these that get creative in trying to accommodate their dementia residents. Offering snacks and the cleanup involved creates a bit more work than just handing out pills, but there are some centers that actually care about quality of life, versus just trying to make patients into “trouble free” zombies.

We need to encourage more of these proactive care centers in our communities.

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December 29, 2012 · 6:57 pm

Shopping trip blues

Today I had to go grocery shopping for the first time since I returned from being with Mom in New Mexico. It’s a chore I don’t enjoy, as it aggravates my vertigo which can send me into mini panic attacks. I can’t wait to exit back into the fresh air (though today it was quite chilly.)

I can’t pass the magazine aisle without thinking about Dad, and how that was his safe place, where he would kill an hour flipping through the news magazines while Mom and I did the family grocery shopping.

veggies

That was before the Alzheimer’s. Once his mind began to fail, Dad lost all of his safe places. Reading went from Dad’s most enjoyable hobby to a foreign concept. Soon he was left with nothing but the ability to walk, to wander aimlessly with no destination and no concept of home.

Thinking about mundane tasks from a dementia perspective makes one realize that they are indeed fortunate to be able to go grocery shopping and run other pesky errands with their mind fully intact. Sometimes we truly don’t appreciate all of the little things we do to keep ourselves alive.

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December 28, 2012 · 6:04 pm

A sub sandwich jackpot

Mom is still doing well and is able to get out on her own to be around people, which is important to her to stave off depression. She still misses Dad immensely, and being so ill over the past six months has made the loss of Dad even more difficult.

She recently went to Subway, one of her favorite fast food places. Every time she goes, she has to tell me the story of how Subway played a key role in her hitting a lottery jackpot.

sub_sandwich

It was my parents’ anniversary, and Dad was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. He was becoming more of a homebody as the disease began to progress, as having to place orders and pay for items confused him and stressed him out. He didn’t want to go out that night, but Mom insisted. And the only way she was able to drag him out of his burgundy chair and away from a classic movie on TV was by suggesting they go to Subway. Dad loved their meatball subs.

He relented, and well, the rest is history. Mom nabbed a winning lottery ticket and Dad enjoyed his hot and tasty meatball sub sandwich. Not exactly a romantic anniversary dinner, but definitely a memorable one!

Usually Mom doesn’t order the meatball sub, as she prefers something lighter like tuna salad. But she must have been feeling extra nostalgic the other day, as she said she ordered the meatball sub for herself.

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December 27, 2012 · 7:00 pm

New Year’s TV traditions

I pulled out my DVD collection of the original “Twilight Zone” series and have spent the day watching many of my favorite episodes. When I was a kid, it was a holiday tradition in our household to watch the “Twilight Zone” marathon that ran on New Year’s Day on one of the local channels out in L.A. There was also one on July the 4th.

It was one show that my parents and I really enjoyed together. My dad of course was fond of all of the war-themed episodes. I loved the ones with children (“Living Doll” was one of my favorites) and Mom liked the nostalgic look back at a time when she was a young adult in the world. Mom and Dad also loved to see their favorite actors and actresses in so many of the episodes. All of that talk bored me as a kid, I just wanted to watch the show without all of the chatter!

They would do a countdown based upon a viewer survey of the favorite episodes. We would always try to guess what would be #1 but we would usually all be wrong.

To this day, the show remains my all-time favorite and I love the high-quality storylines and great acting. It also reminds me of the enjoyable holiday bonding time we spent together as a family.

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December 26, 2012 · 6:00 pm

Dad crooning at the bar

Mom told me a story on Christmas Day that I had not heard of before. I bought her a Trini Lopez CD for Christmas because that’s how she remembered her surgeon’s name (Dr. Lopez). She apparently had been a big fan of Trini Lopez back in the day.

mic

This made her remember how when she first met Dad, they would go to a local bar and Dad would get up and sing. I can’t imagine my normally shy, reserved Dad doing any kind of karaoke, but after a few beers, I’m sure he loosened up a bit. Mom said Dad would sing slightly bawdy (maybe PG-13) songs. I’m sure he did his best Frank Sinatra-Bing Crosby impression while at the mic.

Mom didn’t say whether she found Dad’s bar singing charming, but she eventually ended up marrying him, so I guess she liked his voice well enough!

What Mom didn’t say is if she ever joined Dad on stage for a duet. Now that’s something I would love to go back in time to witness in person.

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December 25, 2012 · 5:13 pm

A day for love of family & friends

Of course I am thinking of both of my parents today. As children grow into adults, sometimes holidays like Christmas seem more like a burden than a day to enjoy with your loved ones. Buying gifts, making travel arrangements, trying to get through visits without a spat, it’s enough to knock the jolly spirit out of anybody.

And admittedly there were many Christmases where I felt just like that. While I never actually spent a Christmas day with my parents after I turned 19, due to living so far away and school/work commitments, I would try to at least make an annual visit. I would usually choose somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I can’t say I really enjoyed these visits. I do regret never having the chance to just take Dad aside and have some daughter-father bonding moments over a cup of coffee or beer. But then again, Dad was always a benign but forgettable figure in my life at that point. We weren’t close, we never had a deep bond.

Of course, having watched him battle Alzheimer’s for over four years, now I realize all of those years of lost opportunities. Dad never shut me out, but he wasn’t one to pursue a more active father-daughter relationship. I was relieved at the time that I only had Mom’s need for companionship to fulfill.

Holidays at their most basic are good excuses for families to bond together, to share stories and create their own unique traditions. While I can’t go back in time and change things in my own family, I can at least share my story and encourage others to embrace family bonding opportunities. What may seem like a mild inconvenience now may create memories that you will cherish forever.

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December 24, 2012 · 5:50 pm

The year I found out my parents were Santa

When I was four, my parents bought me a Powder Puff big wheel cycle for Christmas. This replaced my Fonzie cycle, which I guess I outgrew or it broke down. Of course, it had to be assembled before Christmas Day, and my mom worked in secret after I went to bed while Dad was at work to get the darn cycle put together.

In many households, assembling toys is the Dad’s job, but my father was never handy with tools, even though he worked for a trucking company for years.

Once Mom finally had the monstrosity assembled, a new problem arose. Where would they hide the conspicuous gift in our tiny apartment?

Mom did her best to hide it in the closet, but one day, as she was hanging up Dad’s freshly laundered clothes on his side of the closet, I snatched a peek at the big plastic wheel and the pastel streamers hanging off the handlebars.

And that’s the moment I realized Santa didn’t really exist. I don’t remember being particularly upset by discovering the truth. I played along for a couple of more years with my mom’s insistence that Santa was real before finally revealing I saw the cycle in the closet when I was four.

While most kids graduate to an actual bicycle after riding these contraptions as little kids, I never did. And while I never asked, I don’t think Dad ever learned how to ride a bike either. I just can’t imagine Dad atop a bike, wearing a helmet!

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December 23, 2012 · 5:58 pm

Home, sweet home

I finally made it back home. If I’ve learned anything over the past year or so, it’s not to take anything for granted.

I’ve always been a homebody, but after seeing Dad separated from his home in the last year of his life due to Alzheimer’s, I have a renewed sense of how important home and family and friends really are in this world.

We don’t know when disaster will strike and take us away from our creature comforts.

That lesson learned is better than any worldly possession that can be wrapped under a tree.

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December 22, 2012 · 2:51 pm

Dad’s bachelor years and the holidays

I’m inching closer to home, and as I sit in a Starbucks writing this, watching people gathering and exchanging gifts and wishing each other “happy holidays” I feel that pang of homesickness strike even harder. That got me to thinking about all of those years when Dad was a single guy, after he immigrated to America. He could rarely afford to make trips home to Ireland. So what did he do for Christmas all of those years?

I don’t remember him ever talking about memories of Christmas spent as a bachelor. Dad was pretty good at making pals, so maybe one of them invited him over to their family’s house for a Christmas dinner. Certainly Dad was quite handsome back then, so maybe he had a girlfriend to go out on a date with on Christmas. Knowing Dad, I’m guessing a pub was involved at some point. Maybe other solitary types banded together for a night of merriment. Also, I’m sure Dad would have attended holiday mass.

ornament

Or perhaps Dad had to work, or offered to work, to let the family guys spend the holiday at home. That’s something that Dad would have done.

I’m sure the pangs of homesickness were quite strong, especially those first few years in the States. He worshipped his mother and it must have been difficult to be separated from her during the holiday season. Did he even get a chance to make a phone call home?

This is one of those moments where I wish I could call up Dad and ask him to solve this mystery I’ve just created. Instead, I am left to my own imagination of what Dad did all of those holidays before Mom and I came along.

The best gift you can give yourself this holiday season is to ask your loved ones to tell stories about their past. Ask those burning questions now. You never know when it might be too late.

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December 21, 2012 · 8:18 pm

One year later, trying to return home again

Mom’s surgery was a week ago and went amazingly well, according to the doctors. She was discharged early and has been home for a few days now. She’s doing well physically, but emotionally she is down. I am desperate once again to get home to my own family, thousands of miles away, who I’ve pretty much abandoned over the last six months.

So I’ve made plans to return home for Christmas. Just like I did last year, after my father’s death.

My plans didn’t work out so well last year. A freak snowstorm hit, and I was stranded in Roswell, NM alone for the holiday. Weather shouldn’t be an issue this time, but with the way this year has gone, I won’t believe it until I actually walk into my home.

Mom is understanding but obviously depressed, just like last year. If there was ever a time to clone myself, it would be now.

I found this post called Embracing the Caregiver Role quite accurate in the guilt and mixed emotions one has in caring for an ill parent and balancing family responsibilities.

The author writes, “To be there for my Mother I had to borrow from all of those areas at a cost.” This is so true, and I’m sure other caregivers can relate to this statement.

Also, this statement is telling: “Circumstance had converted our relationship.” This is so true as well, when adult children have to assume the parent role for their own parents. It is never an easy transition to make.

So I’m giving myself the gift of guilt this holiday season, just like last year. Of course, last year, I never would have predicted how much I would be sacrificing this year in order to take care of another ill parent. Perhaps karma paid me a visit? Hopefully by now, I’ve paid back any karma debts owed.

Hopefully, I will make it home.

Hopefully, Mom will be okay.

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