Last night, the first snow fell at Mom’s house. I’m staying with her until she has her colostomy reversal surgery this Friday. In 10 days, it will be the first anniversary of my father’s death.
The snow is beautiful, but also is a silent and stark reminder of the sad events that have plagued my family over this past year. I wrote about this more on Cowbird.
Over time, I’m sure I will be able to enjoy the beauty and pleasure snow can offer, but right now, it’s just a reminder of difficult times.
Filed under Memories
As I mentioned in my post on Christmas cards, no one wants to be Debbie Downer during the holiday season. I’m now facing back-to-back depressing holiday seasons. It is an added strain to smile and say “happy holidays” to well-meaning strangers right now.
I think Dad was always a bit melancholy because his mother passed away pretty close to the holidays and that loss haunted him for the rest of his life.
So I cannot just pretend that the sad events of the past year didn’t happen, but it does make you rethink your priorities during this season. It should be less about gifts and more about spending quality time with those you love.
Filed under Memories
Neither of my parents were able to see their relatives during the holidays. They all lived across the country or across the globe. So my mom started a family tradition by sending her relatives in Tennessee fruitcakes for Christmas.
Did her family really like the annual gift of the holiday dessert that has long been the butt of jokes? Well, one of her sisters said she froze it, so I’m not so sure. (I think it may still be sitting in her freezer!)
Well, after watching Mom order a slew of fruit cakes each year for her family, Dad decided he wanted to get into the fruitcake-ordering frenzy. Of course, things were a bit more complicated because Dad’s relatives were in Ireland and Australia. So there were some shipping snafus (and expenses) involved. I remember hearing nothing but fruitcake ordering drama for a week or so, until it all got straightened out. And Dad’s family never received another fruitcake! (I’m guessing they were secretly relieved!)
But I’m reminded of our family’s fruitcake story every time I see an ad for Collin Street Bakery.
It’s funny how something as trivial as an ad can bring back a memory so clearly.
Filed under Memories
Dad was always a bit squeamish when it came to pain or any kind of medical procedures. So it’s not surprising that he wasn’t exactly a “hands-on” Dad when it came time for Mom to give birth to me.
Even though Mom was 37 and I was her first (and as it turned out only) child, Mom had a surprisingly easy labor. Mom’s water broke while Dad was working one evening. He rushed home and off to the hospital they went. I was born a little after 10 p.m. Mom was only in labor for a few short hours. (Well, once the contractions kicked in, the hours may have stretched for Mom, ha.)
My dad holding me as a baby. Such a happy photo.
Apparently Dad disappeared shortly after Mom was taken to a hospital room and was being prepped to head to the delivery room. He took off in search of some aspirin for his “headache.” He probably needed something a bit stronger than that to get him through my birth!
But he was certainly eager to see me on my first day on this earth, even with a knot on my head and some wisps of red hair sticking out from it. To Dad, I was a perfect, beautiful baby.
Filed under Memories
Mom is debating whether or not to send out Christmas cards before she heads into surgery next week. Last year, with Dad being so ill and then dying right before Christmas, we understandably skipped the cards and celebrations. This year, Mom has a darn good reason to skip the cards again.
It’s a bit awkward to write Christmas cards when you are ill or are caring for a loved one who is ill. There are so many dark days and painful memories better left unmentioned in a card that is supposed to be full of happy greetings. My mom can’t exactly say, “Just wanted to get this Christmas card to you in case I die during surgery!”
I remember coming across several unmailed Christmas cards that Dad meant to send to his family overseas. There were some from the year when he would have been in the early stages of dementia. Everything was addressed correctly, he just put them in his nightstand drawer and forgot to mail them. By the next year, he had moved into the mid-stages of Alzheimer’s. The addresses were a mess. He put his own address label in the “to” field. On one envelope he wrote the same address in the “to” and “from” fields.
It was yet another sad sign of my father’s mind crumbling away, even as the holiday cheer carried on all around him.
I often felt that I did not do enough while Dad was alive to combat the Alzheimer’s that was robbing him of so much. But now that he is gone, I am trying to make amends by becoming involved in various causes to help promote research and treatment for Alzheimer’s. One thing I did recently was join the Alzheimer’s Prevention Registry. If you have a loved one who has been impacted by Alzheimer’s, it’s worth taking a few minutes to join the registry.
Dear Friends and Family,
Today I did something that may help save the lives of millions of people around the world. I took one minute of my time and joined the national Alzheimer’s Prevention Registry, which is working to end Alzheimer’s disease before we lose another generation.
We can meet this challenge – but only with volunteers like me and you.
I encourage you to join the Alzheimer’s Prevention Registry today! It’s a community of people interested in learning about the latest research to prevent this devastating disease and opportunities to help make an impact. The Registry will be used to inform people about opportunities to participate in prevention studies and treatment trials now and in the future. Every person who joins will help accelerate Alzheimer’s research and improve our chances of ending the disease once and for all.
Visit Alzheimer’s Prevention Initiative to join the Registry and make your mark in the fight against Alzheimer’s!
Every little step we take brings awareness. Knowledge is power.
I was reading this blog post today about gift ideas for loved ones with dementia. The holiday season can be awkward when you are trying to accommodate those with Alzheimer’s and dementia. I think often, we as family members go to one extreme or another. We either bombard the poor souls or we pretend they don’t exist. As usual, the solution is somewhere in the middle.
First of all, there is no “one size fits all” solution. Each person with dementia will react to the holidays in a different way. For example, Dad was never sentimental about the holidays and his interest didn’t change once dementia took hold. I did buy him a personalized New York Times edition from his birthday and birth year once he was in about the mid-stages of Alzheimer’s. I wish I had bought it for him sooner. I believe he was able to look at the pictures but I believe his reading ability was limited by that point. It was a gift I had meant to buy years earlier, for Dad loved newspapers and history.
So one has to try to relate to their family member with dementia as much as possible. I think generally speaking, low-key, small gatherings are best, because they don’t stress out a dementia sufferer with too many unfamiliar faces and too much commotion. But again, I heard a story recently about a woman who suffered from dementia and who had loved to cook the big holiday meal before dementia took over.
So what did the large, extended family do? They each made a dish from one of her recipes, and pretended that she made it herself. The little old lady took her place at the head of the table, wiped her brow and exclaimed how tired she was from all of that cooking before digging in. The new tradition went on until she passed away.
Sometimes gifts don’t come wrapped in paper and bows. They are recreating memories of a loved one and sharing in the joy of those happy times.
Filed under Memories
After enduring the ups and downs and final passing of my father just five days before Christmas last year, now I’m facing my mom facing another major surgery right around Christmas. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a sentimental holiday person, but you would have to be blind and deaf not to notice all of the holiday decorations and music around every corner.
Since I’ve been through this before, I know a bit of what to expect. And that’s the unexpected. You have to be flexible when you have an ill relative. This year, at least I don’t have the stress and guilt about missing time from my job. I no longer have one, for better or for worse. But as far as holiday celebrations go, I hope to make it back home for awhile before Mom needs her surgery. But I also know that I may get a call at any moment ushering me back to be with Mom. So Christmas will be celebrated ASAP.
When illness strikes and you are the primary caregiver, you must be willing to shift priorities. A holiday is just another day. One has to focus on the here and now, and what is best for their loved one who is ill.
Filed under Memories
So Mom would probably be mortified if she knew I was revealing this to the world, but it really is something that a lot of caregivers can relate to.
Today, all I wished for was poop.
Mom has a colostomy and after spending a week in the hospital, mainly on a liquid diet, her stoma had “gone asleep” in a manner of speaking. The medical staff warned us it might take a day or two to get things going, but after three days of solid food, Mom was barely outputting any stool. And that in turn was making Mom very sick. (Imagine how you feel when you are really constipated.) I feared another ER visit was in our near future.
But today, angels might as well have sounded from the heavens. Mom had stool in her colostomy bag! Yay for us! Our home care nurse was just as excited, and pointed out how when you are a caregiver, you have to enjoy the small victories in the face of illness.
That’s very true. I remember during Dad’s steady and steep decline into dementia, we would be happy if he was just able to eat, and didn’t have a fall in a day. It’s difficult to believe that one could take pleasure in the face of decline, but if you only focus on the negative, it will swallow your soul whole. I’m the ultimate pessimist, but even I recognize the joy of my mom being regular again. It keeps us out of the hospital, and out of the Grim Reaper’s grasp for a little while longer.
Filed under Memories
Many of my posts lately on this blog have been about the similarities and differences between my parents’ healthcare experiences. Today, I’m noticing a similarity of sorts. Despite my dad suffering from a mental disease and my mom suffering from cancer, there’s the same black cloud when it comes to the appearance of dreaded symptoms.
Before Dad moved to the latter stages of Alzheimer’s, he would have good days and bad days. Sometimes, my mom would even tell me that it was a good week, or at least an uneventful one.
And that’s when you strive for when you are ill. Let’s keep things as boring as possible, right? Now Mom has a hernia and we have been told by the doctor that it could slip in and out at will, and Mom has no control over it. If it slips into the wrong place, it can make Mom sick and cause her severe pain.
So just like with Dad, there’s a black cloud hanging over the house, and I walk on eggshells, hoping and praying the hernia doesn’t act up so that Mom can avoid emergency surgery. With Dad, it was his mind that was totally unpredictable. The symptoms of ill health can rear their ugly head at any moment, and that’s a special kind of torture all of its own.
Filed under Memories
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The Memories Project 