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I am taking care of my mom by myself. My brother lives an hour away and helps when he can but I live with my mom and I'm the primary caregiver. My next door neighbor can babysit her when I have to work late. Mom goes to adult day care when I'm at work and to respite care when I have business trips.
But I can tell that she is changing. She has breast cancer and her lungs are filling with fluid which makes her short of breath when she walks a short distance. I'm beginning to wonder if she shouldn't live at home anymore. I know she wants to live at home and it will probably break her heart not living with me because she relies on me so much and I'm her security blanket Mom is very attached to me and can get pretty upset when I'm not around. But I want what's best for her.
My mom also would confuse where we live with the place she grew up and sometimes she asks me to give her mother a ride or mention a departed relative as if they are still alive. It's a very hard decision.
Fortunately, the day care center also has a nursing home I picked it just in case mom couldn't live at home and the move wouldn't be too unfamiliar to her.
Now it's a couple of months later. She thinks her home is with her parents, long deceased. She fought the dementia unit for a while, then seemed to adapt. She has gotten together with a man named Peter, and the two of them sit by the hour and plot their escape. It is actually kind of sweet. Mom was very religious, and they don't have church services, so I have begun going down on Sunday mornings and just playing some religious music and hymns for the whole unit. She is much safer and happier where she is. She turned 94 in the unit. If I could have kept her with me, I would have, but this is actually beginning to work out well.
I hope you are having some help and not taking care of your mom entirely by yourself. It is exhausting. I got shingles twice last year, and am still having after-effects from that. So take care of yourself, and be sure to do things that you love to do.
reikibev
Need to check it out.
Reikibev
One of the residents started to sing a church song. The nurses made us leave, and told us not to return for 2 weeks.
I have to say this about that, the nursing home is a wonderful facility, the nurses,therapists, and all the employees treated
dad as if he was their Dad. No controlling meds.
They just made him feel " at home". Can't do that with us there, putting his name on his door,keeping him very busy, sitting and talking to him,etc.
We know because we asked to ck on him and they said "yes" as long as he didn't see us. He was having a ball!! jeeze!
The secret to helping Dad is distraction, distraction, distraction.
Even,now when he asks to go with us or wants to go home with Mom, we put a movie on in his room, for dad its a hunting dvd,
or animal planet on the TV. Works great.We sit with him for a while and watch with him.
My dad had sundowners synd. Along with dementia, he would get very, very confused , would get agitated. That happened several times, first time we thought he had another stroke. scared us.
We called his Dr. and they told us it was sundowner syndr.
I now have a life.It is so easy to get caught up with one person.
Just be there for her when you are there.Dementia is a terrible thing.
I wish you well.
I may be the other side of the pond,but the problems are the same xx
That all being said, before placing a loved one in skilled care you must do your homework and find a place that you can trust.
If you trust that facility, you must allow them to take over care of your loved one. I am not saying not to visit, not to care, but allow the transition to happen. There is not one "best way" for all dementia patients to transition to a new environment, but if you've done your homework and trust the facility, allow them to attempt to make all concerned lives a easier.
Reikibev
Happy Holidays,
Bill
I am sorry that at least ONE of your friends does not care to try to understand what you are going through but since none do, please keep all of us in this community in mind and let us know from time to time how things are going. You are carrying a very heavy burden and I'm sure, have been, ever since (even before?) your sister committed suicide. My heart goes out to you. I hope you and your mom can cry together about how life has gone, hug each other often, and continue to feel love for each other. You and your mom are both going down the "dementia highway" but each in a different way. It is a new road for both of you and not easy for either of you. Know that neither of you are alone. May you feel protected. Much love, lcs
To all of you, thank you so much for all your responses. It is so nice to have this site and not feel so terribly alone. My friends do not understand at all what I'm going through. In addition, my sister committed suicide a year and a half ago, and I think my mom slid into dementia then because she couldn't deal with it. So I have to make this journey alone. But not alone. Because all of you know how it is.
Thank you so much.
Reikibev
Good luck and don't stop visiting her, but make them short visits instead of loooong ones, until you think she's a little adjusted, and it will happen sooner than you think.
So true, hapfra. Care situations, though similar, are never alike for two people. Lots of ways to approach a single matter.
We visited with her between meal times from the first day she entered the facility. For her first meal, we walked with her to the dining room and then to her assigned table and introduced our mom and ourselves to the people already at the table. The dining room staff and other staff members got to know us right away. (Of course the office staff had met us earlier). We continued to visit with Mom very regularily and took her for walks around the facility - she was afraid of getting lost on her own. We got her mail for her, took her to meet with others for coffee in the dining room and in general just made sure she didn't feel that she has been deserted.
A fear she expressed to us previously was that once she was in a facility, we would forget her. My sisters and I just looked at each other in amazement when she said that. WHY such a thought would EVER have entered her head was beyond us all - my sisters and I have practically fallen over backwards in trying to meet her needs all her life and she has NEVER been neglected or forgotten by any of us!!! Perhaps this was a fear going back to childhood days when my mom might have feared being neglected and alone? Perhaps this fear if just part of growing old? Perhaps it is part of dementia? All I know is that my mom would have felt totally deserted if we had not visited her for a month. I suppose if our visits had upset her terribly, we would have had to reconsider but I don't think even then, we could have left her alone for a month. She would have felt desolate, neglected and totally unloved. Who wouldn't???