One of us can remember...kinda

Little Ruthie

I have been living with Alzheimer's officially for twelve years.  No one ever really knows when in starts, it creeps into your life slowly.  My dad died in 1991, a victim of lung cancer.  During his illness, my mom never seemed quite on top of things.  Being a nurse, I wanted details..."what did the doctor say, what stage was the cancer, are they talking surgery, chemo, radiation???"  My mom could never remember.  And after his death, she continued to seem not herself.  But she had just lost the love of her life, they had been married for 40 plus years, and it was normal to expect some period of adjustment.  We attributed much of her behavior to depression. She went through a series of moves, from Colorado to Texas, then off to Virginia, and finally landing in South Dakota at the urging of one of her sisters.  I made a point to visit her as often as I could while she was in South Dakota, marking my time until the inevitable moment when I had to admit she could not live by herself any longer.  Partly it was the multiple yellow post it notes placed about her home: "Don't forget to brush your teeth", "Turn off lights", "Mass at 8:30".  The final straw was a trip to Walmart.  My mom LOVED Walmart.  It was the second place she scouted out in every town, the first being the Catholic Church.  On my last visit to see her, she couldn't remember where the Walmart was located.  And even worse, when we left the Walmart, she couldn't remember where she had parked her car.  The tragedy of that was I am a dope concerning cars.  While my husband can tell you the make and model and year of every car he sees on the road, I'm the one who says "I'm taking the blue car to the store". The bottom line being I really didn't have much of an idea what kind of car my mom drove.  It was somewhere in the middle of the Walmart parking lot, looking for a "misplaced" car, that I realized things had to change.  I , for one, had to pay more attention to cars and parking lots....and my mom needed to move in with us.  But how to convince my mom, who had always been independent to a fault , to leave her little house in South Dakota and move to Texas into a house with three teenagers and a son-in-law that she never really got along with??? 

A new road traveled

My mom-beginnings

I have decided today to begin blogging and learn a new skill.  No doubt it will take some time to figure this out, but I'm used to that....taking time to figure things out.  What I lack in intelligence I often make up for in persistence.

I have begun a new journey this week.  Well, my mom and I have taken a new route on an old journey, one we've been on for the past 12 years.  This journey could be named Alzheimer's and hopefully our destination is heaven.  I would prefer we not reach our destination at the same time, I'm willing to allow her to go ahead of me and get things set up, but for part of this journey we must travel together.  Truthfully, I feel honored to be her traveling companion.  She has been the greatest influence in my life, taught me everything I needed to know to be the person I am and given me the strength to conquer every obstacle.  My deep faith in God was nourished by her example.  She taught me to be kind to strangers, to believe I could do anything, to laugh at myself, and to never stop learning.  She encouraged me to become a nurse when it was the last thing I thought I could do and that simple act alone has given me over 30 years of profound joy working in a field I love. 

Of course, I could write forever and never run out of reasons to be thankful for my Mother.  And truthfully, words would fall short in describing how precious she is to me.  She wasn't perfect.  I've often said the irony of her disease is that, when she was younger, she could carry a grudge.  For a woman who would never forget a transgression, it seemed ironic that she became a woman who would eventually forget everything!  Still, as the end approaches, I chose to remember the strong woman that was my mother..I miss her even as I gaze upon her this day.  

As for the new leg of this journey, it started last week with a seizure.  My mom's condition, which has been a non-stop progression in a downhill direction, seemed to deteriorate yet again.  Hospice had been recommended to me almost two years ago, but it didn't seem appropriate.  Last week, after her seizure, it felt like it was time to make the call.  It was a hard decision to make.  It felt like giving up.  It felt like I was admitting defeat.  Of course intellectually I knew that wasn't the case, but my heart and head often are not occupying the same space!  I have worked with Hospice many years in the hospital and I knew that I wanted them to come in and help me care for my mom in the end.  But calling them meant I was confessing that the end was in sight.  And even though I have never wanted to prolong my mom's life for a minute more than God plans, even though I lost my mom years ago to Alzheimer's, even though I pray every day that God takes her peacefully in her sleep, the daughter is not ready to say goodbye to her mother.  And I've realized I will never really be ready.  So I am thankful that Hospice has stepped in to give me the support I need at this time in our journey.  And I hope that I can journal in this blog these final miles.  Perhaps it will help someone else.  But mostly I'm doing this for selfish reasons, to honor a relationship that has meant everything to me and to work through the grief that seems ever present on the edges of my heart.