YSK that massive carb cravings can be an early sign of #dementia.
A few years ago, we found my mom in the kitchen eating sugar out of the bowl.
Simplification: as the body ages, it can’t produce the power to keep all the neurons supplied, so the carb cravings are an attempt to solve the power issue and avoid pruning neural connections leading to cognitive loss.
Anyhow, we had people over yesterday, were permissive with mom’s carbs, and it led to constant carb demands. :(
Mom was complaining about her tremors.
I explained what it was, said I’d see if we can get her an appt, even though that’s at most a med tweak.
“I have early onset Parkinson’s?”
“It’s not early onset.” *light bulb* “How old do you think you are?”
“Twenty?” Charitable interpretation here: she might have remembered she was twenty when I was born and not gotten further than that.
But: oof.
We went out to a St. Patrick’s Day informal gathering with a few friends (Sons of Norway) folks, and it was the core elderly crowd.
As we were leaving, mom said, “I wish there were people there my age. They’re all older.”
I looked at her like she was an alien, then asked, “How much older do you think they are?”
“Twenty years.”
“The oldest of them is six years older than you are, and half of them are younger.”
“Oh.”
@DiverDoc Yeah, I definitely needed to inquire more about what was going on. I was just so gobsmacked because it was such a surprise, particularly since she's never been AOx2 before (alert and oriented to who she is, but not to the current time or what the current situation is).
She's been mildly unstable on time for a couple of years (being off what year it is by a year or so, sometimes off a week or a few months), but this was a huge apparent sudden regression.
Rick asked if we should get a Canadian flag for mom's room, and then we both busted up about a favorite scene from The West Wing (where Donna's Canadian):
https://youtu.be/YxfuTa0xNak?t=56
Mom's still thinking she's leaving for Canada tomorrow. This is after years of not thinking about it at all, but she had some really good times there. I kind of miss going on the Tsawwassen ferry to Nanaimo, then driving north to Courtney.
For a further wistful tale of my mother's old home in BC: 13 acres total, half was virgin forest with 100' cottonwood trees and climbing roses that went almost all the way up them.
She sold it as a teardown in 2014 to a forestry professor who was intending to keep the forest as is. (He said.)
Somewhere around 2018-2019, per Google Earth, the virgin forest was cleared. By that time, the house was long gone.
You can't always go home again.
Oooooooh. Now I get what Mom's been talking about.
Years ago, she sold her house (on 10 acres) on Vancouver Island and she's missing it. Understandable as she designed it with her late husband (who died in the early 90s).
But she hasn't thought of that place in years. Doesn't even remember how her former partner trashed it.
https://deirdre.net/2014/trip-days-3-6-heartbreak-rcmp-and-hazmat/
(My mom's a dual national, but has lived back in the US for 22 years.)
In the mid-80s, my mom and my late stepfather moved up to Vancouver Island. They lived in Port Alberni for a time, then built a house on almost 13 acres of land in Courtenay. Her former partner’s been living in it as the caretaker. He hasn’t mentioned any maintenance issues. He hasn’t mentioned no running water in the kitchen. That may be, in part, because this is the kitchen…. I’m going to call him jerkwad because that’s as polite as I can be. Our last few days went something like this: Saturday: met with listing agent, met briefly with jerkwad when he brought stuff from the house to our hotel. Sunday: visited the outside of the house, where we got a sense of maintenance issues. Roof looked dodgy to me. Jerkwad would not let my mother in the house. I was shocked at how poorly cared for it was on the outside. Then again, I do remember the place when it was almost new. Monday: went with listing agent to the house. Jerkwad let her in, but not my mom. Listing agent was trying to talk to me while jerkwad was talking to mom. I wrote on agent’s pad that mom feared the house would be a total writeoff. Agent said she thought I was right, just based on what little she’d seen. We regroup with agent later on in the day and mom lists the property as is for a lot less than she’d been intending to. Tuesday: Mom calls jerkwad, tells him she’s coming over. He leaves a note in a box that basically reads as he’s not giving her permission to enter. Mom starts to call the RCMP, but I point out that it’s safer for us to visit their office rather than wait on property. So we go. RCMP points out (I already knew this) that it may be complicated as to whether he’s even considered a tenant since he was supposed to be a caretaker. The constable calls jerkwad, who suddenly says of course we can enter the property. It’s a total hazmat zone. There are rat/mice droppings. The kitchen is, well, you saw it above. The place isn’t even up to being a teardown. It’s vile and disgusting. This used to be the beautiful custom home my parents designed and hoped to live in the rest of their lives.
Mom: I've got to leave and the printer isn't printing.
Me: Why do you have to leave?
Mom: I've got to get home. [She is standing in our living room.]
Me: You *are* home.
Edit to add about 20 minutes later as I'm still not done with what I'm doing to get up and see WTAF is up with the printer.
Me: Why are you obsessing over this?
Mom: Well it's going to be late when I get home.
Me: *YOU ARE ALREADY HOME.*
*facepalm*
Rick: *pointing to Firefox* What is this?
Mom: It opens files.
Rick: What kind of files?
Mom: Databases or spreadsheets.
(Dementia is such a horrifying disease.)
Going to need a simpler UI for my mom, who has been a Mac user for more than 30 years and doesn’t recognize the Finder icon. *sigh*
Deirdre Saoirse Moen