Paula GordonDec 24, 2022
Mom wakes up thinking out loud that it seems like a long time has passed that she hasn’t been here. I don’t understand and ask her to elaborate. She tries explaining that she doesn’t remember going to bed, doesn’t remember being in bed, although she knows she is in bed in her bedroom. The furniture is familiar but she feels like she hasn’t been here (in the bedroom) in a long time. "Does that make sense?" she asks.? 1/9
#caregiving #MemoryLoss #OldBrains #OldOld
Show threadPaula GordonDec 24, 2022
I point out that she has been “absent” in the sense that she’s been asleep, but she rejects the idea that she’s somewhere else in her dreams, because she doesn’t remember her dreams (she rarely did even before the memory loss). She says she feels like she's woken up in a familiar place, the furniture is familiar, but a place she hasn’t visited in a while. 2/9
#caregiving #MemoryLoss #OldBrains #OldOld
Show threadPaula GordonDec 24, 2022
She keeps repeating that she doesn’t remember what happened yesterday, doesn't recall getting into bed last night. It's a mind-bending conversation, but I think I might be getting it. I ask if she means that because she doesn’t remember going to bed and getting up on previous days, it seems like she hasn’t been in her bedroom in a long time? Yes, she thinks it could be something like that. 3/9
#caregiving #MemoryLoss #OldBrains #OldOld
Show threadPaula GordonDec 24, 2022
She doesn’t remember yesterday. TBH, nothing much happened yesterday, but I remind her of a few things: the TV show about Jim Gardner retiring, OK, she remembers that a little; latkes for dinner, mhm, maybe; lighting Hanukkah candles, I show her 5 fingers for the 5th light, and she says she remembers the papers on the table (Hanarot halalu, recited after the blessing, which I’ve printed out in large type). 4/9
#caregiving #MemoryLoss #OldBrains #OldOld
Show threadPaula GordonDec 24, 2022
I ask if I should do something unusual every day so she'd have something notable to remember (and immediately regret it!). She laughs and says, "You suggested it, not me!" All this while lying in bed, with me sitting on a chair by the bed.* I suggest she could write in a journal every day, at least then she would see her own writing and know she was there and lived through it. 5/9
#caregiving #MemoryLoss #OldBrains #OldOld
Show threadPaula GordonDec 24, 2022
I find a half-size spiral notebook (no lack of paper in this house!), and she asks me to write down the date and day. I do. I suggest that rather than writing in it now, just out of bed, she wait til she’s dressed and in the living room. OK.
I go off to do other things around the house while she gets out of bed, etc.
(Purposely skipping the hands-on aspect of caregiving for these memory and hallucination posts.) 6/9
#caregiving #MemoryLoss #OldBrains #OldOld
Show threadPaula GordonDec 24, 2022
I come back to find her in her recliner inspecting a paper tissue (e.g., a kleenex, see pic). She is looking at the puckered edge.
P: What are you doing?
M: Trying to make out what’s written here.
P: I see only puckers.
M: No, there are letters, can you read what it says?
P: No. Do you have to blow your nose?
M: No.
P: Then maybe put that aside and write something in your notebook? 7/9
#caregiving #MemoryLoss #OldBrains #OldOld #SeeingThings
Show threadPaula Gordon
She takes the notebook and pen, thinks a moment, begins writing:
-- No news is good news
Looks at me, smiles, looks back at the page, and adds:
!
Puts the notebook aside.
Later in the day, she comments that I’ve written the date and “No news is good news!” and I remind her that she actually wrote that sentence, not me.
(End of story, an observation follows.)
8/9
#caregiving #MemoryLoss #OldBrains #OldOld
Dec 24, 2022 at 3:57amWeb
Show threadPaula GordonDec 24, 2022
*About the chair in 5/9: I put that chair in my mom's bedroom a while back, both as a dressing aid and also with the thought that one day it might be useful if she needed minding at night, or if she were to start spending more of the day in bed, to keep her company. I gravitated to the chair when it became clear this would be a conversation. It's comfortable, it felt natural, but I noticed. I wasn’t expecting to use it so soon. 9/9
#caregiving #ElderCare #OldOld