Yesterday, Hubs and I visited with his brother for a little bit and he said something that struck a chord -- "The Nike commercials are right. You have to 'Just Do It'." Funny thing... he was talking to Hubs but I felt it right to my core. He was talking about something else, but I immediately applied it to my writing/blogging. I've taken notes over the past couple months -- since I started this blog -- with the intention of transcribing them into witty, interesting posts "when I got time". (ha!)
Well, now I'm "just do[ing] it". I'm writing today and with no 'notes' safety net... just writing. It's Sunday and, just like every Sunday for a little over a month and every Sunday for the foreseeable future, I went upstairs at about 8:30 a.m. to let the folks know I was ready to take them to church (it starts at 9:00) and to check on their progress getting ready. Just like most of the recent Sundays, they were still in bed. Dad said, "It was a pretty rough night last night. We've been talking about just going to sacrament meeting [worship service] at 11:00. Does that work?" I told them that, of course, it was just fine. The next thing Dad said was, "I was out on the couch at one point and Mom came and asked me if I'd seen 'the little boy'." (In case it wasn't obvious from the name and nature of this blog, there was no little boy.) *sigh* Oh, so it's going to be one of those days. Mom's been up and down, wandering, and hallucinating all night. I just said, "Okay" and went back downstairs (that's where Hubs and I live, in case I didn't mention it before). I was tempted to ask him "Well, did you?" but I refrained.
Sometimes I wonder, when Dad repeats some of Mom's less-lucid words/actions, if she understands that what he's saying represents evidence of the disease. I can't say I'm sure of it, but sometimes it almost seems like he's sort of making fun of her. Not in a mean way (if such is possible) but I can't quite figure out his motivation. It's not like he needs to tell me she has less-clear moments... most of the time, I'm trying to convince HIM of that... maybe it's just his way of saying "it's going to be a hard day". Maybe he's looking for some understanding/empathy for how the disease is affecting HIS life (though Mom's the one who has the disease, she's certainly not the only one 'suffering' from it).
As for the 'little boy' mentioned above, that's a new one from Mom (at least, new to me). She's had a lot of there-are-other-people-here type hallucinations, but none that involved a little boy. She's seen her own parents (deceased in 1987 and 1991), a former neighbor, my cousin Toni and her husband, and other non-specific people in the house. Sometimes, they 'came' while we were out and moved/took things. Sometimes, they are living here. Sometimes they WERE living here but have moved out. Often, she'll ask Hubs, me or both of us where we are living and when I tell her "downstairs" she'll say something like "Oh. Still?" Her attempts to 'cover up' things that she has forgotten are at the same time adorable and heart-breaking. She still works very hard at putting on the 'social' or 'public' face that is charming, care-free and pulled-together. She really has no idea how obvious the effects of Alzheimer's Disease are in her behavior. Sometimes I think that's probably better. Mom's image has always been really important to her and I'm afraid if she realized that "other people know", she'd isolate herself. She has done that in the past -- when (I believe) her memory difficulties were more apparent to her and she was mortified at the thought that anyone else would know/be able to tell. Leaving a recent appointment at the neurology clinic that diagnosed her, and manages her care, she said (angrily) to me, "I don't want you telling your brothers and sisters, friends or neighbors about this. This is private." Ironically, the main point of the meeting was to create a family-inclusive plan for her present and on-going needs. A 'progressive need' model that plans for the increasing needs she'll have over time. One of the most important (and repeated) points was that a large network of help and care is best. Both Mom and Dad seem to desire the opposite. Not that they actually don't want care or help, but that they are (it seems) embarrassed by the situation and would rather not share it with anyone. It makes me sad that they view a disease, a physical process, as something to be ashamed of. Is it a generational/age thing? Anyone out there who can enlighten me? For Mom, though, it seems that some of that awareness has faded and the upside is she's more willing to be sociable again -- which the literature on the disease as well as her own doctors/care experts agree is a good thing.
After this post is done, I'm going to go back into my handwritten notes and try to capture some of the AD-related things that have happened over the last few months. I think I'm going to re-label them with dates that match the actual events so this blog will appear in a more accurate chronological order. That said, they'll ultimately appear before (below) this one [this is the second post I've written to this blog since starting it 3 months ago]... but that just helps me keep it all straight in the ol' noggin. :-) That effort alone, I hope, will probably be enough to nudge me toward more timely blogging... so I don't have to re-order my posts in the future. *fingers crossed*
So, today I'm just do[ing] it. I'm writing this post and I'm going to publish it. I'll probably read it through for glaring mistakes but then I'm going to push the button and be done. For today. And, I'm going to 'just do it' again soon. Good advice, my dear BIL. Very good. :-)
