Alzheimer’s sucks. My mom does so much better living at memory care. Although it makes her think she’d be fine at home. I wish the utopia in her mind were a real place.

While at home, everything was a fight. Taking medicine, basic hygiene, eating well, and so much more. Now that the memory care home ensures she has all of those things, and so much more, she’s stable, mostly, for now. With the memory care home she has a long prognosis for health and comfort, even though she currently disagrees with that assessment.

I’m glad she thinks that she was happy at home. I’m glad she thinks she is capable of self care. I’m glad she doesn’t remember the daily intense screaming she so passionately provided. Obviously, if any of us thought it was possible for that place to exist in this home, she’d be here.

This disease is terrifying. My mom taught me that hitting was always wrong. Now she says that it’s okay to hit when you’re mad. My mom taught me that throwing things at people is always wrong. Now it’s okay to do that anytime. My mom was never one to believe a scam phone call. It is only by the assistance of 10 million angels that she didn’t change to a new Medicare policy with each of the 2 to 6 daily calls during open enrollment for Medicare. She use to pay her bills early and accurately … that ended long before I realized it was a problem two years ago. She would never have given any information to a spam phone caller … and now we have the highest security possible on her finances because I heard her start to give her social security number out at least twice, and she told me of two other times in the last year.

This article explains the signs of the disease: https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/what-are-signs-alzheimers-disease.
– Of the symptoms for Mild Alzheimer’s, mom has 8 of the 10 listed.
– Of the symptoms for Moderate Alzheimer’s, mom has 10 of the 13 listed.
– Fortunately, she only has one symptom of Severe Alzheimer’s.

My mom can appear to be okay, even while possessing most of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s. She can carry on conversations better now than 5 months ago. She can do some basic math again. She even knows her husband’s name half the time, and sometimes she knows that her husband is my dad. This is only because she is in a better place than she even imagined existed when she bought a long term care policy over 2 decades ago. We didn’t know places like Amber Place and North Woods Village even existed. I’m so sorry they need to exist, and yet I’m so very grateful they exist.

And now, her brother has passed on. She is the only one of her siblings and their spouses still living today. This is such a difficult time for her, especially between the move and now the loss. Please keep her in your heart and prayers.

Moral of the story: Alzheimer’s sucks the life out of everyone involved. It’s as though life is constantly blurred by thick rain and fuzzy windows. Praying for everyone involved.