It’s been a long time since I’ve updated this blog. My mind is always writing for it, but my fingers are doing other things, like the job that pays for my cats to have a good life, or the medical insurance that helps treat the migraines, or the craft projects I intend to do, but they fall by the wayside, just like this blog.

Today, I feel I have the time and headspace to write. It is Christmas, and I wish you joy at however you celebrate … I just hope you celebrate and find joy in each day. Yes, easier said than done, but I find it vital to my survival.

This Christmas day started slow with church online and getting ready to take my mom to lunch with my brother. My brother walked up through the snow to my home, next door to his. We went across town to pick mom up at her memory care home. She said she was so glad to get out, and it had been ages since she’d seen any family. As with Alzheimer’s, she didn’t recall that I was with her and a friend last week to take her to dinner and shopping.

She first greeted my brother at the car as her brother, but by the times she was buckled (we hadn’t corrected her), she asked how he was doing by name. That’s the thing with this type of memory loss: it’s hit or miss and random. Last time, she thought he was her brother, so we played along. This time, she figured it out. No telling for next time.

At lunch, she let me order for her, since she often doesn’t know what to order, and I know what she likes at that restaurant. It was, of course, a Chinese restaurant, because it’s open on Christmas day. She has always loved their crab-meat rangoons, and she started in heartily on them when they arrived. Getting her to slow down was no easy task, but she was happy like a child, and we didn’t want to take away her happiness.

During our time at the restaurant, which was nearly two hours, since they are in demand on Christmas for both dine in and take out, she asked the same questions over and over as usual:

• Is my mom alive?
• Where do you live?
• Bruce, do you work?
• What is the name of this restaurant?

• Are my parents alive?
• Where do you live?
• Bruce, what type of work do you do?
• Is this an Asian restaurant?

• Where are my parents?
• What house do you live in?
• Bruce, where do you work?
• What is the name of this restaurant?

Fortunately today, the loop was about 5 minutes between each set of four questions. Sometimes it feels like a 30-second loop. I am getting better at calmly answering all of her questions, no matter how many times she repeats them. Today was a good day, and I didn’t get flustered. Okay, there was once in the car, but that’s because she wanted me to say “Yes”, but she thought I was saying “What”, so she kept repeating herself louder and louder, as did I, until I screamed “I said Yes”. I felt awful, but then she started in on her questions again, and I was glad she didn’t notice the outburst.

So far, we’re able to tell her that her parents have passed on. She has no tears yet. When she does, we’ll change the story. Or maybe she won’t have tears. Everyone is different.

During lunch, when she asked about the house I live in, I pulled up a photo on my phone. She didn’t recognize it. I showed her a few angles, and she still didn’t recognize it. This is a VERY good thing. Part of the Alzheimer’s for her is her anger. The screaming over anything she didn’t understand was vicious until she entered memory. We’ve been afraid to bring her by the house at all. I actually thought I never would.

After lunch, I took Bruce home, explaining he lives in the house our great grandparents built. She thought that was interesting. I told her about the apple storage and pointed it out, and she still had no recognition. As I drove on by the big barn on the ag drive instead of the road, she said she recognized it … from photographs. “Whose barn is it?” Ah, so she still didn’t know that she spent 50 years living here. Lastly, I drove by our house, and she had zero recognition of it.

Today’s lack of knowing doesn’t mean she’ll still not know tomorrow or the next day. Memory is hit or miss, and what is gone today may be here tomorrow. Also, the snow may have thrown her off. But I may try a drive by again one day.

Last year, I drove by the home she grew up in. For a month she screamed that someone had stolen her home, and she had to go there now to take it back. I haven’t made that mistake again. Yet her memory is fading, and she may not have the same reaction today. However, I am still weary of taking the chance.

This is just how it is. It’s a progression of it’s own kind, and I understand it won’t get any better. Folks say they are sorry or how sad it is. Yet I am not feeling that myself. Granted, if she knew she had Alzheimer’s, she’d want assisted suicide, hands down. She wouldn’t want to be a burden or take up medical space knowing there’s no hope for this disease. I fully agree for myself. But our state does not permit that.

What my mom and dad did do over 20 years ago was buy long-term care insurance. Most people are like my dad and pass on before they need it, so there are very few active policies. For my mom’s policy, it is three years of days. She had a number of days of home care in the year before moving into memory care, so her policy will end at some point in the next year. It has been a tremendous blessing, and the company is easy to work with, outside of the trees worth of paperwork.

The reason I don’t feel sad is that for the situation, she has the best possible care with the best possible insurance and the best possible outcome. She is in a place that will care for her until her last days. If she needs to use medicaid, they will accept it. If she needs two-person bed care, she’ll receive it. If she needs her nails painted, they’ll do it. She’s in a safe place where she cannot hurt herself or others. The staff dote on her.

Knowing this disease does not allow for recovery, we’re in the best possible place we could be with her long-term care plan, Heritage being an all inclusive care home, and that she has support from me and others. It is also fortunate that she just thinks she has poor memory, and not that she has Alzheimer’s. Whens she brings up her poor memory, I say that we all get that way one day. It’s the truth for enough of us, that I feel it’s an honest enough answer.

Moral of the Story: I never thought I’d feel this way with this disease, but my mom set herself up to receive excellent long-term medical care. I need to do the same. We all should, knowing this disease is rampant and homes like hers are hard to find space in anymore.