The MAD Life will never be over. What has been, can never be erased. What is now known cannot be unknown.
My mom passed on from her Alzheimer’s on March 14, 2025. It was a long time in coming. She’d been under hospice care in addition to Memory Care in November when she stopped eating for the first time. It took several times of not eating to finally go strictly to palliative care and no longer encourage her to do what she didn’t want or need to do anymore.
Her life was more than just these last few chaotic years that she never wanted. She believed in euthanasia as a gift we give loved ones, and she wanted that, but it’s not permitted in Michigan. Fortunately, her life was family, friends, and faith … far more than her diagnosis or the peace she wanted earlier than she received it.
She now has the ultimate joy with all of her treasurers in heaven who went before her. She is en-robed by love.
I’ve been told many people feel like orphans after their parents pass on. I don’t feel that way. I am blessed with the best of friends, many mothers by friendship, some father figures in faith, and my family.
Perhaps it’s because I have always spoken to my father, sister Cheri, grandma Julia, niece Erin, aunt Gladys, Isabel, and so many phenomenal souls who have passed from this earth into the great beyond. I believe they hear and guide me. I feel their voices and presence in my soul. I hear their laughter and words of wisdom.
Moral of the Story: No one is ever alone. No one does anything alone. Mom is in a joyous place with her treasures in heaven. We are surrounded by a greater cloud of witnesses whether we want them or not. May you feel love and encouragement from those who have gone before us and those here with us on earth.
I had to euthanize my eldest cat a couple of days ago. I’d taken her to the ER Vet, thinking she’d get a checkup, medicine, and go home. Nope, massive cancer in her chest squishing her heart and lungs. I had to say goodbye then to prevent her from a painful death. It was a cry fest of a weekend. Cotton and I miss her the most, and the other cats wore themselves out trying to comfort us.
It’s a Monday, and I’m a mess. My roommate Nickey said I have to go take a nap. But it’s a funny mess.
Our back to back to back to back work client meetings helped me a lot today to not dwell on Merry. Words escaped me, but my colleague Theresa filled in when I completely and utterly forgot what I was talking about in the middle of a sentence. Repeatedly.
I was going to talk with Nickey after those calls and then go back to work for a bit. NOPE!!!
I had placed a home delivery from Walmart to the house. Then I get a call while I’m talking with Nickey from a guy who says he’s the driver for the order.
He said, “You don’t live or work at the post office, do you?”
I said, “No, why?”
He said, ” The delivery address is to the local post office.”
Sucking in of air.
Silence.
Me, “I am SO Sorry! I can’t believe I did that!!!”
I rattled off my address and apologized repeatedly. 20 minutes later, he’s at the door of my home. I could barely talk because Nickey and I had been belly laughing since I’d hung up the phone with him.
He said Walmart told him to bring it back to the store, but he thought that was silly, since I’m so near the store ,and I’d given him the address.
I went into the app and more than doubled his tip. Then I got on a chat on Walmart and made sure they knew the driver went above and beyond. He didn’t have to do that, but he did so with kindness.
Now I’m laying down as instructed. I’m still giggling from my batty mistake. Maybe tomorrow will be less odd. (Ha, ha, ha!!!)
Moral of the story: Laughter is healing. Apparently, I needed a good laugh, and that guy needed a better tip. Sometimes, mistakes aren’t the end of the world. And they make for good storytelling.
Oye! We got to Battle Creek an hour early to see mom’s ortho surgeon October 5th, so we went to Marshall’s, the store. Good thing we were there! Mom had a major poo accident while shopping.
The employees were awesome and let me take clothes to the bathroom for mom. At 1st, they weren’t going to let me, but by the time I came back with undies and pants, the bathroom smelled icky at best. They kinda saw why I needed the clothes … badly … before paying.
Then they watched her after I got the undies on, so she didn’t leave the bathroom while I bought the pants to get the security tag off. At 1st, they didn’t see the need to stay with her until I said the magically horrific word, “Alzheimer’s.” They were all very kind. Especially since I cleaned up the bathroom as well as mom.
We were 20 minutes late to her surgeon, but I had called to explain, and they let us come anyway. Phew! She got another cast to await minor surgery on 10/12 to remove the plate that has been stabilizing the wrist to heal, which dhe shattered back on july 14th. (A whole other story I am still working up the energy to write.) After that, she should be cast free. She seems to have full use of the hand.
Then we had lunch at Clara’s. Mom always treated me to a special meal or dessert after doctor appointments, so I like to do the same.
I’ll be keeping depends and spare pants for future outings. And wipes, soap, and paper towels. Store soap and paper towels are a lot too thin. I bought wipes, too, for the incident from Marshall’s. I just grabbed the 1st package I saw to get back to her quickly. I’ll have to read the label later, because my hands smell great!
Moral of the story: Be prepared for anything with this disease. A N Y T H I N G ! ! ! Cash helps too, because mom has a lovely new pair of pants and a cute hooded sweater.
From earlier this year. I forgot to take a final photo of the new cast, which looks exactly like this one.
Howdy! I haven’t written in a long while again. My apologies.
In January, I had major back surgery to repair about eight different problems. The good news: It worked! As I type this, I’m sitting up straight, and in (almost) no pain! I didn’t realize before surgery why it hurt to sit up straight, but it felt good to slouch. That’s because my back was, as my primary care provider said, “So Fucked Up!”
I have had leg pain for about 30 years on and off. I’ve always had back pain when bending over that tiny bit to wash dishes and do laundry. Laundry is quick, so I’ve never thought about it. But dishes are not so quick. When I was little and told my mom that my back hurt when I washed dishes, she said it was all in my head. So that’s what I’ve thought all these decades.
I woke up one morning in February or March of 2020, fed all of the kitties, and within 15 minutes, my left leg hurt so bad, I would have welcomed it to be cut off from the hip to the toes. I drove myself (no stick shift) to immediate care. They said it was most likely my sciatica, gave me steroid injections, and told me to call my doctor for a follow up soon.
My primary care provider is awesome … which makes her difficult to get into. Instead, I saw Eric Anderson at Bronson on South 9th Street in Kalamazoo. He was AMAZING! He was a dog with a bone and NEVER gave up on finding an answer. After each visit when I said I was still having trouble, he’d order another test, such as these: X-ray, blood flow scan, EMG (OUCH!!!), and finally an MRI.
The pain was never in my legs. It was from my back. For decades, the damage has been compounding to the problem at hand: My tailbone and the eight vertebrae above were a tangled mess. We don’t know if it is genetic or from the same cow kick that is the cause of my migraines at the top of my spine and the bottom of my skull. No matter, the damage was present and tremendously painful.
When I was a tween, we had a cow named Camel. She was over half a foot taller than all the other cows, weighed 300 pounds more, and was a mean lotta lady cow. Most cows can only kick in and forward. This toots could kick out and back. She threw all of us back against the concrete call of the barn. But they were adults. I was around 10 years old. And I’m a farmer’s daughter. You don’t just go to the doctor for a bruise on your chest. Please! Shake it off and keep on going.
However, my dad also had nearly the same surgery when he was in his 60’s. He’d always said chiropractors were quakes … until his left leg hurt so bad, he took up my sister’s suggestion for her chiropractor. Dad saw the chiropractor for over five years. He finally told my dad he would not see him anymore because the only solution was surgery. Dad wasn’t thrilled and put surgery off another two years. Then he was shocked to have the surgery and … get this … NO more leg pain! NONE!
I am the same. I went into the hospital the morning of the surgery with pain in my right hip running like a small flame to and from my knee cap. (That’s just one example of the various leg pains I’ve had on and off for decades.) I too came out of surgery and haven’t had ANY leg pain since! It’s only been 10 weeks for me, but that’s a LONG time for me to go without ANY leg pain. JOY!!!
Moral of the Story:
Get It Checked Out! I know going to the doctor is a pain … in SO many ways. But the doctor was shocked I’d never told anyone it hurt to do dishes … every single time. The same type of pain in the same places. One person told me it was all in my head, and that was it.
Don’t be like me! Get help. Share. Talk. Ask. Ask. Ask. If necessary, get second and third opinions. The X-ray and EMG told the doctor a small portion of my pain, but that crazy expensive and hard to get MRI told a full and complete story of the mess that was me.
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.
What is up with people? I was at a Walgreen’s Pharmacy drive-up, and I’d been there a while. Not by choice, but because it was taking them a long time to figure out anyone had signed up for a COVID test today (since there were few spots open when I scheduled last night, there must have been more than a few of us seeking the test).
After about 15 minutes, the car behind me starts honking and screaming for me to get out of the way … because they had a COVID test appointment. I heard all of this perfectly clear with just my driver’s window down from the car behind me. I just put my hands up in the air, like “I don’t know”. And they honked and screamed all the louder.
It’s not like they were going to get their test any faster since the lady was clearly printing out paperwork for numerous of us. And you can’t get the test without multiple trees worth of paper on their end. Thank goodness I just got a receipt and a sheet of where to look for the results.
Finally, the pharmacist comes to the window, puts out the test, I do the swabby thing, turn it in, and drive forward just enough for them so I can stop and blow my nose from doing the swabby thing.
Then I thought, maybe I should have stayed there to blow my nose, and not pulled ahead. But that’s not the Christian thing to do. And I shouldn’t return blatant anger with passive aggressive anger. But part of me still wishes I had. The human in me wants both compassion and revenge.
Again, I ask, what is up with people? They had no idea why I was there. They had no idea if I was getting a prescription test or a COVID test. I pray we can slow down in life and respect each other.
Although later, I was backing out of a parking place, and no cars were nearby. A car whips in the drive of the store, and nearly hits me … all the while honking and screaming at me. I was nearly out of my spot, and I saw them come slamming into the lot, so I know I wasn’t at fault. Except maybe I was at fault for using a parking space designated to be used for the business I was leaving.
Sorry for the rant. I pray for patience and peace and more patience again.
So this is how perimenopause is going: I just joined 15 groups on facebook about it. The migraine and dementia groups have helped a lot. Over time, I may add or remove groups as I learn which help most.
I finished listening to What Fresh Hell Is This by Heather Corinna (they/them). It’s a fantastic book, and I’m anxiously awaiting my paper copy. They provided too many great tips and resources to even try to remember to write down when I parked.
In the meantime, I realized I’ve joined groups in the past that have been greatly beneficial. Now, we shall see. If you’re going down this path, and it’s particularly NOT fun, I’d love to chat.
Moral of the story: Seek help! Find resources. Get information. Join support groups of any kind – in person, video chats, facebook, email … whatever. Don’t go it alone. You’re never alone. Someone else is suffering too. When two or more can relate together, it divides the pain.
MAD now stands for Mischievous Adventures Daily. Why? Because it’s no longer just migraines and Alzheimer’s disease. Nope! There’s SO much more.
This morning some of the Bourner family descendants gathered for breakfast. We all wished more had joined, but we were glad for those we had with us. We talked, laughed, ate, and enjoyed each other. It is such a blessing to gather for the first time with this group since COVID started.
This week, I had a similar experience with colleagues. We gathered for the first time in person as a small group. We also wished more were with us, but we enjoyed everyone who was present. I had not seen my new supervisor in person since March 2020 (and she wasn’t my supervisor then). What a joy to hug each other!
Now that things are going back to normal-ish. I’m finding I am trying NOT to become overbooked. I need to select what I can both handle AND brings me joy AND doesn’t overwhelm my schedule. That’s not easy, and I am sad that I sometimes disappoint others. Yet this is life, and we all have these moments. My family and friends have these times too. We must give each other grace.
I was doing far too much pre-COVID. COVID put the breaks on my life in a way that I didn’t know I needed. I NEED down time. I NEED rest. I NEED time sitting and staring outside with a cat by my side. I NEED to sit under the little shelter outside in my antique yard chair in the dark of night.
As much as it is wonderful to be together again, it is also important to remember self-care. If you’re like me, and you NEED time alone or at least not out of the house, do it. Claim it. Do what you need to do to care for yourself.
Now that I am in deep with perimenopause (better known as menopause (and shorter to spell and say)), it is more important than before to be protective of my time alone. With symptoms of menopause, I am sometimes barely holding on:
Hot (not) flashes (they are 90% of my waking hours)
Chills with shivers in the middle of the night
Vivid nightmares and dreams
Crying over next to nothing
Brain fog
Fatigue
UTI’s
Increased anxiety
Increased depression
Increased IBS episodes
And that’s JUST the menopause … NOT the migraines, broken back, arthritis, and keeping an eye on my mom in memory care.
We all have something like this going on in our lives from time to time. This is normal. The hope is that these things will be short-lived and that our family and friends are supportive. Our response to these normal life happenings is what makes or breaks us. I try to make it with humor. Whatever helps you make it (without harming others), do it!
Moral of the story: Life is complicated. Sometimes our bodies make life more complicated. As Pastor Amee says, “Give yourself grace”.
I sent out my 2021 Christmas cards last week. It included mom’s new address as of May 28, 2021. She’s been at Heritage one year now.
Jean and Ilene, sitting in the sun.
It also included that I’m not able to do birthday & anniversary cards this year. I just can’t. I actually missed November & December of 2021 too. My ducks are not only unable to get in a row: their feathers are too fluffy or falling out, their feet are two sizes too big or too small, and some are nearsighted while others are farsighted.
These are SO NOT my ducks! It is what I hope for my ducks to become.
This blog series called MAD is suppose to stand for Migraines and Alzheimer Disease … but a few other things are popping up for me: IBS, Menopause (with many of it’s gloriously frustrating indicators), a broken back, and pain management. Maybe MAD could stand for something else. NOT Mutually Assured Destruction. Oye! How about Mischievous Adventures Daily? (That took me an hour to figure out!)
Well, that’s enough for me today.
Moral of the Story: Quit when you need to quit. Keeping on will just make messes … everywhere … at least for me. When enough is enough, go home to the cats … or walk out of the home office and sit with the cats. Relax, breathe, let your shoulders down.
The stories within represent what I see in life. You may see things differently, and I respect that we may differ. The only intent is to enjoy life. May your life's journey bring you joy and humor, in addition to all of those other aspects that run rampant through our daily lives.
Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kim Marie Bourner with appropriate and specific direction to the original content, and the author is informed.
Humor Happens 