Virtual-Doug

Blessings

I’ll call him “Jim”, both because that’s his name and because there are so many Jims in the world that I can protect his privacy even if I post his real name.  Jim is an old college friend.  We were good friends – doing all the good things college buddies do, such as finding places in the next county where we could do our under-aged drinking, double dating, and generally screwing around.  As is usually the case, we drifted apart – I went into the Army and he joined the Coast Guard.  Towards the end of time the Mystery Guest Blogger and I lived in Việt Nam, Jim found me.  After finding this blog, and putting a few other facts together, he emailed me to be sure he had truly found me.

We still haven’t seen each other face-to face since my return from Huê, but we swap many an email and the occasional phone call.  You see, Jim is a blessing.

I have written about my mother’s Alzheimer’s on this blog on numerous occasions.  Jim has been a very real and true help in all this – because he has a lot of experience with dementia.  I mean a lot of experience.  Jim’s mother suffers from dementia, but also Jim’s wife has early onset Alzheimer’s.

Yikes!

Each week, I send out something called “The Mommy Report” to family and friends.  I detail what I’ve observed in my mother during the past week.  Last week, I wrote this:

“For some reason, all his week she has been really pounding me with the same question:  “When am I going to get out of here?”  On one hand, I know there is no reasoning with her, yet I find I cannot resist asking “Where would you go, Mom?”  She only mumbles some variation of “I don’t know – anywhere but here.”  I realize this is her emotions asking the question, not logic.  It is tied in with the statement she often makes that “nobody comes to see me here.”  She means that none of her old friends come to see her.  Something in her inner self still wants to connect to the memories, yet she now lacks the threads in her mind to do that.”

Its one thing to read what experts on the disease say, but it has far more impact when somebody you know who is also going through trials writes about it.  Jim’s reply:

This paragraph is very a very accurate description of people suffering from dementia and I have seen it in my wife and mother.  My wife will sometimes ask me "when am I going to take her home" when she is sitting in her own living room that has been her own living room for twenty years.  I too believe it has more to do with disconnected memories than physical location.  Its sad to watch but a classic symptom.  Gets worse at the end of the day when she is "sundowning" (the actual name of a symptom).  And you are right that it is the emotions asking the question not logic.

At the other end of the friendship spectrum is the wisdom of someone I have just gotten to know.  He’s a regular reader of this silly blog.  Though he lives in the western United States, he is Vietnamese.  We had a chance to meet face to face in April during our trip to Huê.  I’ll call him Sam.

Back on July 1st, as part of a post about my mother, I wrote:

But - - true confessions - - -  I do find myself a bit depressed on occasion . . .
Maybe – just maybe – its because I have seen my own future, and I don’t like it.

Sam wrote back to me:

The last sentence could be as well as mine and billion of others’ confession too, since it’s the utmost truth of our being as a human. For some reason, I’ve felt long time ago, that it’s God’s call for me to console and comfort the living, especially the elderly, to prepare for them the next journey of their spiritual eternal life.  Of course, you’re just a few years older than I am, so anh Doug is not the “elderly” yet, that title is belongs to our parents, but as anh Doug’ve said “have seen my own future”  and so do I. Even Jesus was shaken in the garden before his  death and prayed to our Father to take the bitter cup (of death) away, but still - he carried out the  Father’s will. Each time I read this, it gave me more strength and full of love.

Finally, there is this blessing – from my mother.  In the past few weeks, I have discovered she likes to “rough house.”  You know what I mean – the kind of things kids do when they’re bored.  They poke at each other, swatting away just to break the monotony.  From what I understand, as the mind dwindles, the soul likes physical touching.

And so this blessing – my mother in unreserved laughter as we rough house.

Thanx to the MGB for the photo.

A Day in the Life

This is not a drill!  This is not a dry run.  This is for real.

The Mystery Guest Blogger has gone back to work, and I am now officially a house-husband.  If any of my male readers with an overdose of testosterone think this is unmanly of me, I look on it as pay back. I worked for four years when she stopped working, so now its her turn.  (Of course, the real truth is that she is a Registered Nurse and can get a good paying job much easier than I can.)

One of the consequences of my new-found position of “house-husband”  is that I am now trusted with sharp instruments.  I don’t know if I am allowed to use knives because the MGB has a fear of starving, or if she thinks I have become rational enough in recent years to warrant such trust.  At any rate, the meals are not exactly haute cuisine, but neither of us has been sick either.

Yet.

I’ve never been much of a television watcher.  The MGB believes that if there was a problem with our reception and all our TV showed was CNN or The Weather Channel, I probably wouldn’t know anything was broken.  What’s frightening is that I now actually run to the living room to watch “Good Eats” on The Food Network.  Would you believe I actually have my very own three ring binder of recipes?  As I write this, I just returned from the grocery store.  I’ve found that the meal planning is the most difficult part of avoiding starvation.

But, as the MGB can attest, I am very much a rookie when it comes to cooking.  I usually start preparation at 4:00 PM so as to have dinner ready by 7.  Why?  Because it takes me so long to figure things out.  A couple of days ago, we were fixing chicken paprikash together and she told me to “do that while the onions are sautéing.”   I knew better.  Whatever it was she told me do “while the onions are sautéing” actually took me about thirty minutes to do – and by that time, the onions would have been crispy critters.

Now – about that pot roast for Wednesday.  If I could just figure out what a “chuck” is, I’d buy one.

Chow Time

My mother has an excellent appetite – so much so that I tease her about being hungry all the time.  However, I did wonder if her Alzheimer’s might inhibit her ability to feed herself.  During some of the darker times in the recent past, she couldn’t distinguish a knife from a fork.  Recently, I arrived at the nursing home at lunch time.  I stood behind her for awhile – she didn’t know I was there until I made my presence known.

I watched as the Certified Nursing Assistant served her lunch.  Mom scolded the aide for cutting her meat with a curt “I’ll cut it myself.”  And – sure enough, she did.  I have an idea this has happened before as the aide didn’t bat an eye, but I also noticed the aide cast a glance towards Mom as she cut her meat.

(As always, click on each photo to see a larger version.)

I think the bib is a fairly new thing – I had noticed food stains on her clothes before, and I assume the staff thought it was time for a bib.  She not only doesn’t resist the bib, but when it fell down off her shoulders, asked me to put it back on her.  She did a good job of  polishing off most of the Swiss steak (with mushroom gravy), scalloped potatoes, and spinach, then enjoyed her dessert of banana pudding. 

The dining room is a wholesome place.  Mom sits at the same table for every meal – not because the staff seats her there but because that’s where she is used to going.  She walks to every meal herself with only a reminder from a staff member.  There is some social interaction at the table with some of the other residents, but its not what most of us would call “stimulating conversation.”  The lady you see in the center of this picture if Mom’s roommate, though I doubt either know each other’s name.  The roommate is still very upset that there is somebody else in “her” house.

I visited at lunch time another time too.  It was hard to stifle a giggle listening to her long and loud complaint that she has “been here for hours.”  She just clucked away as if her time was being robbed by inefficient people who were causing her to be late for a meeting to decide the fate of the world.

But, the dear reader will also understand I didn’t have the courage to differ with her.  She is, after all, Mom.

Made the Big Time

Yeah – the Big Time.

One of my photos was published in the newspaper –

Front page!
Above the fold!
Even in color!

But wait – there’s more!  On page 5 was another picture – plus the story I wrote.

Okay – okay – maybe not the “Big Time.”  More people will read page 13 of Section D of the New York Times than the local weekly paper here, but it’s a start, eh? 

I’ve had high school sports photos of mine published in the Progress-Times weekly newspaper   since March, and it’s a lot of fun.  As the Mystery Guest Blogger says, it keeps me off the streets and out of the bars.

Now – I wonder how I can get published in the National Geographic.

The Birthday Girl

She turned 91 Sunday.  I had mentioned it to her all week long, and I think there was an element of anticipation in her.  She was looking forward to something, even if she didn’t know exactly what was so special.  It was only a matter of a few months ago that she told everybody she was 100, yet today the concept of “birthday” and “age 91” is a bit difficult to grasp.

When the Mystery Guest Blogger and I came in the front door of the nursing home, one of the staff members told us there had been a mini-celebration of her birthday as part of the residents’ daily activities, but Mom was expecting more.  We were “more” I suppose, and that is good.

Its not a birthday without flowers, presents, and cake.  We brought the whole shebang in with us – even sang “Happy Birthday” to her, and she was all smiles.  Frankly, she was at the sharpest I had seen her in a long time.  She wolfed down a large portion of rich chocolate cake – and smiled when we teased her about spoiling her appetite for dinner.

(As always, be sure to click on the photos to see a larger version.) 

Like a kid, she dove into opening her presents, but some things don’t change.  I remember as a kid that she would chide me to be careful opening presents to be sure I didn’t tear the paper, then she would fold it neatly so she could use it again.  She isn’t quite that neat today, but she still folded the wrapping paper after the gift was opened.  She “oooohd” and “ahhhhd” appropriately as she examined her new treasures, just as she loved the flowers her daughter sent. 

Some days Mom can read, and other days she can’t – that seems to be related to whether she is having a good day or a bad day.  Today was a good day as she read the cards that had been mailed to her.  The MGB and I brought only a few gifts and cards for her – the rest came from her other children.

But the capper was her chance to talk to each of her kids.  She did well – her mind was sharp and she talked easily, though I did  a little prompting before each call so she could remember her children’s names.  But once she had the name in her mind, she did very well from there.

In case you are wondering why she is in bed, that just seems to be the place she prefers.  Its not that she in “in” bed – she is there usually fully clothed with no covers on, watching television.  There are two chairs in her room (including the rocking chair from her home), but she prefers the bed.  She enjoys looking out the front window, watching people come in and out of the building.

At other times, I have written about the sadness associated with Alzheimer’s.  Her birthday was an oasis of fun in the middle of all the sadness.  Happy birthday, Mom.

Toad Chokin’ Rain

A week and a half ago, I wrote that we went to the beach on a very rainy day.  Maybe it had something to do with that, or maybe the Weather Spirits are having some weird fun, but we’re still having a lot of rain here in deep South Texas.

No – we’re not in as bad shape as Oklahoma, Kansas, or north Texas  – we have no rivers overflowing (yet), but still . . . there’s been a lot of rain.

(As always, be sure to click on a photo to see a larger version.)

The thunder overhead is making me wonder if I should turn off the computer, but, I feel lucky tonight, so I’ll keep on writing.

These folks weren’t quite as stupid as you might think.  They got caught on an expressway frontage road with no way to escape the high water.  The pickup trucks didn’t have as much trouble as the cars, and this fellow drove through deep water to get up into a parking lot where there was a lot less water.

Well – maybe this guy was stupid.  He could have pulled into the same parking lot I was sitting in, but chose to go into deep water instead – even after the saw the other vehicles partly submerged.  A bit after I took this photo, the police closed off the frontage road.

Deep south Texas is flat – as flat as a table top.  Though the streets are built to drain water away as best as possible, the fact is that its hard for water to flow away when the land is flat.  Almost every intersection had a lot of water in it.

While I was inserting photos into this post, I saw this photo.  I just can’t resist doing a little comparison between Huê and McAllen.  Rain is rain, but the traffic in the two cities deal with it a lot differently.

The Mom Report

Its been a month since my last Mom Report.  On May 27th, she had just moved to a new nursing home and the changes were rough for her.  Things seem to have settled down a bit – but that only means the disease continues to progress.

I visit almost every day.  There is no doubt she enjoys the visits – and yes, she knows who I am even if she doesn’t always remember my name.  Deep inside, she knows I am her son, that I love her, and that she is cared for.  If she can’t quite fill in the details, so what?

There is a stark simplicity to the visits.  In a strange way, I have grown used to the simplicity and even grown to embrace it.  I don’t have to try and come up with some new and brilliant conversation starter – I can talk about the same things each day.  Most visits consist of entering her room, encouraging her to go for a walk, sitting in the lobby watching people come and go, acting silly while we swat each others hands, then a goodbye, during which I call her a “little short thing”, and she laughs.  Simple.  Easy.

I’ve spent a goodly part of my adult life resisting being categorized.  I’ve resisted being categorized as a “typical” Vietnam veteran, meaning someone who is rather pathetic and a loser.  I’ve resisted the stereotype of being a police officer as being a brute who loves to intimidate others.  I’ve resisted the stereotype of a Christian being a Bible thumper.  The categorization I am resisting now is that of being the “typical” adult child of an Alzheimer’s victim.

Of course, I’m not really sure I know what that stereotype is.   Generally, it seems as though I am supposed to be an emotional basket case – maybe wracked with guilt at having warehoused my mother in a nursing home.  Our local daily newspaper did a story  on the topic (in fact, they wrote the story at the very same nursing home my mother is in).  The two adult children interviewed for the story speak about the difficulty in making the decision to put a parent in a home.  But, I feel no such guilt.

I just don’t.  I didn’t work at it, nor do I think I am denying it.  I just don’t feel guilty.  Nor do I mean to say that other people shouldn’t feel guilty.  I don’t.

Yes, I am bothered sometimes by talking with my mother with the knowledge that she once possessed a feared intellect.  I used to laugh when I described her as my intellectual foil – the one who never gave me a break.  She was smart, she used her brains, and she wanted her son to lead his life the same way.  She taught me to cherish good books, and to think critically.  Today, I dare not ask her what she ate for lunch – only if she enjoyed it.  That takes the pressure off having to remember anything.  The fact remains that my visits are a touch of sadness woven into the fabric of each day.

I enjoy taking photographs of her.  I’m not so much interested in recording a sampling of her life so we siblings have something to peruse after her death, but rather an attempt to describe her condition in a deeper sense than just using words.

But - - true confessions - - -

I do find myself a bit depressed on occasion.  Maybe its the fact that the visits are a time sponge.  Maybe it’s the fact that there is other work involved in caring for her, such as paying her bills. Maybe it’s the unspoken dread of the inevitable phone call.

Maybe – just maybe – its because I have seen my own future, and I don’t like it.

But then again, maybe the title of this posting is incorrect.  Maybe it should be “The Son of Mom Report.”