AGING PARENTS

It's a ways yet for me -- my folks are in their sixties and in good health still. But my dad is starting to slow down a touch -- kinda good that he's retired, officially -- and more than once I've wondered a bit about what the not-so-far-away-now future will mean.

Certainly I salute your patience with this all -- I'm not sure how I would react.

The patience is key, but it's really hard to keep it up. Can other siblings/capable family members come to visit to spell you for a bit?

If by 'graying', you mean 'balding', then yes, to some extent I am such a one.

At the moment the brunt of the responsibility has fallen to an older sister who lives much closer to my 81 year old mother than myself or my other siblings. She takes on the 'dutiful child' role, while the rest of us come in and put in a burst of assistance whenever the tide of troubles rises above a certain level, so my sister doesn't burn out.

My father died two years ago. During his last year and during the year immediately following his death, I drove the 75 mile round trip to see the two of them (later, just my mother) very often. There was so much that needed tending to.

My father, too, suffered from severe short term memory loss toward the end of his life, reducing him to a small shadow of the man he had been - because he became literally unable to encompass any activity that could not be completed within the two minutes or so that he was able to form and hold a single thought. He, too, was inclined to minimize or dismiss the severity of his problems. I finally realized that he understood very well the extent of his diminished capacity, but facing it was too great a threat to his sense of worth and happiness. Denial was how he held depression at bay.

Now that he has passed on, my mother has grasped the nettle of losing her companion and mainstay of 57 years with surprising firmness. I spent 8 months visiting her almost weekly during that transition. It helped a lot, I think, to have family members to talk to and grieve with, and help her form plans and carry them out.

I wish both you and your mother the best, but, as you no doubt know in your bones, even the best possible outcomes available to you and her are still damned difficult to embrace. The cost of love can be pretty steep sometimes, and the bills fall due with increasing frequency at this time. Good luck.

I just moved all of my (paternal) grandfather's stuff in with his, uh, 'friend' because he couldn't afford his truck payment and townhome rent and medicines and everything else at once. And since he's still part of the family cosntruction business I spend much of my day ensuring that he isn't overworking (or just screwing things up - he gets frustrated easily that his muscles and joints don't work like they used to).

My grandmother (maternal) has Alzheimer's (early-mid stage), and drove me kind of nuts before it was full-blown. Neither of my uncles, none of my ten cousins and my brother don't do shit. Anything not handled by my parents falls directly to me. The extent of the agonies here (some her fault, some not, mostly involving my useless uncles and their brood) is too long to list.

With both I'm always on-call to fix something or help out or figure out why the TV isn't working or why this bill didn't get paid. I can't say no, even when I want to, and the occasional feeling of being put-upon hasn't helped my relationship with my grandmother. (And, theoretically, I'd like to move north when my finances are sorted and my degree is finished - but I can't knowing that I'd leave anyone in the lurch.)

Only 20 years 'til my parents are in their late-70s...

It's a tricky situation as for whatever reason, mostly a weird sort of shame or embarassment, she is loathe to talk about her problems with my Dad or myself, or anyone really, my sister whom she is very close to can sometimes get a little discussion about it.

It's terrible because she grieves for her feet as things worsen, quite slowly, though the condition may one day lead to her being in a wheelchair. She grieves yet she never seems to get past the denial stage, she can't accept or discuss the problem.

So she will often cry kind of uncontrollably, it's awful to hear, but worse is that she won't allow you to help or even talk, my Dad sometimes just says to me "I have no idea what to do", which is also quite weird, it all feels kind of dysfunctional.

So I relate to the "denial" thing you mention Beth, my mother is much younger and this is a problem. I can only imagine what she'd think if she knew I was discussing this on a messageboard...I just wish I had some productive advice rather than just empathy...

Good luck Beth, and everyone else posting here. I've been really lucky so far, but the day isn't far off -- my mother will be 74 next month and my dad is 77. But my dad, Jesus, he heals quicker than Wolverine. He planted his garden this year, went in for quintuple bypass surgery, and was recovered enough to bring in the harvest himself.

The child unable to believe that the parent has lost power?

My mother (89) has had alzheimers for about 8 years. Her body has served her well, but her brain slowly went to bits shortly after my stepfather died. Unable to manage her house anymore, my brother and I moved her to an independent living center that guaranteed access to its nursing home if and when the time came. It came about two years after the move. I live 3 hours away, but my brother lives within walking distance and visits her several times a week and we included her in family events until about a year ago when she just became unable to feel comfortable outside of her nursing home environment.

She's now almost totally deaf and has never used a hearing aid which makes any serious communication impossible. I visited last week and found her doing a crossword puzzle. We did the puzzle together for a while, but her mind kept drifting all over the place.

My wife's father (82) has Parkinson's and fell down the stairs recently. Compression fractures of three vertebrae was the diagnosis. Surgeons injected some kind of cement in his spine and he was getting about with a walker after only a few days. My wife plans to care for him in his home in the near future. He suffers from dimentia, too, but is on so many meds that I think that may be a contributing factor. This guy was an infantryman in world war II, a radio and tv personality and has had a very good life. He is loved by many people and has had countless visitors at the hospital. He is very frail now and has told me, and I'm sure others, that he knows his life is at the very end.

These are two of the coolest people that I have ever known, both with precious little time left. One knows it and one doesn't seem to. They are both receiving the best care available, but y'know sometimes that don't mean a thing. My thoughts are with all of you.

This. Heavy shit, huh?

yep

In darker moments, I look at my folks now (esp. my Pa who is 75 this week) and feel like the wave of their good years is just on the cusp of breaking. Not really ready for it, not at all.

My mothers good years are most definitely past. This has become very evident as she's staying with me for a couple days and it's totally heart breaking. Also, there's some memory loss/disorientation stuff happening that's scaring the crap out of me.

so heavy i can't really talk about it

Yeah. I started trying to talk about it with someone at work and couldn't really hold myself together. This is really tough. :/

Good luck Erica... luckily my parents are still mostly 'together' and my dad's problems are a result of his alcoholism rather than real mental deterioration, but it's still awful to have to deal with this stuff.

yeah i'm going through this too. all the best, E x

and everyone else :/

This took up took up over 10 years of my life (from 1994 - 2008 in fact). Both my parents got ill in their early to mid-seventies, and both had dementia and a pretty terrible end in a nursing home in their late seventies.

I spend most of this period visiting at weekends, and other times - and in that rather mad space where you seem cut off from the concerns of normal life, unable to relax for a minute, and living a kind of nightmare existence that no-one else around you realises. (Nothing like the horrific life of a full-time career - but bad enough).

The only thing you can say about it is that it passes, and you realise that what felt like an endless enduring period was in the end just another temporary era.

Siblings help -- if you're lucky.

I'm an only child. This is the only time I've ever wished I had siblings tbh.

Thanks, guys. Things are OK and we had a really nice evening. She's staying with me until she flys back to FL on Wed. Ian - alcoholism is a factor here too in addition to a lot of other things. I guess I just really feel for my dad and am really saddened by realizing that it's only going to get worse from here and I'm afraid it's going to do so pretty quickly.

I feel for you, ENBB. I'm an only child too; my mom's 84 this year but still drives, takes care of her own stuff, is still sharp as ever (dad died in 2000). But I dread so deeply the coming of the signs. I can't even model it in my mind. Hugs.

my mom's 84 this year but still drives, takes care of her own stuff, is still sharp as ever

That's fantastic, good for her! Mine is 74 this year but she's an old 74 and hasn't driven in at least 5 years. Anyway, like I said, we had a lovely day today. It's just a really difficult process to watch and I worry about what will happen down the line.

pullin for you E - us only children gotta stick together. this terrifies me too - and is a big part of what motivates me to do what I do now - but hopefully there will be a good, long time before anything really happens.

You know you have my support as another only, but I'm too much of a weakling to talk about this stuff
In earnest
In public
Beyond this

But you know where to find me offboard if you wanna talk!!

i will say that my mom is pretty damn sharp in mind, but whenever i visit, i insist on driving EVERYWHERE. her driving scares the bejesus out of me, don't understand how she hasn't had her license taken away. and it only gets worse as she gets older.

yeah driving is often the "tipping point" of aging parents decline. really hard to give up.

my heart goes out to enbb,la lechera, ian and everybody facing this. all my middle-aged friends have ailing/aging parents right now, you guys are confronting it early like i did. these days my father in law is essentially dying, i was going to post this on the fuck cancer thread but it fits here too. he's 84, until a couple years ago was robust mentally and physically, the picture of how you'd hope to age. so it's shocking to see his rapid decline not just bodily but he's become very confused and withdrawn, barely a shell of his former self. chemotherapy is keeping him alive but at what cost? we just had our annual visit and my wife, her mom (who's a rock) and her two siblings are stressed out and struggling. not much else to say. but it's good to talk about it, in fact it's important for your - our - own mental health to let it out.

My dad had the driving decision taken out of his hands as he went blind in one eye at the start of the year, but he was getting to be quite a dangerous driver before than (he's 80) so we're really quite glad about it.

even though she knows she needs them, my mom refuses to get glasses because she thinks that they make her face look weird
she lives in fear of having her driver's license taken away from her because she is a very independent person and likes her alone time
:(

My mother-in-law has had quite serious dementia for the past six years or so. This started when she was in her early-to-mid 60s - one of the first events that really got us thinking that something was up was when she drove her car the wrong way round a large roundabout into oncoming traffic. At the moment she lives in a nursing home as is pretty much just a shell of her former self - she doesn't even know who her children are any more when they come to visit, but thankfully she does still appreciate the company which at least is one small positive that you can take away. Totally depressing though, so for anyone out there who is dealing with this right now, I can totally sympathise.

My mom, turning 80 next month, has been fighting the decline, bless her. Joined the hospital wellness center, has been selling and giving away decades' worth of my dad's accumulated packratcrap, still gets out there and mows her own lawn, etc. Next week she, my daughter and probably my wife are heading off to Biloxi to the casinos. But the decline is there...bad knees, bad feet, diabetes... My sympathies to everyone having a tough go of it these days.

My mum (68) has been dealing with my gran (88) for a long time; my gran has alzheimers. About six months ago she finally got her moved to a nursing home in the same town (200 miles from where my gran was before). Only now is she at the point where she can see any humour in the situation, which results in Facebook messages like this from my mum:

Today's visit to your gran!

G. (after a bit of mumbling and searching for words) Are you my daughter?

Me. Yes.

Gr. Are you really my daughter?

Me. Yes.

Gr. I can't remember. Am I your mother?

Me. Yes.

Gr. Where did we live?

So I started giving her a potted history of our life.

GR. How do you know you're my daughter?

A bit later on....

Gr, Haven't I got nice legs!

She thought it was quite funny that she couldn't remember things; seemed very happy and settled. The staff bore this out.

My mom and grandma live together with mom's "girlfriend", and I moved to be closer to them and my terminally ill Dad (they were separated). Grandma is sharp as a tack and well into her 90s. Of course I love Grandma, but mom is making seeing Grandma a miserable experience.

Like I said elsewhere she is getting into that old people thing of being passive-aggressive. I know I called her a "fascist" I didn't mean it, it's that her emotional state is kind of fascist.

It's her stupid family. She wasn't raised by her own mother, she was raised by her abusive and creepy grandmother and aunt and it really shows in how she deals with stuff like death and adult responsibilities.

If anything difficult happens in her life - death or whatever - she just escapes mentally. Her mom's family had a lot of money and stuff was handled for her all her life!! She doesn't understand why other people don't have it as easy. Because of her family, she feels she has a lot of power and I can't ever suspect her of having mental problems EVER.

My mom gave up driving last month. Kinda shocked, but pleased that she came to the decision herself. She's 88 and is in reasonably good health for her age - despite the piles of crap that she's hoarded (ongoing issue for her entire life). Sister is gone for several weeks so I'm on mom duty... it's extra frustrating because her hearing is so bad that she leaves the televisions on with the sound maxed-out and she can't hear the phone.

Vexing problem of the moment... Her sense of time and calendar dates are slipping, so making plans becomes a comedy of errors ("stop by this week" *does so* "what are you doing here, I said to come by next week") ad infinitum ad nauseum

wow, that sounds like a serious challenge. i'm sorry. i have this thread bookmarked and it popped up just as my parents arrived yesterday for their first visit in 3 years. they are aging. my mom is in great shape (in spite of some health issues this year) but my dad keeps looking and acting less like himself, which is thrown into stark relief when we look at old pictures together.

hmph.

I am going to visit my parents this weekend and I think that I'm actually going to have to ask them point blank what they want me to do for them if they ever get dementia or need care etc. My mom is in bad shape and her memory is already slipping and my biggest fear is that my dad dies first (though this is prob unlikely you never know) and I'm left to make decisions for/about her. I want to know now and while I know she's not going to want to talk about this I'm going to make them because I'm an only child and they have no other relatives here to help and I can't handle the stress and weight of this alone without knowing what they want.

Just to share my own personal woes on this thread --

My father nearly died last week; he collapsed on his way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. The ambulance came and got him to a hospital and it turned out he had two massive ulcers in his stomach and large intestine. This comes about 6 weeks after a surgery to biopsy a growth in his spinal cord.

Yesterday morning, recovering from the emergency surgery to stitch up the ulcers, he had a major heart attack and is in the hospital with a breathing tube, heavily sedated etc. On our way up to Rhode Island yesterday our van broke down on the Triboro Bridge -- shocks gave out and started to rub against the front tires, causing lots of burnt rubber smoke. We got it towed back to your neighborhood (luckily we weren't halfway through connecticut) and it's going to be repaired this afternoon, $800 later. I'm incredibly worried about my dad. The doctors are not sure how to treat him; they can't give him the usual blood thinners and medications because of the ulcers and recent surgery. I wish so badly I was there. And now I'm worried about the drive up, even though the car is getting fixed, I have a strong distrust of automobiles... Just don't know what to do. It's bad when my aunt is telling me to go straight to the hospital and bring his 'paperwork' (read: living will.)

So scared :\

I'm sorry to hear all of that.

me too. suerte, ian.

I feel all of this, my mom is in the situation of both some obvious cognitive decline (slow but very apparent to the whole family) and constant talking about things/repeating things. Sometimes she'll preface it with, "I know I've told you this, but ..." and then repeat the thing anyway, and sometimes she maybe doesn't remember that she has already said the thing multiple times.

A thread I thought I never had to post to again, or at least not so soon. *deep breath*

Mom and I have had a strained relationship since Dad died. He really was the glue keeping us together. Since she has less money coming in now, my brother and I have basically been covering her for a year. She has a lot of debt from a litany of bad decisions and can't file for bankruptcy until 2026 because...she already did in 2018. This would be her third. My brother and I give mom an allowance

But also...she keeps secrets from me and dumps them on me. For example, telling me today that she never paid the full rent on the 1st because she was saving to pay all of her bills. We got an eviction notice today. Now I basically have to pay $639 that I wasn't expecting to.

I just dropped about the same for new tires. I went on a vacation that i never would have had i known. I am filing for bankruptcy tomorrow, signing the paperwork to start the process. And it's my birthday tomorrow. Happy birthday to me.

Mom has suggested my brother and I "take over her finances". I simply mentally couldn't do it - I'm dealing with my own bankruptcy and budgeting for myself has set my OCD/anxiety into overdrive. Not to mention the three years as a caretaker taking on literally everything left me fucked up after the smoke cleared. But also...there's nothing to manage. She makes way less than her bills each month because of foolish debt she took on.

I can't afford to pay both halves of our rent even with bankruptcy. And of course i don't know how secure my job is after the last round of layoffs.

Mom sent me all this as a text while I was sleeping. Getting ready to have the convo now

Have you read a book called (completely unironically) Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents? It might help w coping.

I can’t recommend it enough tbh.

I have not but I appreciate the recommendation as I can use any toolbox I can find.

i can already hear mom semi-performatively wailing in the other room in anticipation of our convo. after this convo, sadly, that's not likely to dissipate.

Ugh so sorry Neando. I have some concerns with my parents' finances but that's mostly a matter of whether or not they outlive their resources. My dad has it calculated out to I think an estimated five years ...

I can give second-hand testimonial to the book LL recommended, someone close to me has also found it tremendously insightful in dealing with their parents.

well, the conversation went about like I thought it would, other than I held firm. mom wailed like a toddler and I actually do believe she is remorseful but I told her point blank how it made me feel without yelling or raising my voice, including making decisions for us and then hiding them from me and told her that wasn't ok.

and my bro and I are taking over her finances. I resisted for so long because of the reasons I stated above, but also I was grieving dad heavily and could not handle the stress....but it's been over a year and I'm in a better (albeit not good) place to do it plus at least now it'll be the devil I know.

expected myself to be emotional afterwards but all I feel is gut punched and weightless again. the last 4 years have had more pain and stress than the previous 20 combined for me.

I forgave her and told her I accepted her apology.

Like the wonderful person you are.

Mom woke me up at 4 am crying and saying she'd called 911 and her chest hurt. She had an Ozempic injection days ago and has been complaining of GI issues since.

She was crying and saying oh god no, please no, her BP was 180/something...

They gave her aspirin and nitroglycerin and she described her symptoms more like extreme indigestion/reflux.

Early tests were good but Troponin test came up in the lowest of the borderline range so they're running again to completely rule out a heart attack.

Went home to rest, going back now

Latest troponin test was in normal range. She has diabetes which sometimes causes temporary elevated levels.

She's in short stay unit now as a precaution

I'm sorry you and she are going through this today - hope you can get some respite from all the worries.

The memory care where my mother lives can tell when she's got another UTI going by her wandering the halls with a random possession (shoe, book, toothbrush) telling everyone she's leaving. I'm glad it's a dependable sign.

My mom's memory care today and let me know that the Trazadone they put her on is not working and she cries all the time and makes telegraph noises. She is on Trazodone because Nuedexa, the drug that did work for her is not covered by insurance and costs $7,000/month. When they took her off it, she lost all of her speech. Now they are thinking of making a case to put her back on the drug that worked but ... why? She has no speech any more. The drug can't bring that back.

(Good luck to Jaq and Neanderthal)

Is the Trazadone for sleep or mood? I take it for former.

Ugh stories like that make me hate the health care system even more soda

Jaq not happy to hear she frequently has UTIs but glad there's a tell to identify them.

I wish I had known more about UTIs effect on cognition when dad was having them.

Mom is basically able to be discharged and is just staying overnight as a precaution

I am taking an out of town trip tomorrow and that will be my respite

Mom's Alzheimer's causes some kind of has pseudobulbar affective disorder. She starts manically laughing or crying for hours at a time, but it's evidently neurologically-rooted and not psychological. It's only after she starts emoting that she looks for an environmental cause to blame (too cold, too hot, the wrong lunch companion). Nuedexta stablized the neurological affects, which is its primary use, but insurance only covers it for a short period after a stroke. And mom hasn't had a stroke. So the weird health provider subbed in Trazodone which only makes her sleepy and easier to calm down after she's had a PBA episode.

gotcha - yeah I take Trazodone as a sleep aid so makes sense that it makes her sleepy. I'm sorry to hear she lost her speech and that the Trazodone isn't working as well as the Nuedexta. :(

waiting on discharge. Protonix have helped mom out a lot. a little nervous cos I'm going out of town tonight but gonna make sure mom fills her Protonix Rx and plus unlike dad she's able of calling 911 herself if something happens. Baphomet forbid

Gah. Finally vented at my dad today after spending all year getting them moved down here, finding them a rental house, helping them find a place to buy, taking my mom to the gym 3-4 times a week, inviting them out to do things ... and he's just been nonstop fucking miserable the entire time, just fucking pissing and moaning about how much he hates everything. Which I anticipated, because that's pretty much how he is. But this whole move was because Mom really wanted to live near family — and had been telling him that for a decade-plus, which he just totally waved away and ignored — and her evident tho still mild cognitive issues finally made him give in. But "giving in" in his mind is just fucking bitching about it nonstop and being totally miserable. I finally had it this morning and vented a few years (decades?) worth of stuff at him about how selfish he is and how he's being a big fucking baby and they should just go back where they came from because I don't give a fuck anymore.

Sigh. None of which is likely to change anything except he'll sulk and won't talk to me for months, which honestly is OK by me. It's sad to me because objectively they're both in relatively good health for 78 and 80, they may well live several more years and they could have a nice little life in the house they just bought, with me and my sister living nearby, but my dad has made clear he doesn't give a shit about being near family and is just going to be mad at us the rest of his life because for one time he actually had to do something he didn't want to do. Grrrr. (Still venting, obviously.)

Oy, sorry team. All of that sounds very very familiar.

my father is watching way too much Gunsmoke.

sorry to hear about that tipsy, I know how hard it is to work that hard and have your buttons pushed as a reward to where you can't bottle the resentment anymore. it's exhausting...glad you stood your ground

Thanks. The venting was necessary for sure. Definitely making resolutions to try to not be a gigantic pain in the ass to my kids when I'm older. Or at least to try not to be miserable about it.

Their attitudes! JFC. Def gotta stand up to the negativity.

watching way too much Gunsmoke

it's the only way he's got to go on a date with Kitty

Festus is a dweeb.

I’m a Quint Asper fella myself

I don’t keep in regular contact with one of BFFs from high school but I was catching up with her recently and found out her mum has early onset Alzheimer’s. Just devastating news. Her mum has had a pretty tough life. She had my friend at 15 and the dad fucked off permanently. When she was in her late 30s, after being single for years, she married a coworker who seemed like a stable and good guy. They had a daughter with Down Syndrome and quite a lot of developmental and behavioral issues. He couldn’t handle it so he completely fucked off out of their lives. So she’s been full time carer for her youngest daughter for 20+ years and never had another relationship. She and her daughter have moved in with friend and her family (husband and two teenagers). Rach is a nurse and worked for years in retirement homes so she knows what’s in store, and I just feel fucking terrible for her and her family.

If you friend hasn't read it, the book "The 36 Hour Day" is a great place to start learning about the progression of Alzheimer's and Alzheimer's caregiving. IMHO Alzheimer's is, yes, really awful. But it's also funny, with bits of really gorgeous humanity and beauty sprinkled throughout. Alzheimer's care groups are super fun. And ... I love and appreciate my mom now at late stage / stage 7 / severe Alzheimer's as much as I did when she had MCI. I will be relieved and devastated when she passes, but I think there is still joy to be had in my little visits with her. I am proud to help her, even if I am exhausted by the responsibility.

If my experience is a guide, your friend Rach will appreciate nothing more than little tokens letting her know that you remember her. Not just once, but every few months. As a caregiver I have lost most of my friends and social life, I am not "fun," and I struggle to keep up with my professional responsibilities in addition to mom-care. Knowing that a few people still remember me, and care about me, means more than anything.

Reading this back: sorry if you weren't looking for advice, I didn't mean to presume you needed anything. I just (compulsively) want people to know that it's okay. Apologies if I overstepped.

Wow that's a rough situation. Sympathies to Rach and her family.

soda, if you don't mind me asking: For your mom, what was the progression of MCI to Alzheimers? We're about a year into the MCI diagnosis and while I can see ongoing changes it hasn't been particularly dramatic. Her doctor told us only a minority of MCI cases presage Alzheimers, so I'm hopeful but I don't really know how quickly that shift happens.

Her doctor gave a “lies, damn lies, and statistics” answer. Her likelihood of progression to dementia is higher than those without MCI and the risk increases every year. I would err on the side of planning for progression vs stability.

I don’t post itt much because Aging Parents is my profession as a social worker. I do it every day as my full time job and also as a person with Aging Parents. I’m not sure where to have boundaries with “empathetic ILX person” vs “hai let me give advice on your Aging Parents” stuff. So I lurk but mostly don’t post itt because I want to give myself space from my day job and also not be captain save-an-adult-child

But I care a lot about this stuff so

my mom has been stuck reading harry potter over and over again for like five years now. (tbf, at least she no longer claims that there are new ones she's just getting to.) a year ago, when everything was set up to move her closer to me and her sister, she shut it down because she was in love with a fellow memory-care denizen and didn't want to leave her friends.

that was all fine, because she was happy with it/her situation. but now, suddenly, she is not happy. (possibly to do with bf joe? who knows?) and seems to expect that her sister and i once again find a place for her elsewhere. an elsewhere where she knows no one and has no friends

i'm not so great at telling her No, but i suppose it's fine if she won't remember

this whole process, however, has been predicated on her being happy or at least content with her situation (which i think is honestly good!) but if she becomes unhappy then what can i do?

Appreciate the perspective, quincie! Her mother had progressive dementia of a non-Alzheimers variety, so that's kind of what we are most prepared for, although I'm sure heredity only goes so far in these things.

Wow that's a rough situation. Sympathies to Rach and her family.

soda, if you don't mind me asking: For your mom, what was the progression of MCI to Alzheimers? We're about a year into the MCI diagnosis and while I can see ongoing changes it hasn't been particularly dramatic. Her doctor told us only a minority of MCI cases presage Alzheimers, so I'm hopeful but I don't really know how quickly that shift happens.

― Blitz Primary (tipsy mothra), Monday, November 25, 2024 9:33 PM (yesterday)

Mom took about 24 months from diagnosis of MCI to becoming mostly dependent on us to maintain her care. However, we only got her the MCI diagnosis well after symptoms were apparent. We decided to move her to a full time care facility when she could no longer bathe herself, or bathe easily even with our assistance. We became concerned, too, about her wandering out of the house. Once, she put on a bathing suit and wanted to go swimming in the duckpond in front of our house.

A lot of her progression happened out of our sight during COVID. Since she stayed in the house she'd lived in for 40 years, she was able to mask a lot of symptoms ... and with my father's assistance. When I was cleaning the house to sell it, I found a stack of shopping lists she'd written from 2019 - 2021. They each repeated almost the same items verbatim (bananas, yogurt, Progresso soup, crackers, green grapes, ground beef) but were a good chart of her cognitive decline. Early lists might include a repeated item or abandoned word (Progresso so ) and later lists degenerated to delirious text (bnasnas, krsa RITZ) and unrecognizable handwriting.

It took the "proof" of these lists to convince me of the severity of her change. Mom has a high baseline. She is highly educated, agreeable, has great social language, and much of her personality has stayed intact until fairly late in the game. Her intelligence and humor 'tricked' at least neurologist and a speech pathologist, who evaluated her as far more capable than we knew she was. However, during the general practitioner's screener/Montreal/MMSE cognitive exam the questions (what year is it? where are you?) showed her to be functioning at a fairly low level.

I wondered who was the customer for things like Halloween shower curtains and Thanksgiving napkins. It's my mother.

Whenever she gets the Aldi flyer she looks at the seasonal household crap. I keep having to tell her "We HAVE that/We don't NEED that."

Our first joint Thanksgiving has been an exercise in frustration. I have a number of nice things that have served well at past Thanksgivings. But she talks about wanting to get new things (tablecloth, napkins, dishes) and foods I don't normally serve (cranberry sauce, rolls). She's affluent enough to buy these things without thinking twice. But the old house got so cluttered because she would buy things and neither use them nor put them away. I DON'T want to repeat that at this new address.

Re that book people keep talking about

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/10/style/adult-children-of-emotionally-immature-parents.html?unlocked_article_code=1.gk4.2sFT.xHl4y0b3RSqK&smid=url-share

(gift link so u can read it)

Maria was doing a record show on Sunday so I was going to be at the store by myself and I asked my dad if he wanted to come to the store with me or stay home and I figured he would want to stay home because he almost always does on Sunday. I said to him why don't you call Pam and have her come over and watch football with you. She likes football. Pam is his sister. She moved to my town to be close to my dad. She had previously lived near him in New York state. My dad is 89 and Pam is 80-something. The baby sister. He immediately says: "No". And I say why not she'd probably like it if you called her and invited her over. He pauses and sighs and says: "We have a long history."

Wow.

xp thanks LL!

Scott, I can see how that might be a marker---or just candor. Or both. Like, I eventually noticed, and was soon pleased to see, that my Mom was reading mags while going, "Mm-hmm, mm-hmm" during dutiful phone calls to a blissfully repetitive mouth-of--the-South. Not sure if that was a marker or not, though she was, years later, diagnosed with dementia, though high-functioning for quite a while (also some "masking," although if you asked her, she'd tell you, just had to ask the right question).

Reminded of this while recently reading Rodney Crowell's funky memoir, Chinaberry Sidewalks: his mother told him a very graphic story about her horrible father and long-suffering big brothers having biggest confrontation yet way back there, nearly a shoot-out. Rodney says he could never see anything at all of this in Grandpa and uncles' interactions, and indeed, every subsequent mention of the former has him doing the right thing as parent etc., and even, eventually, providing cogent commentary on origins of the subsidized substandard subdivision (near Houston Shipping Canal) where Rodney spent most of his formative years. But what she's claiming seems to be true of his (even worse, if so) paternal great-grandfather, so maybe this kind of possibly shared family backstory, however verifiable, is part of his part-crazy parents' certainly backstory-laden affinity---?
Also wondering about my early relationships with younger sibs, what that might have been like for them, what they still remember, even while we get along fine most of the time---but I haven't brought it up----

Jaq not happy to hear she frequently has UTIs but glad there's a tell to identify them.

I wish I had known more about UTIs effect on cognition when dad was having them.

in men it's usually something else causing the UTI, like prostate issues or kidney stones

Or tumors in the bladder … which is what my dad had surgery for