Tag Archive | confused

Caring For An Elderly Parent: Groundhog Day!

May16

Blog - Pic 92“This is supposed to be the time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”

I was visiting with mom one Sunday and she asked if my husband and I were going out somewhere for work. I mentioned it was Sunday and we don’t go anywhere for business on the weekends. I’m not sure why, but for some reason that moment stuck with her.

Now it’s Tuesday – I stopped in to see Mom and I seemed to startle her when I walked in the back door. She looked at me and said, “I’m surprised to see you since you told me you were having an “alone day” since it’s Sunday.” First of all, I told her it was Tuesday and that I’ve never wanted an “alone day” ever. After arguing about that for some time, we figured out that Mom was either dreaming or hallucinating – I’m going with the second one.

Now it’s Wednesday – my husband and I are in a business meeting and I see that Mom has called through a few times. So I stepped out of the meeting to call her and make sure she was OK. I mentioned we were in a meeting and she said, “But it’s Sunday, you said you don’t go anywhere on Sundays.”

Now it’s Thursday – my husband and I are traveling and Mom calls to see if I’m home. I let her know that we are on the road and will be back later that evening. Then she says to me, “But it’s Sunday, you said you never go anywhere on Sundays.”  WOW – I wonder why she is stuck on Sunday? 

What I Learned: How fragile the mind can be… 🙁

Note: My post title references the movie Groundhog Day, 1993, where Bill Murray relives the same day over and over.

Caring For An Elderly Parent: Tired of Being Tired

May9

Blog - Pic 33“This is supposed to be the time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”

The weekend is here and this is the time my husband and I really enjoy our time together. We relax, we watch movies, we stay up late. Wrong night to stay up late! Mom called at 4 am sounding confused and disoriented and wanted me to go over and help her. Well I’ve only been in bed for a couple of hours and I’m in one of those dazed states – you know the one, where you’ve been in a deep sleep and then suddenly woken up. I try to help her over the phone so I don’t have to get my tired butt out of bed, but I succumb to her pleas.

So I get over there and Mom is sitting in her kitchen, obviously confused. I asked her if she knew what time it was and she said, “Yes, 4 in the afternoon”. Oh geeze…. I explained the actual time to Mom, asked what was going on and if she was OK. She told me she was hungry but was weak and didn’t feel like making anything. She then asked me to get her a piece of bread. Really? She called me over at 4 am to get her a piece of bread?

Unfortunately, being a little dazed and confused myself, I kinda lost it. I told Mom that it wasn’t right that she calls me at 4 am to get her a piece of bread and that if she needed that kind of assistance she needed to get a caregiver. Dang! That sounded mean.

After I calmed down and got Mom her piece of bread I apologized for “barking” at her. I made her something better to eat and sat with her for a while and then suggested she get some sleep. She did.

Next morning when I stopped over to make sure she was doing OK, she was in a fantastic mood and didn’t even mention our 4 am “chat”. Just as well…

What I Learned: Caring for my ageing parent is difficult at times, but it’s also difficult for Mom.

 

 

Caring For An Elderly Parent: I Wrote It Down

May5

Blog - Pic 90“This is supposed to be the time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”

Here’s a little back history on my mom….  for as long as I can remember, my mom wrote notes for everything. But as she’s been ageing and beginning to lose her memory, she’s been keeping a log of her day to day events. Before she moved here she had sticky notes all around her house reminding her of every day tasks. Since she’s been living with us she hasn’t done the sticky note thing, but she does keep her note pad filled. OK, not a bad idea for remembering things – even I write things down so I don’t forget. But mom writes EVERYTHING down – the time she wakes up, when she goes to the bathroom, when she takes her meds (that’s a good one though), when and what she eats, if she hears noises, what time the lawn people come…. I mean everything!

I stopped in to see Mom when we got home from our busy day and she seemed in such a great mood. She told me she had a wonderful day and wasn’t confused of what day or time it was and everything was ticketyboo! I’m thinking, awesome! This is the way I love to see my mom. So I went in her kitchen to check her medication containers (like I always do) to make sure she had taken what was needed and I noticed that Friday’s pill was missing. Hmmm…. today is Thursday. So I questioned Mom and she said she was sure she did everything right because she wrote it down. I checked her note pad and sure enough she did write it down – unfortunately she also wrote down that today was Friday.

I explained what she had done but she didn’t want to accept the fact that she wrote the wrong day down – she even tried to blame it on her cell phone for saying the wrong day. And even though she was upset and getting angry, I let her know that it was not a big deal – I’d just move the pills around so that everything was placed right again. But that wasn’t good enough for her…. noooo. Now the reason for her writing the wrong day down was because I’m having her use the pill containers which she doesn’t like using. She never had a problem with writing things down before I made her use the containers!

Somehow I knew she was going to blame me.

Note: I got the pill containers to help Mom remember what days to take her meds. It’s also a great way for me to check that she is taking her meds properly – it obviously works for me!

What I Learned: Losing memory can be very hard for some – I know it is for Mom. I’m trying to be understanding.

Caring For An Elderly Parent: Days and Confused

May2

“This is supposed to be the time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”

Today was crazy! Even I was confused. It actually started yesterday – here’s a rundown of tBlog - Pic 88he events:

Yesterday, Mom wanted to go for dinner but my husband and I were not really in the mood for that, so I mentioned to Mom that we’d see how our day went and let her know later. So later, when we got home, I went over to Mom’s to let her know that we would not be doing dinner – she was asleep on her sofa. So I called her name trying to wake her up (she always wants me to wake her up if she’s sleeping when I come in) and she mumbles something. I asked her if she wanted to keep sleeping and she said “yes”.

So a couple hours later I went back over and she was still asleep so I left. Again, a couple hours later I went back and she’s STILL sleeping (yes…. I checked – she was breathing!) So I left her a note that I was there a few times, put the time on the note and mentioned I’d see her tomorrow. I left the note on top of her cell phone so she wouldn’t miss it (the first thing she does when she wakes up is call me), and off I went to bed.

Today was busy for me and my husband – we had some meetings and travelling to do, so we were gone all day. Mom called me while we were on the road wondering if I was OK because I told her I’d be over and we’d maybe go for dinner. I explained to Mom where we were and she was wondering why I hadn’t been over to see her. I asked her if she got my note – she had not. [But I placed it on top of her cell phone – she would have had to move the note to call me…. hmmm].

So I gave her the run down of me stopping by yesterday but she wouldn’t believe me that she slept all that time. For some reason Mom doesn’t want anyone to know that she sleeps a lot – maybe sleeping is a sign of old age and “winding down” for her. So I told her I’d stop in when we got home even though it would be late – she seemed fine with that.

We got home earlier than expected – around 8 PM – and I stopped in to see Mom, even though I was tired from our long day. Mom was so confused about where the days went – she had no idea that she slept most of yesterday away and she wasn’t even sure if it was 8 o’clock in the morning or night. So after a long discussion of explaining what day it was and her arguing with me about sleeping yesterday away, I said my goodnights (there’s always a few because she tries to keep me as long as possible) and left – I think more confused than when I arrived!

What I Learned: My mom doesn’t want to accept the fact that she’s ageing – and I don’t blame her.

 

 

Caring For An Elderly Parent: Grocery Shopping Blues

Apr21

“This is supposed to be the time of my life – the nest is empty; but now Mom needs me.”

Today we did some running around – grocery shopping first. My husband dropped us off thinking we’d be 30 minutes or so – Mom can’t usually last much longer than that. Well I guess that B12 she is taking is really kicking in because she had more energy today than I’ve seen in a long time. She wanted to do every isle and then the deli…. oh no, not the deli! She likes the deli because she can sample things – and usually not like any of Blog - Pic 79it.

Finally she bought some tofu (protein – yay!) and then it was off to the salad bar. Really Mom? It’s not Marie Callender’s.  Then she spots something that looked familiar but she wasn’t quite sure what it was. It kinda looked like a kidney bean only white…. and bigger…. and flatter. So she stands there staring at it for what seemed to be forever, and then she grabbed the serving spoon. I knew exactly what was going to happen next, but before she had the chance I said “I don’t THINK so – that’s just wrong on every level.” I definitely got the evil eye, but she put the spoon down. That would have been embarrassing! Time to go…. next stop, the drug store.

As usual, I was just going to run in, grab her drugs, and run out. But, of course, Mom wanted to run in with me. Well, at 88 years of age there is no “running” in and there is definitely no “quickly” about it. But I complied (reluctantly) and off we went.

I’ll be honest, one of the hardest things having Mom with us is how our life has slowed down when we’re with Mom. My husband and I have so much energy and we love just whipping around places and getting things done. We never spend an hour or two grocery shopping, and  I’m just not ready to slow down. I think most of my stress comes from the waiting – it takes Mom 5 minutes just to slide her butt out of the car!

Later that night, Mom realized that her drugs came with the wrong lids – she needs the lids which are easier to get off. So she decided to call the drug store and let them know. Well, Mom is not the best with technology and the cell phone seems to confuse her more than anything, but she gave it a shot anyway. She dialed the number, but instead of pushing the “talk” button she pushed the “4” button which is right under the talk button and is also the speed dial for our son. Yup! You guessed it….  the phone rang right to CM. He answers and says, “Hi Grandmommy.” Well of course my mom is taken aback and asked, “Is this CVS?” Our son replied, “It’s CM, Grandmommy.”  After a few times back and forth of that, my mom finally said, “CM, what are you doing at CVS?”

Well you can imagine the conversation that came next…. you gotta love it!

What I Learned: I’m not ready to slow down but realize that one day,  I too will. Live it up while you can!