Original Post
2-2014
That’s my life these days. Ulcers which are exclusively mine and Illusions which are rampant in my four walls.
We shall begin with the latter. Illusions..ya know when you are a kid
and you watch the magic show and you know in your mind it’s an
illusion, but in your heart you deeply want it to be real to believe for
just a moment that magic is possible. I now live in the land of
illusion and I despise it. My dear husband is diabetic and has
neuropayhy in his feet. And if anyone knows anything about it its all an
illusion. Pain when there isn’t any no feeling most of the time etc.
It’s torture. If governments could figure out how to give this to
terrorists I’m sure it would work better than any torture they dish out
at Gitmo these days. It dawned on me the other night when he was in
serious pain and I was applying the wraps to his feet and he says to me
that his feet are freezing. They were sweating.
MORE TO COME
This is his sad illusion. He his always in pain and its not real something you can see pain its all inside. Having two sons with a disease that most of their pain isn't something you can see...I have had some experience with this. This however isn't something he is used to.
Another illusion......Gramma....her whole world seems to be an illusion. She seems to think there is some little man that jumps out of my husband and messes with the heater. She sees things that aren't there. She talks to people no one sees and blames it on old age she talks to herself. Its getting worse. She also has issues with any sort of sound that comes from places she cannot see. Not so much see but if she isn't making the noise or isn't turning the tv up then its too loud for her even tho she can't seem to hear a damn thing. If we turn the TV up so we can hear it its too loud....if we are in teh kitchen cleaning it up or cooking its too loud. If we are all in the living room laughing or talking its too loud. She is a very angry person. Its sad really because she also believes many times that we are talking about her or laughing at her. Which we are not doing.
Now do the ulcers make sense? Those are mine. Its getting better this week well I shall say its feels okay so far this week however its only Tuesday.
As for Gramma I have started a behaviour and food journal. Its only been a few days but there is defiantly a pattern. She has things she does daily all day every day. I also have tried to give her some space although I do invite her to sit with us at supper every night maybe 1 out of 10 nights she will. The ONLY time she sits up is when she is eating. It makes me sad to see this. I don't quite understand it. We got her a chair she wanted she won't sit in it. We try to make an open table so she can sit and talk with everyone when we are all milling around the house etc she won't. She is very withdrawn but gets mad when we don't include her even tho she refuses 99% of the time. I won't stop inviting her but it gets disheartening.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Draft that got interupeted
Original Post
12-13 to 1-14
Its Sunday morning in our home, which doesn’t mean much to us. Nothing is different other than we pick who gets the tv when for football! LOL
Gram has been in a bad mood for days. We started the week with her letting me hold onto her nerve pills because she is taking too many and they are causing her to be loopy and to talk to her about it is impossible!!!! She has a reason for EVERYTHING even when the reason makes ZERO sense! The VERY next day she has a serious anxiety attack. Throwing up and freaking out to the point she had me call and ambulance because she was having a heart attack. Which she wasn’t!
UPDATE TO THIS POST....
She had an anxiety attack because she couldn't see the pill bottle anymore. She is totally dependent on them even tho I have tons of articles stating that they are making her memory issues worse. She doesn't seem to care and the doc thinks its okay since its a mild sedative. SHE TAKES THEM THE MOMENT she wakes up! HELLO!
12-13 to 1-14
Its Sunday morning in our home, which doesn’t mean much to us. Nothing is different other than we pick who gets the tv when for football! LOL
Gram has been in a bad mood for days. We started the week with her letting me hold onto her nerve pills because she is taking too many and they are causing her to be loopy and to talk to her about it is impossible!!!! She has a reason for EVERYTHING even when the reason makes ZERO sense! The VERY next day she has a serious anxiety attack. Throwing up and freaking out to the point she had me call and ambulance because she was having a heart attack. Which she wasn’t!
UPDATE TO THIS POST....
She had an anxiety attack because she couldn't see the pill bottle anymore. She is totally dependent on them even tho I have tons of articles stating that they are making her memory issues worse. She doesn't seem to care and the doc thinks its okay since its a mild sedative. SHE TAKES THEM THE MOMENT she wakes up! HELLO!
Paint
Original post
Nov 2013
So today we and by we I mean me…are repainting her living room because she didn’t like the white I painted first she likes a second white! So white it is…again!!!!!!
UPDATE TO THIS POST as of 2-2014
I have repainted her living room once more since then to another shade of white and repainted her bedroom THREE times finally settling on a lilac color. Im sure she will change her mind again when I paint another room!
Nov 2013
So today we and by we I mean me…are repainting her living room because she didn’t like the white I painted first she likes a second white! So white it is…again!!!!!!
UPDATE TO THIS POST as of 2-2014
I have repainted her living room once more since then to another shade of white and repainted her bedroom THREE times finally settling on a lilac color. Im sure she will change her mind again when I paint another room!
Intro......
First off let me explain the name....
Land-Mine.....A land mine is an explosive device, concealed under or on the ground designed to destroy enemy targets as they pass over the device.
Memory-Mine.....Its the same thing as a land mine only in the brain. Its clinical diagnosis is dementia and or Alzheimers.
Now with that being said I have decided to move this blog from one service (which I won't name but they suck) to this one which doesn't suck....so some of these are old ie THIS ONE lol
ORIGINAL POST Oct 2013
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hello All
I am a 30 something woman with three mostly grown children (none of them live at home) married and my Grandmother and sister live with me. Well we all live together. My grandmother is 76 years old and has alzheimers/dementia. Since they can’t totally diagnose either without dissecting the brain we won’t know for sure for hopefully is a very long time. This blog is about my life with her. Maybe a few other things thrown in but mostly about her.
I was looking for a way to cope with what is happening with her and decided this was cheaper than a shrink and less damaging than a drinking problem. (less headaches) Her doc suggested I find time daily to care for myself just as I care for her. So here goes.
Background, she is my mothers mother. My mother was 17 when she had me and like most 17 year olds was not prepared to deal with a child. I was the first grandchild born, although not by much, 9 months I believe. But that put me in that special 1st position. For those of you who have been there you know what that means. All the good and all the bad that comes with it. My grandmother was there my entire life, not always hands on but always there. When I was 4 I thought M&M’s were only produced in her purse by the Kmart elves. When I was 7 my step father died and we moved 2000 miles to live with her. She was the one that was there to be my “human” on those nights when I was scared and alone because even tho my mother had gotten older, she wasn’t in a position to deal with me. My mother once told someone how terrified she was of me because I seemed to have been born smarter and wiser than she. I am not sure about that I did learn a lot from my mom, mostly what not to do but hey its a lesson. About 10 years ago my mother died suddenly. This set off a chain reaction in our family that is being felt daily.
My grandmother had never had her wits totally about her. Even tho she raised 5 kids on her own and did an amazing job 3 out of 5 went to college and became professionals. One went to the military where he was a lifer until an accident cut that short. And then there was my mom, who was content following in her mothers footsteps being the worker bee. Nothing wrong with that. I worked years with both my mother and grandmother and learned a lot about work ethic from them both. I realized long ago they were “mexican workers” before the mexican workers took over! When I was 5 my grandmother had a nervous breakdown. Many factors were at work there. Years of an abusive husband whom she divorced eons before I was born but never got over the hate. Working too many hours to be the mom she got to see her sisters be, having met a wonderful man he moved them that said 2000 miles away to a new town new surroundings and I have to say it was a town where unless you were born there or moved there as a child, being accepted just wasn’t going to happen easy! And Gram wasn’t one to go out and make friends. From this point on she has been on some sort of medication. Paxil mostly which I don’t believe is doing her much good anymore. She also takes a nerve pill that is actually for insomnia! But you can’t tell her that.Now couple that with my mothers sudden death, then two years later her youngest died and it was a long illness which took it toll on her. Two years after that her oldest son died. Sudden just like my mother and that was the beginning of the end. She snapped and chose to give up on life at that point.
Fast forward a year….she and I live in the same area of the world, not by chance I planned it that way. I got to see her about once a month but did talk to her on a regular basis. I showed up at her apartment around her birthday to bring her flowers and gifts. And there was warning sign ONE….she had had a stoke, palsey incident. She swore to me she went to the doc…I stayed a while and came back a few days later to a much better Grams so I figured things were fine. Things were NOT fine. She never did see anyone about this. This was in July, I spoke with her numerous times feeling as if something was off but not sure what. I called her one weekend and didn’t get an answer I always left a message and she always returned it. Didn’t this time so I called back the next morning to my surprise the voice on the other end is crying saying “I need your help!” Boom Im there. End up calling an ambulance only to be told by the paramedic that they had been there already the day before. Get her to ER and the ER doc tells me she had been there 4 times in the last 24 hours. We admit her to find out whats going on. I call the two remaining children and let them know whats happening. It is close to Christmas at this time and we managed to get it all taken care of. She was out of it loopy gone. I got to her apartment and was looking thru her meds and realize she hadn’t been taking any of them. For months she hadn’t taken any of them. We get that all straightened out she hasn’t a clue whats going on and is stuck on taking that nerve pill over and over and over daily. Had to take them away from her. So a few weeks go by and they release her. My husband and I get her home get her set up she is fine. I call the next am…she is out of it again and crying. I get there and decided with the help of my aunt and uncle she is coming to stay with me at least until she can maintain on her own. That was almost three years ago!!!!!!
More to come but now I have to get her breakfast and get her day started!
Land-Mine.....A land mine is an explosive device, concealed under or on the ground designed to destroy enemy targets as they pass over the device.
Memory-Mine.....Its the same thing as a land mine only in the brain. Its clinical diagnosis is dementia and or Alzheimers.
Now with that being said I have decided to move this blog from one service (which I won't name but they suck) to this one which doesn't suck....so some of these are old ie THIS ONE lol
ORIGINAL POST Oct 2013
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hello All
I am a 30 something woman with three mostly grown children (none of them live at home) married and my Grandmother and sister live with me. Well we all live together. My grandmother is 76 years old and has alzheimers/dementia. Since they can’t totally diagnose either without dissecting the brain we won’t know for sure for hopefully is a very long time. This blog is about my life with her. Maybe a few other things thrown in but mostly about her.
I was looking for a way to cope with what is happening with her and decided this was cheaper than a shrink and less damaging than a drinking problem. (less headaches) Her doc suggested I find time daily to care for myself just as I care for her. So here goes.
Background, she is my mothers mother. My mother was 17 when she had me and like most 17 year olds was not prepared to deal with a child. I was the first grandchild born, although not by much, 9 months I believe. But that put me in that special 1st position. For those of you who have been there you know what that means. All the good and all the bad that comes with it. My grandmother was there my entire life, not always hands on but always there. When I was 4 I thought M&M’s were only produced in her purse by the Kmart elves. When I was 7 my step father died and we moved 2000 miles to live with her. She was the one that was there to be my “human” on those nights when I was scared and alone because even tho my mother had gotten older, she wasn’t in a position to deal with me. My mother once told someone how terrified she was of me because I seemed to have been born smarter and wiser than she. I am not sure about that I did learn a lot from my mom, mostly what not to do but hey its a lesson. About 10 years ago my mother died suddenly. This set off a chain reaction in our family that is being felt daily.
My grandmother had never had her wits totally about her. Even tho she raised 5 kids on her own and did an amazing job 3 out of 5 went to college and became professionals. One went to the military where he was a lifer until an accident cut that short. And then there was my mom, who was content following in her mothers footsteps being the worker bee. Nothing wrong with that. I worked years with both my mother and grandmother and learned a lot about work ethic from them both. I realized long ago they were “mexican workers” before the mexican workers took over! When I was 5 my grandmother had a nervous breakdown. Many factors were at work there. Years of an abusive husband whom she divorced eons before I was born but never got over the hate. Working too many hours to be the mom she got to see her sisters be, having met a wonderful man he moved them that said 2000 miles away to a new town new surroundings and I have to say it was a town where unless you were born there or moved there as a child, being accepted just wasn’t going to happen easy! And Gram wasn’t one to go out and make friends. From this point on she has been on some sort of medication. Paxil mostly which I don’t believe is doing her much good anymore. She also takes a nerve pill that is actually for insomnia! But you can’t tell her that.Now couple that with my mothers sudden death, then two years later her youngest died and it was a long illness which took it toll on her. Two years after that her oldest son died. Sudden just like my mother and that was the beginning of the end. She snapped and chose to give up on life at that point.
Fast forward a year….she and I live in the same area of the world, not by chance I planned it that way. I got to see her about once a month but did talk to her on a regular basis. I showed up at her apartment around her birthday to bring her flowers and gifts. And there was warning sign ONE….she had had a stoke, palsey incident. She swore to me she went to the doc…I stayed a while and came back a few days later to a much better Grams so I figured things were fine. Things were NOT fine. She never did see anyone about this. This was in July, I spoke with her numerous times feeling as if something was off but not sure what. I called her one weekend and didn’t get an answer I always left a message and she always returned it. Didn’t this time so I called back the next morning to my surprise the voice on the other end is crying saying “I need your help!” Boom Im there. End up calling an ambulance only to be told by the paramedic that they had been there already the day before. Get her to ER and the ER doc tells me she had been there 4 times in the last 24 hours. We admit her to find out whats going on. I call the two remaining children and let them know whats happening. It is close to Christmas at this time and we managed to get it all taken care of. She was out of it loopy gone. I got to her apartment and was looking thru her meds and realize she hadn’t been taking any of them. For months she hadn’t taken any of them. We get that all straightened out she hasn’t a clue whats going on and is stuck on taking that nerve pill over and over and over daily. Had to take them away from her. So a few weeks go by and they release her. My husband and I get her home get her set up she is fine. I call the next am…she is out of it again and crying. I get there and decided with the help of my aunt and uncle she is coming to stay with me at least until she can maintain on her own. That was almost three years ago!!!!!!
More to come but now I have to get her breakfast and get her day started!
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