Update on Mom

One of the functions of this blog is that it, sometimes, serves as a journal and as the place where I document developments in my life.

I'll do a little of both of those now.

Yesterday everyone in the family, except me, met with the home's personal care social worker and its personal care head nurse to discuss mom. (At the store, we are dealing with a temporary human resource shortage and I worked on my day off.)

It's becoming clear that mom is declining, sliding further into Alzheimer's.

She's not mean yet, though she seems to be heading in that direction. She certainly is becoming obnoxious and increasingly argumentative. She's becoming easily frustrated and she's becoming difficult for staff.

Physically, she's in decent shape. She's still gets around well using a cane. And, that itself is an issue.

And, her memory is shot.

Family and staff discussed various options for optimizing mom's qualify of life.

Evie said that one future option discussed for the first time with mom is placing her in what used to be called a lock down unit.

Mom still is very mobile and her memory is bad. She often doesn't know where she is. And, as she moves around in the home, sometimes forgets where she's going or how to reach her destination.

She is the sort of person who, if she was able to go outside the building, could become lost.

There is a very busy road immediately in front of the home, close to a very popular shopping mall and heavy traffic.

We suspect that, at this point, if she was locked down, she would not handle it well. She will be extremely unhappy and very difficult to be around. Evie has said that, these days, mom's like a two-year old. My brother says that she's like a four-year old bully. There's something to that.

But, her safety has to be a primary concern.

Dad died from complications of dementia less than two years ago. Losing a parent is, of course, always traumatic. Watching a parent die from dementia is difficult in a very stressful way. Seeing it twice, in rapid succession...?

Mom's not at death's door but it feels like the spiral has begun.