Tag: Alzheimer’s

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My new nickname?

I don’t remember exactly when my mother went into the nursing home, but it is pushing ten years that she has been in one or the other.  Her health is reasonable, but she suffers from dementia, Alzheimer’s to be specific.  This September she will be ninety.  The first half of her time in nursing homes she knew I was someone, but for the last several years she has had no clue who I am.

I do not visit her near as often as I should or would like to.  I live in a suburb of St. Louis, and she is in Continue reading “My new nickname?”

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I may be in a heap of trouble…

The following article popped up in my Google news feed: Nose Picking Could Increase Risk for Alzheimer’s and Dementia

The Carr side of my family is famous for faces endowed with distinctive sniffers.  I am no exception. My son used to refer to my proboscis as a B-52 Booger Bomber, for all I know he may still do so.

A well functioning airplane maintenance program includes keeping the aircraft clean, outside AND in. Being the son of aerospace technical representative, I have internalized his maxims about maintaining your tools and machines.  My rather cavernous airship definitely requires regular internal attention.  Respecting my father’s wise words I am more than prone to provide regular cleaning services… discreetly, I hope. And now I learn I may be pushing myself towards the dementia ward. YIKES.

And so it goes.

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A Lighter Side of Alzheimer’s???

     Alzheimer’s is a horrible disease.  That one sentence by itself could be a blog article.  Alzheimer’s robs a person of the possibility of living life fully, in many cases joyfully, and frequently with dignity. Alzheimer’s robs the family of the person they knew and loved. It is a horrible way to fade out of this existence. It is a horrible disease to watch a loved one go through.

However, Alzheimer’s can have its lighter side, and perhaps something you might very loosely term a “silver lining”.  In another blog article, Hanging from the back bumper, I accused Saturday Night Live of modeling their character The Church Lady after my mother.  Obviously a bit of hyperbole, Continue reading “A Lighter Side of Alzheimer’s???”

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Revisionist History – Juanita Style       

My mother has been in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s for a while now.  Part of the process of the move was selling her house and dividing up her stuff.  From that time period I have a couple of cardboard boxes that I have never really gone through.  In an attempt to organize the closet in my man cave, I pulled out those two boxes.  In one I found my baby book.  I was the first child of a 50s’ mother who was married at 17 and had her first child when she was 18.  I don’t really know if she continued the tradition of a baby book with my 4 siblings, but I suspect not.  The last time I remember looking at this book I must have been in 4th grade.

What grabbed my attention this time around as well as in the 4th grade was the section recording the mother’s  and father’s first words on seeing the baby. For my mother’s first words, what is now written in the book  is, “My goodness, he looks like a Negro”.  These are not the words that I Continue reading “Revisionist History – Juanita Style       “

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Something, something, something…

I met Robin’s father, Theodore – Ted, but I did not know him.  When I started dating Robin in 2008 he had already been in a nursing home for many years due to Alzheimer’s.  It had been years since he had recognized anyone, even his wife.  I am not sure how long we had been dating before Robin took me by to visit her father, but a while.  Robin did not visit her father, Ted, much in this period as her mother was still alive and primary caregiver.   As alluded to elsewhere Robin’s relationship with her mother was “complicated”, and this put visiting her father in the same realm.

Ted’s grandfather had been the village blacksmith back in Mother Russia.  Continue reading “Something, something, something…”

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Wisdom from the Alzheimer’s ward

My mother who cannot remember my name; my mother who thinks her mother is still alive which would make my grandmother 119 years old;  my mother who was surprised when I reminded her that she was once married; my mother who wanted to know what restaurant we were at as the staff at her nursing home was putting out dinner… Sung the whole chorus to this song 5 or 6 times in the hour I was there.  I really found it a piece of wisdom from a surprising source.  Of course, the song does have an “eat, drink, and do Mary for tomorrow we die” theme to it.   But sometimes that is not bad advice.

I have included the YouTube video of a Guy Lombardo rendition of the song below.

Just for the record my mother has  been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.  She is in a lock-in memory management unit at The Baptist Village in Oklahoma.