I have been away from this blog for quite a while. I have continued to work on my writing though despite some difficult challenges. I was preoccupied during this period trying to deal with my mom's dementia. Below is a brief summary of this difficult journey for me and my family.
In October of 2018, my mom passed away after a fairly rapid decline from dementia over an eleven month period. However, the signs of the disease had surfaced long before that period . It started when she was having problems taking her medications. She used to keep a forensic list of her daily doses with the exact times taken down to the minute. That process developed holes in it back in 2017 to a point that I was in regular arguments with her about the need to take her meds properly. She kept telling me to mind my own business and accusing me of implying she was stupid. She refused to accept the fact that this was happening to her.
My mom was still driving in 2017, which was a major concern for my family. She was living in a senior apartment by herself, but needed help with getting groceries and managing her bills. One afternoon her heart stopped beating for thirteen seconds and she felt faint and called 911. This incident lead to her getting a pacemaker shortly thereafter. She wasn't allowed to drive during the recovery and that's when things got really ugly. She had lost a lot of her independence and was super upset about it. She had to rely on family and friends for rides and that wasn't enough. Her anger often bubbled up and made it very difficult for me and my sister. My dad died in 2016 so he wasn't around to help. The dementia had progressed to a point where she lost her license to drive permanently.
We ended up placing my mom in a local nursing home and on October 25, 2018, she passed away. At the end, she stopped eating and talking almost completely and didn't have any idea where she was. This whole process was extremely sad and taxing on us. We felt so helpless as we watched our mom rapidly deteriorate. We did have a good support system of family and friends that helped during this period though.
Ken
