Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
Drat! I wrote a nice long note to Noddy, and Walter, and apparently hit Delete instead of Submit. What a drag. So all is to do again - if I can remember what I said.

The gist was that even with enlargements Bob couldn't really see the people in the photos; macular degeneration kills the ability to see what's directly in front of you, like people's faces when they're standing right in front of you - the opposite of tunnel vision.

With special corrective lenses some people can learn to use their peripheral vision effectively, but not everyone can do it. Bob was one of the unlucky ones - all he did was develop a headache, with no improvement in vision. But with a magnifier (into which I just put new batteries) he can sometimes just make out some of the people in a general sort of way, if he knows what/who he's looking at. It's more the idea of having them there with him, than being something he can enjoy really seeing.

Walter - you've got a lot of hats to wear, and juggling them is bound to be difficult. However, it's good that your aunt is responding - her condition sounds like the (physical) diagnosis Bob had was he was transferred to Clark House - "failure to thrive". I had always thought of that as referring to small children, not adults, but obviously not so. Perhaps a spot of loneliness now, will make things easier for your mother when your aunt comes home. And finally, though emphatically NOT leastly, I feel for Mrs Walter with her migraines. Migraines are no fun at all. On the other hand, it's great that she's recuperating well from the surgery.

I have tremendous sympathy for Walter, a pal I usually natter at, but I'll desist for a bit.

I'll just say it. Walter, and Mrs. Walter, need peace from taking care of these ladies - and I could argue with that if the ladies would be better accomodated in continuing circumstances... but I don't see that as true, from here.

I'm not your huggiest person, but I've warm regards for Walter and Mrs. Hinteler.

While I was away (visiting son and d-i-l for a week), Mr. Noddy reported coughing up black phlegm. He assumed this was "dust" of some sort. Yesterday he coughed up a bit--a very small bit--of bright arterial blood.

I insisted that he call his Internist. He has an appointment this morning. Obviously the problem can be anything from terminal cancer to another inconvenient manifestation of the power of his blood thinners.

He is frightened. I'm not tempermentally suited to being frightened until I have specific details to channel my adrenaline rush.


A bright spot here is that he's delighted to be under petticoat supervision again. He was sure that living without my memory would be a liberating, joyous time. It wasn't.

Oh dear.

Hope you get some solid information soon -- and that the information is encouraging.

That doesn't sound too good ... says the son of a pulmonologist.

But my hope is: what soz said already above.

Noddy-

All we can ever do is take things one day at a time. Hope that the news is hopeful.

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
Oh Noddy - frightened or not, neither of you need this. I just hope answers are provided really soon.

Thanks, all, for the support.

No, he doesn't want me to go along to his appointment.

(Long story here. When I was not driving because of health problems, he sat in on my medical appointments and insisted on monopolizing my doctors' time, talking about his health and doings rather than my health. Now I refuse to allow him to kibbitz.)

I'm prepared for a somewhat garbled view of what the doctor said, but I'm used to sorting out garbled views.

The ward physician from the psychiatric hospital phoned here today - after my aunt's internist gave her our number.
Mrs Walter told her that I'd already trie to give infos about my aunt to various persons on the ward ...
But she informed her, and Mrs psychiatrist was very pleased to have those infos now.

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
Walter - It's weird, isn't it, how bureaucracy works - or not...Our experience has been that more people than you can count come round in hospitals, all taking down identical answers to identical questions (to prevent errors and inconsistencies, they say) and here you are, trying your best to provide essential info, and all to no avail. Thank goodness you got it through to the right person eventually.

Actually, I (we) didn't get through to her ... she phoned us at home.


Well, I'd thought that I wouldn't prevend them from inventing the wheel again ...

Dylan lives! So does Ecclesiastes.

Mental decline


This is what's kept me from getting angry at God, so far - though I can get pretty mad at lesser beings.

Good news. Mr. Noddy has been diagnosed with "a touch of pneumonia".

He's grumpy that a whole day was "wasted on tests" and doesn't seem to realize that the results of the tests could have been much, much worse.

This is his second bout with pneumonia since his pneumonia shot--we've got some exotic variants of respiratory microbes here in the mountains.

I expect we'll interpret "restricted activity" and "take it easy" in divergent ways.

That's really not too bad.

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
I'm really glad about Mr Noddy's medical news, even if your interpretations of the doctor's advice are widely divergent...

Thanks for the update, Noddy! A touch of pneumonia sounds handle-able. I hope Mr. Noddy follows doctor's orders, though.

Thanks all.

Cancer on top of long term diabetes (with eye, nerve and kidney problems), multi-infract dementia, Parkinson's and gout would have been a bit much.

Still, you play the cards your dealt.

Well, well ...

I've been quite a long time at mother's this evening/night (usually just about half an hour: making some evening snacks, closing the blinds, doors ...) since ...

It's been a marvellous day, again, today here. So I thought, we could go (drive) to the cemetery after lunch. Mrs Walter joined me, since I'd made (deepfrozen/prepared) cooked beef ("Tafelspitz"), which she's allowed to eat.

It took mother quite a long time to go from the car to father's tomb and back; Mrs Walter didn't force her to make breaks - we were happy, if she got tired.
What she was, it seemed.


So I drove as usual about half past six there again.
I was more than surprised to see the (outdoor) walker not on the usual place, and my mother seemed to have only just gone in the tv-room, in her best "sunday clothes" ...
She had walked to the church, she said, but there had been a notice that the evening mass was in the other parish church ...
It seemed unbelievable ... all the steps, taking the walking down some more steps, too, walking some hundred yards then ...

But there were no pills - the nurse usually had been there more than an hour ago.

So I phoned at first Mrs Walter (to ventilate), than the nurse.
She (the nurse) had been there, but thought, I had taken mother out for a walk in the evening sun, and wanted to come later.

I explained.

So she came, dressed mother for bed (although mother stayed in the tv), so she could go out gain, and we arranged that mother stays from tomorrow onwards in the short term care.

Hopefully.

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
Omigod, Walter, life can certainly get complicated! But thank goodness your mother didn't run into any trouble in her stroll.

Sounds like Mrs Walter is doing really well.