Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones

We had coffee and some 'Berliner' (kind of jelly doughnuts) with mother today.



She has had - and still has - "bad dreams" since a couple of days, didn't want to go out (summer-like weather today) ... but at least she forget all about that in the home's café :wink:

Walter, your Mom doesn't have gray hair at all, and she looks good
for 80+ . Too bad her mind is leaving her.

She's totally gray/white - coulored her hair since ... I don't know.
(And she's more "90-" than "80+" )

good for her , i say !
(my italian barber has offered me "grecian formula" for the last several years . i've so far resisted - but who knows what i'll be doing next year ?)
hbg

Walter, your Mum looks great and whatever gets her through! I love Berliners, I used to treat myself to them when I lived in Germany.

Walter--

Your holiday is coming.

********

I'm having a very lazy weekend. Given Mr. Noddy's ailments and my ailments I'm feeling quite emotionally pummeled. I don't have the energy right now for physical diversion, but I can escape into trashy novels--and I'm doing so.

Hey Noddy

Just checking in to see how the "trashy novel mountain" is growing. How are you feeling?


Oh - I liked that Grace Under Pressure Department phrase - we are GUPD gals but that's good 'eh! We're all learning how to live with the "geysers" - but it sure is good to blow off steam once in a while.

I hope Mr Noddy geyser is behaving himself at the moment.

Thinking of you - take good care.

Keep holding Noddy.

Mental decline
Noddy - Keep on holding it together, a day at a time...

What's your situation now? Home health aides, Visiting Nurse or what? You need as much help as you can put in place. And if good thoughts can help, you know there are a lot of those winging your way every day via A2K.

BTW, re "trashy novels", I have two novels to recommend, short though not trashy. One is "Last Night at the Lobster" by Stewart O'Nan, and the other is "The Uncommon Reader" by Alan Bennet (he wrote the play "The Madness of King George III"). Neither of them takes a lot of mental effort and both are really delightful.

Walter - A vacation? A REAL two-week vacation? Enjoy every minute!

Re: Mental decline


I DO hope so!

We've been out (in the town, where we live) with mother today: shopping some summer outfits.
Went really more than pretty well; additionally, she enjoyed her large ice cream in a street afterwards.
But was totally exhausted afterwards.

And since we were "doing in clothing" - we got her a lot of summer stuff from home, too. (Now, she's could vest some more ladies with the latest haute couture in seize 'S'.)

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Got few summer clothes for aunt as well (she doesn't have a lot). Will hand it over tomorrow morning .... when ("if") we go to the dentist's. (It done in practice, with assistance of a practicing anaesthetist.

I wonder how that'll come out ...

Thanks for the kind thoughts.

Monday was a wonderful day--almost "normal". Yesterday was pretty grim and complicated by Mr. Noddy's thoughtlessness (footnoted to explain why no other course of action was open it him).

This morning I weighed 97 pounds. The first half of my four ounces of breakfast salmon was absolutely delicious. I should not have forced myself to eat the third and fourth ounce.

My appointment with the Gastric People is tomorrow morning. I'm looking forward to handing over some of the responsibility for the poltergeist who has moved into my lower abdomen.

It's excellent that you had a wonderful day(s), Noddy!
But sad that it was followed by another of those grim days.

I'm not sure what to say about your weight - but I do hope that the appointment tomorrow will prove satisfactory. For all.

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Date at the dentist's was okay.

Thinking of you, Noddy.

Walter--

Crohn's Disease has many and varied symptoms. One of these symptoms is an inability to absorb nutrients and calories from food for long or short times. At 97 pounds, I'm at least 5 pounds underweight.

I'm glad you got your geriatric summer wardrobes refurbished. How did your aunt's dental appointment go?

Oh dear, still more character-building? Hey, Universe, Noddy's character is built like a brick house, OK? Lay off.

Glad you're seeing Gastric Folk tomorrow, hope they have some Answers.

re my aunt:
we didn't tell her about it (again), just went out "for a walk".

It was done in 15 minutes, including waiting.

I've been there this afternoon, again: she didn't talk with me .... until I wanted to go: "Why are you going."

Seems all okay.

Mental Decline & Dependency/Coping With Aging Loved Ones
Every day is a day, Noddy, so fill each one up with all the trashy novels you can lay your hands on, eat whatever you can manage, and try not to sweat the tomorrows too much. (Easy to say, of course, but words are sometimes hard to find).

Yesterday I went with our friend Neil to order a marker for Bob's grave. I had planned on a simple bronze marker, but the monument people said bronze is hideously expensive - about three times the price of good granite because of the demand for copper, and is long outlasted by granite which is easier for the cemetery to maintain anyway, So I chose plain granite, simple, and appropriate, which is how Bob would have wanted; the smallest that the cemetery's regulations permit. It will be ready in 6-8 weeks, and then there will be an "unveiling" which is a very simple event, just a few prayers.

Osso--

Thank you.

Soz--

Thanks for troubling heaven with your bootless cries. I'm a little too weary to do my best yammering for myself.

Walter--

Was this all the dental work your aunt needed?

TomKitten--

I understand that because of the scrap yard price of bronze, bronze memorials are frequently swiped. Besides the symbolism of stone is much more satisfactory.

****

In spite of my reminders about the changes in the recycling rules, Mr. Noddy put the garbage out the old fashioned way. He has an appointment this afternoon with his kidney man--perhaps he was thinking hard about his kidneys?

Well, actually she needs some dozen new teeth - she's only three or maybe four.

But: the dentist, the psychiatrist and the internist (her family doctor) came to the opinion that a new denture would be counterproductive to health, a stress factor ending perhaps in a disaster.
And since all the three had that opinion, since she herself actually likes the momentarily situation of getting "liquid food", since neither the health insurance nor the nursing care insurance oppose that - they all should do whatever makes them happy. :wink:

Mental Decline


What very sensible medical people you are dealing with, Walter! How often it seems that medical people go the other direction - if teeth are missing, they must be replaced; if a patient is still alive, however miminally, keep her going regardless, and so on. Keeping someone happy with her condition is key. I wish more medical people would accept this.

Keeping my fingers crossed, Noddy!

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Got a letter from the court today re mother.

In short: a legal and moral victory over my parents daughter. (Her letter wasn't mentioned at all, though. Only that I've to report to the court any year - "due to the family situation". (Same as with my aunt, but usually between parents<>children it's up to three years.)


So only missing point now is the value of the personal belongings (the court clerk needs that for deciding the court's fee): a lot of ['real']antiques, "old stuff", paintings, edgings, furniture, other art, thousands of slides, more than 2,000 books ...
It's definitely not worth the insurance sum, but the fee actually wouldn't hurt mother at all.
On the other hand, my sister could use that estimate as background for what she gets as heir - and then claim (if that sum isn't reaches at e.g. an auction) that I must have taken parts ... ("Horses have puked in front of a drugstore, holding a prescription in their hoof" we say here :wink: )

I'll ask her tomorrow.
Today to the barber's again - tomorrow taking her to a 'senior's boutique', buying some 'handy' (= easy to get in and easy to close/open) summer trousers.