Mom had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's for a few years before we began being concerned. First off, she was never completely clear about how definitive the diagnosis was. The doctor never called her back, she said, so she called the office and spoke with the nurse. Secondly, she seemed to be have more mild memory problems than the kinds of symptoms I associated with Alzheimer's. "You probably do have some type of dementia," I would tell her, "but I don't think it's Alzheimer's." My brother John made her stop driving after he learned about her accident. I wasn't so sure; I'd seen the police report stating it was not her fault. Then we found out about the previous accident she hadn't told us about. A letter from her insurer came saying they were discontinuing her insurance. A friend from church helped her sell the car, and John showed her how to ride a local cab service around town.
Of her 4 children, none of us lived in town. My oldest brother, Paul, lived the closest, just about 20-30 minutes away. John and I each lived 2 hours (in different directions) from Green Bay, and my sister Kathy lived in Seattle. Dad had died 13 years earlier. Pretty soon Jeanne and I were driving up every other weekend to take her shopping, pay her bills, and make meals to put in the freezer. Meals on Wheels delivered her a lunch on the weekdays. Eventually, the siblings agreed that we needed a family meeting to decide what to do, since it was quickly becoming clear that she could no longer live alone. In the meantime, Jeanne and I had been asking her if she would be willing to come live with us. She always said that no, she didn't want to be a bother, and she would go to Woodside, the Lutheran nursing home Dad died in. She didn't want to live in Milwaukee. Shortly before the family meeting, we tried again.
"Mom, what if we bought a house outside of Milwaukee? We could get a dog!" Mom loved animals, but refused to get another dog after her beloved Westie, Touzie, died years before. There was too much pain in losing a pet, and she was concerned about being able to continue to care for a dog. This time she agreed.
The family meeting was in January, 2004. Maybe I'll go over the details some other time, but the outcome was that all agreed that Mom would come live with Jeanne and me, and that we had better hurry up and find a house.
Mom spent Easter weekend that year with John and his wife Vicki. He called me that weekend, saying that he would not let her go back and live in her condo alone even for another week. We'd actually found a house already, had our offer accepted, and the closing date was near. But we still lived in our warehouse loft apartment. We weren't ready for Mom yet, but we made it happen. She lived with us at the apartment until we were able to move our stuff and her stuff from her condo.
That was just about 5 years ago. This blog is meant to be my way of continuing to process all that caregiving entails. The rigors and stress of careiving are not something I could ever have anticipated. Would I have agreed to do it if I'd known? That's a question I can't answer.
