A More Positive Mood Leads to Severe Goofiness

The last post is actually from yesterday but I didn't edit it (I use the word "edit" loosly) until this morning. It seems that after a good night's sleep, Alma is in much better spirits as she will not stop laughing and hugging everyone. She really isn't making coherent sentences but whatever her reality is at the moment seems to be a happy one and we are all grateful for that. I will take this opportunity to share some of the funny notions she has been having.

It seems she is having some more hallucinations. They seem to be mostly positve as she cracks herself up in telling us what she sees. She percieves that tissues simply float out of the sky whenever she needs one and the other day Kaiya told me that she said, "the butterflies got me" and proceeded to laugh her head off. I don't know if there actually were butterflies flying around or not. I suppose it really doesn't matter. Before her mood switched yesterday, Kaiya said she was talking about her back hurting and then "cracked herself up" as she said, "I know I have a big butt". Finally, and I hope no one thinks it is raunchy of us to share this here; apparently at Barnes and Noble she saw the name Weiner on a book and thought that was hilarious. I wonder if she recognized the name from recent news stories.

Anyway, it's looking like today is going to be a better day and mostly wanted to share that she is really not always difficult. I feel like we've been sharing all of the yucky stuff so it's fun to think about the silliness that makes things seem so much less serious and way more managable.

She is Breaking My Heart

Witnessing Alma's struggle with dementia feels like heartbreak some days. It feels as if I am repeating myself over and over again (much like Alma does) when I share that I simply cannot wrap my brain around what it is she is experiencing at any given moment. Of course I understand that there is no way for any of us to truly understand what it is Alma is going through. I'm simply stating that on days when she is miserable, it is torturous to see her in so much emotional pain. That being said, my feelings pale in comparison to the inner turmoil that she lives with daily.

This was not a good day for Alma. Unfortunately, my daughter Kaiya was the one to bear the brunt of it. Kaiya and Alma have always been close. She is very patient and kind with her grandmother and we are grateful that she is willing to spend so much time with Alma. Alma was in a great mood until they got to Kaiya’s apartment. Kaiya said she was agitated over seeing her couch and dining room table in the apartment. It must have been so disorienting to see furniture that she recognized in an unfamiliar place. Not to mention the fact that she still holds onto hope that she will go back to her house at some point. That must be terrifying. Kaiya described Alma having a lot of that toddler like behavior (temper tantrums) that we witness when she is unhappy. These behaviors can be scary and unmanageable so I was glad that Kaiya decided to bring her home to more familiar surroundings.  Alma spent the afternoon swinging from severe anger, to uncontrollable sobbing, to sheer elation.

I have found that when I sit with Alma through those extreme mood changes, she appears comforted. Perhaps I am projecting and is the one comforted; knowing that she is not alone at least physically. It is no secret that Keith has expressed concern (he thinks I’m nuts) over me expending too much energy on Alma. I have tried his passive approach and there are some days when I need that. However, now that I get such a big break while she is at the Adult Care Center (it’s going really well by the way), I feel that I have the energy to give.  Even if this doesn’t impact the ultimate outcome here, I do believe that this attentiveness has to increase her quality of life and that is the whole point of her being with us. Whatever the case and as selfish as this may come across, I feel better about caring for her when I am more attentive.

The Leap From Control to Humility

I apologize for the rambling of my last post. Because there has been such a great lapse of time between posts, I seem to have much more to share than if I was posting every couple of days. Therefore, this post will probably be equally, if not more wordy than the previous.

The first thing I want to share is that I took Alma to her doctor and he said that her face looked consistent to what was described by the assisted living facility and she seemed to be healing well. He also made a point to remind me not to get too caught up with demanding documentation from the facility. He states that there aren’t a lot of options around and we don’t want to “burn any bridges”. I will concede to his argument but share here that this line of logic really irritates me and I believe this contributes too many people having a great fear of advocating for themselves or others.

That being said, I will hop off my soap box long enough to acknowledge how touched I am by all of the positive response to this blog. It appears that my goal has been realized and it is nice to know that this has been an effective way to share what is going on with Alma. It’s wonderful to see that Alma truly has so many people who care about her as well. I am grateful for any input and support that we are receiving as a result.

Alma has only been home for a few days and, as usual, it has been a rough transition. Sunday was a really bad day filled with power struggles as we tried to find our groove and get back into some sort of regular routine. Most of our struggles involved hygiene issues and I refuse to bend on those (I won’t get into the gory details surrounding all of that). There were several moments where Alma tried to lash out at me physically and I became increasingly frustrated as the day wore on. It seemed as if we were feeding off of each other’s negative energy. The more she resisted, the more frustrated I got and vice versa. By the end of the day, I was exhausted and fearful that her good mood was gone for good. 

In relation to that, I'm beginning to realize that I may be wound a little too tight for taking Alma out in public. Without getting too far into my own psychoses, I will share that I may have a teeny tiny issue with control and a slight tendency towards self involvement. As a result, my obsessive worrying about what others think may outshine Alma’s emotional well being at times. This became grossly apparent when I took her over to my friend, Kelley’s place to work on some house projects. I thought it would be easy to help Kelley paint her fence and Alma would be content to play with her son, Silas. It seems that this idea was not very well thought out as she was in the midst of wanting to be in control of everything she was involved with (And rightfully so. However, it simply wasn’t practical and I became overly concerned about the way we might be affecting everyone else.).

Yesterday and quite magically her good mood was back and she hasn’t stopped cracking herself up since. Things are back to “normal” as she has been easily going along with whatever we are doing at the moment. It probably doesn’t hurt that I have also made a conscious effort to make light of whatever task is at had and avoid the power struggle through redirecting. As much as I hate to admit this, once again Keith’s “feedback” was pivotal in encouraging shifting my thinking. I suppose we all need redirection sometimes.