The cold, hard, reality

Note: this is a very honest and frank appraisal of what is going to happen to Mom. There is no sunshine and roses here. If this makes you uncomfortable, I suggest you skip this blog today.

There is a cold, hard, reality to dementia. . . one does not get better. Yes, they have drugs that can slow the progression, but there is no cure and in the end the person you love is simply a shell of the person you once knew.

That fact hit home this week while I was visiting Mom.

I was looking for her toothbrush and opened her medicine cabinet door. Taped to the inside of the door was a list of Mom's needs -- a handy reference list for staff.

Mom is fading quickly. Or maybe not. Maybe it is a slow, painful deterioration. I suppose it depends on the day and the perspective.

The list inside Mom's medicine cabinet  included things like: needs to be reminded when it is time to eat; needs assistance in the bathroom; needs assistance dressing. It also lists her mental state as: severely mentally impaired. 

Wow. That's a hard one to take. We all knew it. But there it was, written in Bic pen blue -- severely mentally impaired.

To be honest, we don't know if Mom has dementia as a result of several strokes or if she truly does have Alzheimer's Disease. The only way to tell if she has Alzheimer's Disease is to do an autopsy after she passes. Since that is simply not going to happen I guess we will never know. Does it really matter?

We look back and say to one another, "Remember when Mom (fill in the blank)? We should have known then there was something wrong." Well, yeah. But deep down we all kind of knew there were things Mom was doing that were not normal. Even Mom knew she was "slipping." She wrote me that in a birthday card six year ago: "I know I am slipping, but I do the best I can."

But what could have been done? Very little, actually.

The reality of all this is this: Mom is a pretty healthy individual -- except for the dementia. What will happen, probably sooner than we expect, is Mom will eventually not recognize us. She may become delusional. She may become short-tempered and hostile. She will eventually lose the ability to swallow. She will, eventually, lose all motor function, she may also lose the ability to smile, to sit without support and to hold her head up. Her reflexes will become abnormal and her muscles will become rigid. It's not a pretty picture.

Frankly it seem pretty unfair.