assisted living...

JUNE 2, 2012

  

She is now in an assisted living facility. So far she has tried to escape several times and successfully escaped once. She is convinced that we put her in jail so she is really really angry. She insists that we didn’t talk about it ( we did; for TWO YEARS) and just keeps saying things like “he didn’t use to be this way” (about K) and saying that this isn’t the way you treat people…

It’s hard, and we have to keep reminding ourselves, DEMENTIA… we can think she is understanding something and then *poof* she doesn’t remember. She remembers SOME things (that she fell into the mud with her walker) which is good, but not others (that her hip bone is dead). Right now she is not wanting to talk to us because we abandoned her. Of course we did not.

She was too much to handle. Both of us are exhausted. We have not slept in the same house (well, ONE night) for two years. We have sacrificed a lot to take care of her. Not bragging… that’s what families DO. If our marriage is going to make it, we have to spend time with each other and get re-acquainted. It is hard to know what to do, on the one hand, feeling guilty for not being able to keep up that pace. But both of us had elevated blood pressure, K is diabetic, we are not young. Do we sacrifice ourselves for her? Jesus calls us to sacrifice. Is that what He meant?

This started out as a funny page to me. It isn’t funny any more. Then I remembered that she stuck a banana in the recliner so no one would steal it, and I sat on it… and that the toilet paper was in the vanity drawer, and her shoes hidden in the bed… and she says that someone switched her shoes, but didn’t… she went into her neighbor’s apartment and tried to use his bathroom, and now she is convinced she has to share hers… lots of stuff would be funny if it wasn’t so awful that she’s losing her mind. I told her she’s getting quite good at moving her wheel chair, and she said she was practicing… she wrote a note of things she wants to learn, and one of them is learn to drive… oh dear. At least there isn’t a car to worry about. Only a 98-pounds-soaking-wet little lady who is an escape artist.  We have to laugh at whatever we can or we would go even crazier.