Driving

My father taught my mother to drive when she was 23 (in 1942). I really can't imagine what kind of teacher he was. When he taught me I was 16. He was pretty patient with me except for the time I hit a garbage can in a gas station.
My mom was direction impaired. Her motto was, "always have a tank of gas". I unfortunately inherited that gene. This is why I have a GPS.
She was also a very careful driver. After her car was rear-ended she became a nervous driver.
Driving is another area when you don't how dangerous driving can be until after the danger has presented itself. The police, the insurance companies and the Department of Motor Vehicles are of absolutely no help in this area.
For most people, their car is their independence; and trying to convince someone to give up their independence is as hard as it was for me to eat boiled to death frozen broccoli when I was a kid. 
As she got older, you could no longer see her head in the driver's seat from the back of the car. For the rest of us drivers, we know that is not a good sign and these cars are to be avoided at all cost. She was no longer able to make left turns. She could not pump her own gas. She got lost on a hospital's grounds for over an hour.
She arrived home at 9PM without her lights on and parked the car on the lawn as if she was drunk (she was not).
It became clear she could no longer drive without it being life threatening, to her and anyone else on the roads or streets.
I was fortunate in that I was living with her by that point. We hid the keys and drove her everywhere she wanted to go. Of course, Tee thought that she could still drive. Oy he is a pain.
I don't know what the right answer is, but allowing someone to drive who is no longer able is definitely a bad idea.

Educating Tee

Just so you know, there is no way Tee can read any of this blog as he is computer illiterate, thinks computers are 'communist' and is generally a Luddite when it comes to the world around us.  Bee doesn't have time to read it but P-Lee understands.

First, I had to educate myself about brain changes and I mean a lot. Thank the powers that be for the world wide web. Search engines produce 11,600,000 sites for dementia alone.  I haven't gone thru all of them....I have a life y'know; but if Google was a person, I would marry her.

Dementia and Alzheimer's are words used interchangeably...but they are two different brain changes. They are both progressive illnesses. The symptoms overlap but there are very big differences. Sometimes the progression is short and dramatic and sometimes it is slow and subtle with bursts of reality or confusion thrown in. This happens at exactly the same time as when you think you know what is going to happen.

The caregiver becomes the expert on the parent. Brothers do not like it when their little sister knows more about anything than they do, never mind about their mom. Some brothers think they know everything but they do not. And a part of me definitely likes being the boss (ah, sibling rivalry never really goes away. We just get better at camouflaging it.)

Since my mother's decline has been a long process, the educating of almost everyone who comes in contact with her is an ongoing  process.
The last time Tee came over, he brought my mom a calendar and a black magic marker to mark off the days. He doesn't get that if she could remember to do that, she would not need a calendar to mark off the days.
I can never forget that, though.

"Swiper, no swiping!"

If you have or know of any children below the age of 5, you might be familiar with 'Dora, the Explorer'. As you can imagine, Swiper's reputation precedes him.

My mother has always been a little light fingered when it came to restaurants. If she liked something, it would end up wrapped in tissues in her pocketbook.
We have an entire set of glasses (previously filled with Manhattans) with a logo for the Red Lantern restaurants.
[Do they even exist anymore?] and really any glass from a restaurant that made the mistake of putting a logo on it. We also have salt and pepper shakers, cloth napkins, and enough sugar and sweet'n'low packets to start our own diner.

Some time ago, my mom would spend the weekend with my brother Bee and his very understanding wife, P-Lee and the grandkids.
When she would come home, we would find all sorts of things in her purse and her overnite bag...children's toys;  hand towels ("Oh, I was wondering where that went", P-Lee said.); soaps; food; tooth brushes; cookies and an assortment of sundry items.
At this point in her life of crime, she rifles thru my room taking odds and ends. When I couldn't find something, like my checkbook, I would go thru her room and surprise!, I would find it. She is surprisingly stealthy when it comes to taking what she wants. We both came home from a visit at my cousin's and I left a few pictures on my bed. Less than five minutes later, one of them was gone. I thought for sure I had dropped it outside. But no, she moves like Cary Grant in "To Catch a Thief". I eventually found it after going thru a pile of her papers.

My roommate thinks I should put a lock on my door, but I feel it keeps her busy. I just hide the checkbook.

The Stove

My mother was never a good cook. She was what I called an "Irish cook". She boiled everything to death (including, can you just taste them, frozen vegetables boiled for over an hour). She had two specialties...Easter and Thanksgiving. The rest of the year you were on your own.

Two of my friends still suffer post traumatic stress disorder from a Chinese food leftover meal. There was  a major problem with her cooking, that as bad as it was, there was a trap door. And I didn't realize it until I started taking care of her.

Tee thought and still thinks..."what are you talking about? Mom's a great cook"; and he eats everything.

When Mom was still on her own, she made herself coffee and cooked food for Tee.
When we began to live together (with my roommate, Dee), the responsibility of cooking fell to the two people who were not my mother. But she always wanted to help..."can I peel the potatoes, set the table", etc.?
The more time passed, the less ability she had in that part of the house..

The main problem with a stove is that you don't know how dangerous it is until that really dangerous thing has happened. She was still making herself coffee in the morning when she forgot about the kettle and then set fire to a dishtowel.  We awoke to smoke alarms going off in all the rooms (they need to be connected to each, electrically, by the way), a thick cloud of smoke on the first floor and my Mom walking around scared and confused. She did not have any idea what to do. Fortunately, except for some melted stove knobs and a some drips of melted plastic on the floor, she was not injured and everything else was as okay as it ever was going to be.
It was the first time ( of many) that I thought she would have to go into a nursing home.
We removed the knobs off the stove and hid them in the mud room. And she never went near the stove again.

And on a personal note, I avoid it myself, as my roommate is a much better cook than I am. But I  "order in" like a champ.

Food

My brother, Tee, lived with my mother on and off forever (mostly on). She did his laundry, cooked and served his food, cleaned up after him, unclogged his toilet, and listened to him as he preached about some sport or game or some other thing she had no interest in hearing about. She would look bored but he never seems to notice.

My mom would take a bite of something and then ask Tee if he wanted it. He would take it and eat it with as much gusto as a person who hadn't eaten in days. She still does this, even today, whenever he is around. Tee has to be reminded repeatedly not to take her food.

When meals are served, my mom's responses are always the same..."this is too much". She says this at each and every meal, day in day out, week after week, month after month, and year after year. Sometimes I can handle it and sometimes I just want to shoot her.

Would now be a good time to say we both have "weight problems"? That we are fluffy, chubby, stout, Rubenesque (for me), big boned, obese or just plain fat...And my other brother Bee seems to be trying to catch up but is really just an amateur at eating.

Relationships with family are complicated. Relationships with food can be even more complicated.

Food, not just limited to sustenance.

The Beginning

My mom had always taken care of the men and children in her life. She had worked and been quite successful but felt it was a wife's job to take care of all the needs of her husband. This included cooking, cleaning, laundry, and doing everything a household requires to run. All her husband had to do was bring home the check, and then his retirement check.
When her husband (Dubya, not his real name) passed away, this is really the critical demarcation in her life. Fortunately (or unfortunately, as it turned out), my eldest brother (Tee, not his real name) was living with my Mom during this time frame. (more about him later).
Looking back, I can see the point where she began to lose her way....