Work Brings Peace

This week, everything is gradually improving... it's better than it has been for my mom and me.  She had some hallucinations where my dad was the star of her day; the hallucinations didn't scare her so I didn't give her Helleborus Niger, a homeopathic remedy that works to chase away scary hallucinations.

I've been thinking, why is she better able to handle being by herself during the day for long stretches of time?  Why does she appear like she did when we lived in my house in Groveland? 

My mom doesn't seem to have a problem with entertaining herself when she knows I'm working.  This got me thinking and observing behaviors. 

For the first 10 years that my mom lived with me, I worked from home.  I travelled a lot but when I was not travelling, my office was in the house and it had the busy sounds of an office.

My mom, she loved to listen to me work.  Often if I was on a conference call with my team she'd stand in the kitchen doing dishes, listening to the sounds of my work wafting down the stairs; the sounds comforted her. 

The clicking of the keyboard, the ringing phone, the laughter and conversation about work related things, things that my mom had no idea what the topic being discussed is about... all of these little things made my mom feel comfortable.

Working is not only helping me, it's helping my mom too.   Since I've been putting in full days behind my keyboard, working a real job, my mom is calm.  Mentally she's clearer than she had been.  She laughs at TV.  She hasn't laughed at TV in awhile, she obviously wasn't able to keep up with the jokes.  However, it's different this week, she is happy, she is laughing, she is carrying conversations. 

Could she have been worried about my being unemployed? 

I had been unemployed for 22 months, nearly 2 years.  My unemployment situation is what kicked off the 2 year ride that brought us immediately on to the dementia freeway.  Looking back, it was intense.  I did some things wrong but did most stuff right.  I learned from my mistakes.  2 years later, we are all better off.  Even my mom with LBD is better than she could have been if she kept ingesting the food she was eating. 

Nutritious food absolutely helped my mom.  I believe that if we didn't change her diet, there's no way I could handle caring for her at home.  Processed foods, gluten, sugar... all the stuff that is filler in our food these days, brought on wild and scary hallucinations.  Hallucinations that only appeared to her at night when I needed to sleep.

It sure does feel good getting to sleep at night. 

Work brings peace...

Today IS  a GREAT Day!