Transitioning to a Nursing Home

Mom, drinking her Dunkin Donuts coffee with "Savita" on her lap

Change is never easy.  Human's enjoy routine.  Folks with Lewy Bodies Dementia or any dementia for that matter, need a sense of familiarity; it allows them to feel safe.  Feeling safe prevents wandering.

Caring for Mom became too hard; way too hard.  I felt like my head was going to explode.  Serious health issues were beginning to show symptoms in my life; I felt sick.  My blood pressure was reminesce of a children's cartoons from the 1960's where the cartoons head turned beet red after becoming upset.

I was crying way too much; it had to stop.  My tears and my emotions were negatively affecting my mom.  Exhaustion consumed me.  I had trouble pulling myself up and out of the hole like I had done so many times over the last 3 years.  My feet, stuck in the muck, unable to move; I was trapped.

My mom's illness was beginning to kill me.  A slow death that could possibly take me before my mom.  Survival.  I had to survive my mom.  Keeping her home was the cause of my troubles; mom had to go.

I prayed a lot.  Lots of my readers and friends prayed.  I needed a miracle.  I believed one would manifest and in the 11th hour, a bed opened for my mom.  Hallelujah!

The transition is hard for both my mom and me.  Letting go.  Allowing traditional medicine to take over has been tough for me.  I see that it's not working as well as the natural remedies.  My mom's new doctor at the home isn't open to the natural route.  She immediately discredited me when I suggested food as medicine.  She even told me to stop giving my mom vitamins!  Of course I won't; they have helped my mom to have better days.

My mom isn't eating at all.  She isn't talking either.  My mom's mad.  She hates being there at the hospital, but it's the best place for her.  People around all the time.  Activities all day.  New friends.  A bit overwhelming for her but she'll adjust.

The nurses at the home are super.  I like all of them very much; they are loving and gentle with my mom.

Yesterday, she participated in the activities in the dementia unit; the place she will one day have a bed.  Of all the dementia units that I've visited, this is the nicest one I've ever seen.  My mom saw the unit yesterday, she saw the nurse she had over the weekend; one she liked a lot.

I'll see her this morning.  I'll bring her a Dunkin Donuts coffee and take her for a ride outside before she goes to her new "school."

Time does make it better.  I've learned through this whole ordeal that it's harder for me to move her out of my home than it is for my mom being in a new place.  Visiting her is important; it reassures her that she's not forgotten.

The transitioning to a home is hard.  Care Givers, you do need to think of yourself or you will get sick and die before your ward.  Suck it up.  Take a deep breath and do it.  I do recommend doing your homework.  Visit places, see what you think.  Ask yourself if you could live there... if you could, you found the place.  It's a lot of work to find the right place.  Even after you find it, you will second guess yourself... I did.

I had a melt down.  I cried.  I felt so bad.  My mom was unhappy and pissed with me.  My emotions were all over the place.  Now that my mom is out of my environment, I realize that there is no way I could ever care for her again like I had been... how on Earth did I do it?

We are transitioning.  I am waiting for the day that my mom tells me that she's "too busy" to go out with me.  Everyone tells me it will happen; now I wait.