The Strength of the Human Spirit

Mom, cruising the halls with her baby

If there's one thing that my mom is continuing to do for me, even while in her demented state of being, is teach me about life.

Mom's health was declining over the last year and in February of this year I believed her end was coming soon.  I had to be ready.

Alone on a cloudy day, I went and made arrangements with an undertaker and picked out an urn.  The urn is a double one, usually meant for a husband and wife, but I thought my mom would like to have her son Ed next to her six feet under with my dad.  Mom's final request before she totally lost her ability to reason and speak was to have Ed's name on her headstone so that people would know that he existed.

I called Mass General and talked to the folks who take body donations.  My mom is all set to help advance science.  The undertaker will take my mom to Boston after her death, where the doctors will remove her brain and whatever else they want to remove.  It takes about 6 hours for the procedure at Mass General.  The undertaker will go back and pick up the rest of her remains and then perform the cremation.  Once everything is said and done, I will get a detailed report a few months after her passing and we will know for certain if she has Lewy Bodies Dementia or something else.

The service will be small and held at the cemetery chapel with family and friends who wish to come.  This has been one big long good bye; I sure was ready for her end.  Care giving for my mom and carrying the burden alone nearly killed me.  I got sick, very sick.

Glad I survived to write about the experiences.

Juicing fresh organic vegetables improved my health dramatically.  Driven to help give my mom more good days than not so good ones, I began to bring my mom some of the juice I was making with beets.  I thought it just might help her have better days.  My mom, she came alive.  Her health improved and she began to have good days every day.

August 15, 2012, my mom was discharged from hospice services.  She is doing very well as of the writing of this blog post.  My mom's got a strong spirit.  Obviously she isn't ready to die or she would have died by now.

Who would have guessed that I would enjoy visiting my mom at the nursing home?  Every day that I get to see her alert, happy, talking and walking is heart warming; I am doing exactly what I set out to do; give her good days until her end.

I don't worry about my mom.  Her care team (I am part of it) is amazing, we all work together with my mom's well being in mind.  It takes a lot of work to raise a parent, but the joy I feel when mom recognizes me for who I am is the greatest gift of all.

I captured one of our exchanges in this video.

Every nice day I took mom outside this past summer.  We would listen to music and chat.  Talking to my mom is like doing a puzzle that has tiny pieces.