A New Beginning . . . I Got a Job!

Last week a former colleague called and asked me if I could do some consulting work from home.  After thinking about it for a fraction of a second I said, "YES!"

I was to start with a 4 week consulting engagement that would start on the 8th.  Yesterday he asked me if I could start on Monday.

My mom is set up with a Day Care for $56 a day and I have a job.  A glorious job where I can use my mind to think of things other than chasing away my mom's hallucinations.  I'm excited.  I will be able to earn money again.  It's been way too long. 

My mom on the other hand, she's not so excited.  She knows that I need to work, but she doesn't want to go to the Blaire House anymore.  She thinks she can stay home while I work from home.  We used to have this arrangement when we lived in my house, the house I bought for the 2 of us to live in, long before I met my husband.  At that time my mom could handle the remote control for the TV to change channels and select shows from the channel guide. 

Now, she struggles with the remote, she requires assistance.  She falls asleep during the day and wakes up screaming sometimes, looking for me frantically, worried that I left her or I'm in trouble.  I do hope that I can help her to understand that the Day Care is a great alternative to going to a nursing home as a permanent resident.

Today my mother thinks that I'm going to put her in a nursing home.  She's pouting and getting herself worked up, creating a false reality based on her fear.  We've been on this road before, time will help.

Talking to her doesn't do much good, not with a demented mind.  Her logic is irrational.  Yes means no and no means yes in her world.  We are treading on new ground, but we have to because I GOT A JOB!

I haven't worked in almost 2 years, well not a regular job where I get paid.  I have worked but a different kind of work, care giving.  Now, I get to do caregiving and a job with the help of Adult Day Health.  The only troulbe that could rear it's head is my mom not wanting to go.  She can be a collossal bitch. 

Today I told her that she has no choice, she's going, she has to go somewhere during the day because I need to work.  She tried to tell me that it was "too expensive."  I told her that it was not very expensive when one hour of my working a real job will pay for one day; this is worth it. 

I don't know if I scared her by continuing on, but I told her the other alternative is she goes to live in a place like the place her brother is living.  I don't know if she heard anything that I had said after the nursing home comment, but I continued and told her that I prefer to have her sleep here because it allows me to prepare food for her which is an important part of her healthcare plan.

Time will ease her mind when she sees that she comes home here every day.  The first day I took her to Blaire House she thought I was leaving her off for good.  I showed up a few minutes late which didn't ease her fear, but none the less, she came home with me.

Friday she'll go to Blaire House for the day.  Hubby took the day off and we're going for massages.  On Friday, my husband and I will celebrate my new job, it's a new beginning, a beginning that I've been waiting a long time to arrive.  I got a job!

Do You Have All of Your Marbles?

Most of the time, my mom has no idea who I am.  It is confusing to her on so many levels.  Sometimes, for brief moments, she recognizes me and then laughs that she thought I was someone else.

Tonight, she was confused, she asked me if I had a license to be her nurse.  She asked me if I had a birth certificate to prove that I am her daughter.  She wants to see the birth certificates of all of her children.  Tomorrow, I told her that I'll pull them out of the safe and show them to her.

She asked me about my dead brother Ed, "where is he?" she said to me.  I look at her puzzled and then she started to laugh as she said, "Oh, he's down the well." 

She is confused about who I am more often than not.  She loves the me that's her nurse, she loves Nurse Sue.  As Nurse Sue, I call her Josephine and I talk to her like a nurse would talk to a patient; like I used to talk to Aggie, the woman I caregave to just before I bought my house and moved my mom in with me in 1998. 

It's better when she thinks I'm her nurse.

Sue visits, her daughter Sue.  Sometimes she thinks I'm Donna.  She knows Ann is in Maine, far away.  Marty?  She's always asking me where's Marty.

Today, she had visitors again.  The little boy was back.  Her sister Florence, who she reminded me her first name was Victoria, came today and visited.  My mom is slipping.  She's declining. 

I gave her Helleborus to see if we could chase the hallucinations away.

She will bounce back, she always does but she won't be at the place where she was before the mental slip.  I wonder if there's a natural remedy or homeopathic remedy that will help where Helleborus seems to be losing ground? 

Lewy Bodies Dementia is a strange disease. 

From what I've read on the LBD usergroup postings, this is something that just happens, the patient has setbacks and they don't go back to the sort of good days they had before the set back.  They still have good days, more of them, but they are different.  It requires more work for the Care Giver.  The patient believes they are doing great, while the Care Giver is asking the question to themselves, "Really?!"

Will we ever be ready for the next Lewy Bodies Phase?

My mom, she's starting to get the Lewy Body Lean.  She's leaning to the left.  I wonder if it's because she's been a life long Democrat that she's leaning left.  Leaning left works out in a healthful way too, because the left side is the side to lay on if you are constipated, it gives gravity a chance to work with your body.

All of this is amusing to me, my mom's confusion.  Just earlier today my mom was talking about the new Senior Center that she went to this week.  She told me that they were "unorganized."  I said, "In what way?"  Then she went on to tell me how the folks there don't have their "marbles." 

I asked her, "What do you mean?"

She said, "Well, we played the Price Is Right on Wii (we have that game and it's my mom's favorite TV Show, she never misses it) their was one guy who got mad, he doesn't have all his marbles.  He thought he really won the money on the Wii game, he was crazy.  I wanted to laugh out loud"  she said to me, "but, I just held it in.  These people were funny, they thought they were going to win real money."

My mom, it's really hard to describe how she is.  She seems to be in limbo most of the time.  She has good days.  I consider a good day to be a day without a hallucination.  Helleborus works for her but it takes more lately to get her to be more in life's realm of reality.

She sleeps through the night on her herbal remedies.  I really couldn't ask for much more.  My personal life is slowly coming back to me.  Time away from my duties as a Care Giver, time to just be with myself; it was better than any sedative prescribed by a doctor. 

This week, I had a taste of freedom, I was liberated from Caregiving, even if it was just for 5 hours, but it is 5 hours where I felt that I had all of my marbles!

The Door Has Now Closed!

Since I began my blog, which my husband recommended that I do to help me through the care giving nightmares, he has not read my blog. 

Not one post!

My husband, he's an incredible writer.  I LOVE how he writes.  He has a vocabulary like NO ONE that I've ever met, ever.  He's wicked smart as we say up here in Boston. 

He's one of those people with a huge skull that holds lots of brain matter.  I love my genius.  Shit, he was smart enough to marry me, Susie Sunshine!  But, how smart could he be?  He would NOT read my blog.

I asked him once.  I said, "Sweetie, will you read my blog?"  He said, "No, when you write 100 posts, I'll read it."

He must not have thought I would stick with it.  (Note to Sweetie, because I know that now that you are forbidden to read it and you are reading it, am I right?")

Anyway, I have been writing my entire life.  I have my friend and pen pal from Hawaii to thank for my learning how to express myself in words.  I love to write.  LOVE IT.  If I could make money writing for a living, I would.  I will be a paid writer one day. It's my dream and dreams are meant to be created!

So, here I am well over 200 posts and I ask again... "Sweetie, I have 200 + posts now, will you read it?"

He didn't want to read it!  My private thoughts that I was making public, he didn't want to read?  I love this man o'mine.  He felt like he was reading my diary.  Geez.  I let the entire world read my blog and you think it's private?

Ok... don't get mad.  Remember that I love you AND IF YOU ARE READING THIS, you shouldn't be because I banned you from reading it.  You said yourself, "What?  The door has closed?"

Yup... unless of course I finally got my way and you are a reader of my blog.  

So?  How is it?  Have I captured the insanity and the fun?

My husband, I love his guts!