Dementia Journal: April 23, 2018: Questions and Answers

Dementia brings a severe loss of memory and awareness of one’s surroundings. Mom will often gets some question in her mind she urgently wants answered. She will repeat it over and over and each time we repeat the same answer.

To help preserve my sanity and that of the caregivers, I’ve written up a series of answers to the most common questions on half sheets of plain paper. When the questions persist we put a stack of these answers on the TV tray in front of her where she sits. Sometimes she will read these answers over and over for nearly an hour. Mom can still read, although somewhat haltingly. She’s a devout Christian and always has been. Her mother, a devout Methodist, instilled this in her. She reads her devotionals, often out loud to us and often in a voice very weak and hoarse from asking questions and talking for two or more hours at a time, often with very little pause in between.

“This is your house. You have lived here for over 23 years.”

“You are home in C____”

Mom will often ask “Where am I?” “Am I home?”
How long have we lived here?” “Is this our first night in this house?”

I’m tempted to say, “No, Mom, you’ve been here more than 7,000 nights.” (2,400 + for me since I’ve lived here with her since 2010). In another life, I had my own place about 3 miles from here and lived there for 15 years.

Sometimes she can’t be persuaded this is where she lives. The other night she looked all around the den and said, “This is one of the nicest hotel rooms I’ve ever been in.”

She also talks about going back to the small city about 100 miles from here where she grew up. One morning she said something like this, as I recall, “When is the train coming? We don’t want to be late.”

Fairly often she will start endlessly asking about her children. “Who are they?” “Where are they?” “Do they come to see me?”

“You have three children. F_ lives here with you. N__ lives at the beach. J____ lives in Seattle.”

“Where are R_ and B_?” (two of her three sisters, all of whom passed away quite some years ago). She will also ask what happened to them.

“B__and R_ died a long time ago and are in Heaven with God.”

“Where’s Mama and Daddy?”

“Your Mama and Daddy are in Heaven with God.”

“Where is N____?” This could be either my brother or my father who died in 1992. Both have the same name.

“Dad died a long time ago. He had cancer and you took care of him.”

When she’s really confused, she’ll say, “Why didn’t anyone tell me? Did I go to the service?”

Mom’s been sleeping a lot, most of the day and all night now without calling me in the middle of the night. I am thankful for that. But when she wakes up she is often disoriented and says she feels terrible.

“Am I dying?”

“I’m dying.”

The other night she was so convinced of this she had a panic attack. “I’m dying and you don’t believe me,” she said, her voice rising in fear. “Please pray for me. Dear God, please help me.”

After about a half hour she’s exhausted and sleeping peacefully, her head on a pillow on the sofa. Of course she remembers nothing of these episodes. But I sure do. They cumulatively take a toll on me, as you can imagine. I told my sister he other night that I certainly hope I will know if can she is indeed very near. But lately I’m not so sure.

We’ve written these words to read when she gets extremely anxious and thinks she’s dying. When we check her vitals, most days they are all very good. To the best of my knowledge she’s okay. But she’s 94. She fears the unknown. Wouldn’t you?

“You are doing well. Everything is ok. You are not dying. You are fine. We love you.”

One of the caregivers wrote this for her:

“God keep me safe. Protect me. Comfort me. God give me peace”

Amen.

Postscript: it’s late on a Monday afternoon on April 23. It’s been raining all day, but we really needed this rain. The day’s only caregiver/home health aid called in sick. I just took out the garbage and the recyclables. That was the first time I had been out all day. Mom’s been mostly talking and asking the same questions since about 3. But she’s been so sweet and calm. She just asked, “Who brought me those flowers?” “I did, Mom.”

“Thank you, F___, for the beauty you bring into this house.” That made my day.