Category: Dementia
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Time to Write Again?
Pre-Christmas Travel Writing I jump from one app to another. Jigsaw puzzle to reading to writing. Back and forth, writing and jigsaw. Uneasy. Jittery. Uneasy. Not at ease. Tense. Guilty. Dramatic, yes, but so fucking what. That’s who I am. I have no desire to change that about myself. Besides, honestly, I keep most of…
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Caregiving Can Wear You Down #RealTalkAboutCare
Since Thanksgiving weekend, I’ve been sick with an upper respiratory infection (URI). As an asthmatic, URI’s tend to go to my lungs. My son, too, is sick and in bed (no way for a teenager to spend the weekend). URI’s are highly contagious. We tend to share far too many illnesses in my family. Even…
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Mini Thanksgivings
This weekend my sister visited and we celebrated Thanksgiving twice with our parents. Friday we joined our mother at her memory care community and joined their festivities. That afternoon and early dinner went very well. We had fun decorating her room and organizing photos. Saturday we brought our father to visit our mother for lunch.…
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Shedding a Few Tears
It’s been a year. It’s been a year since I noticed that my mother hadn’t taken her turn in Words with Friends. It’s been a year since my mother was verbal. It’s been a year since she could use language. Her passion was words. She spent her days playing word games. She was proud that she…
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I'm at a Loss…
My son has missed WAY too much school this year. He’s attending a private school where he gets one-on-one attention and learns at his own pace, so he simply falls behind and the charges for missed classes just keep adding up. He had gastroenteritis earlier this year (which we all had and which we all…
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Flight Back Home
Friday, July 15th Last Saturday, the day after we returned from Oregon, my mother was psychiatrically hospitalized for the third time since her stroke last November. Yesterday morning, I met with the treatment team at her psychiatric hospital. They do not think she needs long-term psychiatric placement. They believe her memory care community is the best…
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Writing on a Plane
Travel Journal from Las Vegas to Portland On my way, our way, to Oregon to visit family. Tonight driving out to the coast to stay at the Adobe. Tomorrow Jennifer is visiting from Australia. BBQ at in-laws to celebrate and to meet her new boyfriend. Will then have to stay in Newport at the Shilo…
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Brain Dead
All three of us – my son, my husband and me – are sick with a virus of some sort – flu, perhaps. Exhaustion I already felt now worsened by deep fatigue achy muscles, nausea, and headache. My brain just is not working. Pulling up the wrong words. Not able to construct thoughts. Still, took…