A Good Weekend

Well, it has been awhile since my last post, but it has also been a holiday weekend.  And a very busy weekend around here.  That is, a busy weekend for me and the boys, not so much for my grandmother.  There were cook-outs and shopping and just hanging out with family.  Unfortuantely my grandmother just wanted to stay at home all weekend.  She wanted to stay around the house in case someone might call or come by to see her.  I really feel sorry for her.  I don't understand why she would turn down an invitation to go and do something to sit around by herself.  But, maybe it was a well deserved "break" for all of us.  I know it has to be hard on my grandmother to go from living alone to having a family of three move in.  I think we both appreciate some time away from each other every now and then. 

Being away from the house a little this weekend means I wasn't here to watch what grandma was doing and fixing all the little things she does during the day.  So, this evening, I came home and started putting the dishes away only to find the dishes in the cabinets all misplaced and half of them out on the bar in plain sight.  If you remember, I have mentioned before that when we first moved in, all the dishes she uses were out all over the counters in the kitchen.  She leaves out things she uses because she will lose them if she puts them away.  I know there are more things to uncover in time. 

We got home this evening and I realized the boys and grandma hadn't been spending a lot of time together over the last couple of days.  She was getting them absolutely wired.  She was so excited to see them.  It was cute to see.  It also reminded me of how my six year old nephew acts when he hasn't seen a friend in awhile.  It is a reality I have to face that my grandmother is not the person she once was. 

This is a pretty brief post, but it has been a long weekend and I'm tired. 

Talk To Me!

My grandmother is feeling alone even though she is with someone 24 hours a day.  She feels alone and I feel frusterated.  Reason being she talks to me and tells me stories of old times and they make no sense.  I try to ask questions or correct her on some missing pieces and this only makes her angry.  So, over the last few months, I have found it easier to just sit and listen to everything she has to say and say nothing in return.  I let her talk and go on and on, knowing this is not true, and I don't say a thing.  I mean, what is the point?  Well, after some time she now feels like we never talk to each other.  So tonight I decide to have a conversation and get involved and as grandma is telling my mother a story about something from the past, she gets confused and starts to stumble and the story is not making any sense.  My mother and I try to ask questions and volunteer information we know to be true and grandma immediately begins to get upset.  She starts to raise her voice about how I don't really remember anything and mom and I don't give her a chance to talk, and she is NOT CRAZY!  This one I hear a lot.  Anytime I correct her or explain that I administer her medication to her now because she was overdosing on her own, she combats with "I am NOT crazy."  I turn into the enemy.  I turn into the person who brings it to her attention that she is no longer well.  She hates having this disease and knowing it is progressing and knowing she can't do anything about it. 

My mother brought up an interesting point tonight.  Up until now my grandmother would get confused on recent events, but she always remembered the past.  She could remember details of her childhood and of times long ago.  Now she gets her stories jumbled together and the details aren't there anymore.  She is getting worse. 

A Bad Day

Okay, so today was a bad day.  It started early and didn't end.  This post could very well be a gripe session for me...so, if you don't want to hear someone else gripe, this is not the place for you.  Today was a day filled with my grandmother doing things, random things, all day long and then I would have to go along and pick up behind her.  For example, my one year old picked up his shoes and wanted them on, so grandma sits him down and puts them on.  Not a big deal except I had just mentioned that I didn't want him wearing them.  So, I have to stop what I am doing and go take the shoes off.  He screams.  Then, I gather up my stuff to take a shower and here comes my one year old, again wearing his shoes.  So I once again take them off and remind everyone that he is not to wear them (they were covered in mud, fyi).  He screams.  So, I decide to step out to feed the dogs before I take my shower and tell everyone that the one year old can not come outside right now.  I proceed to feed the dogs and as I am coming back toward the door, here comes the one year old out the door with help from grandmother...WEARING THE SHOES!!!  So, three times I take these shoes off this little boy.  Three times I state that this little boy should not be wearing the shoes.  Yet, three times my grandmother puts the shoes on this little boy.  And three times he screams out angry with me for being the bad guy.  UGH!  This all happens first thing this morning within about 15 minutes. 

My day went down hill after that.  I spent the rest of the day going along behind my grandmother picking up and fixing, what I felt like, everything she touched.  Now I know I am overstating this but after the day I've had, I deserve it.  I unload the groceries and I leave the items for tonight's dinner out on the bar.  I leave the house for two hours and sure enough, I have to search for these items before I can prepare dinner.  She worked herself to death while I was gone putting everything away that I left out.  The only thing is, she does not remember where anything goes.  UGH!  Then, I don't make dinner fast enough and she is hungry.  Then, I go to put away the dishes and find the cabinets in disarray because grandma puts things away even though she has no idea where anything goes.  She just opens a cabinet and puts it in. And don't forget that while I am trying to fix all the things she has done, my two boys are running around, crying, laughing, and needing my attention too.  So basically, I am about ready to pull out my hair.  Do I cry, do I laugh?!? 

I decided to laugh.  You see, when I came home from grocery shopping, oh I'm sorry "running around town," grandma was complaining about there being nothing on television except the weather.  I just shrugged it off and later noticed she was watching The Weather Channel.  I didn't mention anything to her and just giggled to myself.  It's the little things that keep me going. 

After a day like today I find myself feeling alone.  I am alone and having to take care of everything.  I have to take care of my boys, take care of grandma, take care of the house, and, oh yeah, take care of myself.  Today I find myself feeling like my grandmother is burden.  She has to sense the way I feel.  I hate that I feel this way and that she probably senses it.  She was telling me today how alone she feels and unwanted.  I have to figure out what to say to her and how to make her feel better when the reality is no one hardly invites her anywhere or calls and talks for any length of time.  And when people do, she forgets about it and feels alone and unwanted.  This is what I have to bear.  Between her and boys and just life in general, I am exhausted at the end of the day. 

I am thinking of taking a trip to visit a friend in a couple of weeks.  Then the question arises of who will take care of grandma?  I don't want to put anyone out so I consider not going.  What is the right decision?  Deep down I feel that my grandmother is now my responsiblity.  Leaving town would require getting a "baby-sitter" just like I would for one of my children.  After having a "bad" day I just think I should cancel my plans and not bother anyone else.  Then again, after having a "bad" day I think I could really use a break.  I hate having these thoughts and pray for patience.  Today was a bad day.  Will tomorrow be better?  Who will I wake up to in the morning?

No, that's mine!!!

Today's topic hit me first thing this morning.  My one year old was playing with some pictures of mine and my grandmother had an absolute fit.  She was on the phone, which means she has to sound more like she is in charge to impress whoever she is talking to, and she begins getting on to my boy for playing with my picture.  I pipe up from the other room trying to referee before this argument gets out of control and I simply state, "it's okay if he plays with that" to which she responds with "that is MY picture and I don't want him ruining it."  It came to me in a flash that every since we've moved in everything suddenly belongs to my grandmother.  I tried to correct her, but didn't get anywhere...she persuaded the picture away from the one year old after she thought I was out of ear shot.  If things don't have my name on them she takes them as her own.  I have mentioned things of mine that I couldn't find and shortly after I notice her coming out of her room with my stuff.  Weird and a little irritating.  These are the times I have to remind myself of what she was like before this dreaded disease took over her mind.  I hate letting my grandmother irritate me.  I hate these feelings I have sometimes. 

I was thinking today about something I posted yesterday.  I mentioned that she can't find anything in the house.  She thinks all her stuff has been moved out of the house when she wasn't looking.  I remembered that when the boys and I first moved in, all the things you would use on a daily basis in the kitchen, for example, was out on the bar.  Skillets, bowls, plates, etc. lined the bar so much that there was no room to prepare or cook any food.  I thought it was weird then and now I understand that when things are in the cabinets she forgets about them or can't find them.  I've noticed I will call her when meals are ready and she always says she will wait on me to make my plate first.  This is because I will get out the plates and silverware, so she does't have to look for them.  So, I just get everything out and sometimes make her plate.  This is something I do, without mentioning it, so she can think she is still in control. 

So, I am getting ready to turn into bed and don't know what to expect tomorrow.  Things that were okay today may not be tomorrow.  Today I used too much water.  We have gotten six inches of rain today alone, over two feet over the past couple months, but she cautions me to be careful for when we will be told we can not use water anymore...because of droubt.  Perhaps she is right, but I don't know.  Tomorrow the water will be fine but we need to get organized again.  Who knows what tomorrow holds.  If all else fails, she is definitely keeping me on my toes.

Some Days are Better than Others

Every morning I wake up not knowing what things or frankly who I am going to face that day.  I have been living full time with my grandmother for almost five months now.  If you ask her though my boys and I have only been here about a month...if asked she has always answered about a month.  I remember when we first moved in with her, she was very overwhelmed.  Again, you have to remember I didn't have a grasp of how her alzheimer's had progressed.  I also didn't have a great understanding of how to deal with it.  I guess I still don't.  I mean, I haven't read any books, although my aunt has given me one she found helpful.  I am not a person with a medical background.  I have never dealt with this before.  I am doing the best I can each day.  I listen to everyone's advice on "this is how you should handle that" or "this is what I would do if it were me" but the truth of the matter is, it's not you, you are not the one having to handle anything.  You can hang up the phone or just go home.  This is my home now.  This is my life.  This is my problem.

Over the last few months I have noticed there are specific things that grandma is uncomfortable with or simply doesn't understand.  She goes in cycles of being upset about all these things.  For example, it started the day we moved in...we need to get organized, once we do everything will settle down.  At first this seemed like a legitimate argument.  I mean a family of three moved in on this woman who had been living virtually alone for the past nine years.  And not only three people but two of them are small children and everyone knows children have toys...lots and lots of toys.  Basically I had a lot of stuff.  So, it made sense when she said we just need to get organized, because that is exactly what we needed to do.  What I didn't understand then, but do now, is that she hasn't known where her own belongings were in her own house for a long time now.  I mean, there are items she can't find that have been in the same place for the past twenty years.  I can find this stuff with my eyes closed.  She is lost in her own house...all the time.

My grandmother lived through World War II, the great depression, she has sat by and watched almost all of her friends and siblings die.  She is quite a woman.  It only makes sense that the woman doesn't want to waste anything and conserve everything.  Another cycle we have concerns the laundry.  She seems obsessed with the laundry.  While we are in this cycle, EVERY time I start a load of laundry she is right beside me, watching me and EVERY time she says, "now we need to get together when we do laundry and wash our clothes together.  That would save on doing so much.  Water costs money.  There is no reason to do laundry everyday."  Now I know to just agree with her.  The truth of the matter is that I do not do laundry everyday.  I do laundry once a week, but in her mind time is nothing.  It doesn't matter.  Time does not exist in her mind anymore. 

And yet another cycle we have is "who is in charge?"  There seems to be, what grandma has named, a "power struggle" in the home.  She feels she should be in control of me and my boys and herself and I disagree completely.  Now here is the truly tricky part.  I have been taught from day one to respect my elders and do as they say.  Growing up, my grandparents were often my babysitters.  I would go to their house after school and wait until my mother got off from work.  I moved in with my grandparents while I was in college to help grandma take care of my sick grandfather.  All this time she was my "boss."  She told me what to do and how to act and I would do it, for the most part.  There may have been the occassional sigh and eye roll.  But, when push came to shove, I knew what I needed to do and that was to mind my grandma.  Now the roles have changed and she doesn't know.  I have grown up and am now a mother myself and she doesn't understand.  The problem is, she has a mind of a child so my three year old's ideas seem great to her and all I do is "gripe."  To her I am no fun and very strict.  I don't take her advice on anything even though she has raised kids before.  All I do is disagree with her.  This is very frusterating because I have no choice but to disagree with her on some things.  I am trying very hard to do what I think is right while making her think I agree with everything she says.  I am still trying to give her the respect she deserves while being the "boss" of the house.  Basically, some days are better than others.

Introduction

Well, I guess I should introduce myself.  I am a twenty-nine year old mother of two little boys who is going through a divorce and currently living with my eighy-six year old grandmother.  My husband was abusive, so six years and two kids later,  I decided it was time to get out.  So, I packed mine and my children's things and took off for "home."  I moved in with my grandmother.  She was living alone and dealing with having alzheimer's.  She, along with every other woman in my family, is very strong and has always been a pillar for me in times of need.  You can imagine my shock when I moved in with her and discovered the woman I once knew was no longer around.  It's not like I never talked to my grandma and didn't realize she had alzheimer's...we talked almost everyday at least on the phone.  Sometimes we would talk numerous times a day in short intervals, I do have two boys both under the age of three at the time.  I talked to her as much as I could but for sure saw her once a week.  I had heard reports from the doctor that she was in the beginning stages of alzheimer's, but I had no idea how bad it was until I moved in.  No one did. 

Now I am faced with dealing with the emotional recovery of being in an abusive marriage while being the best mom I can be of my now three and one year old boys...and being the caregiver of my grandmother.  I am going to take you on my journey, if you wish to join me, of trying my best to give this wonderful woman the dignity and respect she deserves while being completely in charge of everything she does.  This includes going to bed at night with the television tuned into her favorite morning news channel so she doesn't have to search through all the channels, to getting the coffee pot completely ready for her to wake up and turn it on so she can still "make her own coffee." 

 Don't get me wrong, I love this woman and have more respect for her than anyone else in the world, but sometimes she drives me crazy. 

This is my journey...