Yesterday was a really bad day for my mom slept most of the day when it came time for dinner could hardly get up tried to go to the bathroom sat on the toliet forgotton to lift her robe and nightgown up sat down couldnt eat just stared into space shes been battling dementia for abut two years and each day just gets worse its getting harder to watch the decline the woman I knew is gone and I have to ask why is this still going on shes 97 and has had a great life so why does she and everyone else have to keep going on like this things are only going to get worse each day .
Nothing to be done, but continue to be there for her - and if you do not already have some paid caregivers to help, I would suggest you try to schedule some in, as it is harder from moment-to-moment as you deal with declines of loved ones, because you are also going through saying a long goodbye.
Hang in there! We are all here for you any time!!
I have a picture of my Mama here when she was about 38 and she was drop-dead beautiful. I finally got the nerve to put it up next to the one he has up of his mother and dad. No doubt his mom was pretty when she was younger, but mine runs circles around her. I should have displayed it 49 years ago. I didn't because I was mad at her because she was an alcoholic. I wish I could have understood that better then and I wish it was my Mom I was caring for instead of his. I don't think I would have the ill feelings I do I about caregiving if it was her lying there. I'll never get the chance to know. She died over 30 years ago.
God bless you all that are caing for your loved ones. I'm only caring for my loved one's loved one and it's not easy. For instance, after her second potty trip this morning, I thought I was clear to clean up the yard of dog poop, but here comes hubby yelling "Mom needs you for potty", in just a little while, she needed me for trip number four. When she told me her butt was burning, I told her I would give her some cream to put on it, but she said she wanted me to do it. I said I would give her the cream and she can do it herself. She knows where her asshole is. She can reach it to wipe it, she can reach it to put cream on it. I gave her the cream and watched her do it and pulled her Depends up again.
I have to go check her Depends again in a minute. She peed the last one full even though she has a catheter. The nurse says it is caused by a bladder spasm. It forces urine out no matter how sealed the catheter fits. We sure go through a lot of Depends.
She must have an amazing constitution...
She wanted the remote control for her TV so she could turn it off. It was already off and when I told her that while touching her, she hit me and told me to get out of her room.
Another trip she told my husband a radio was on in the kitchen. When he told her there wasn't, she told him I must have turned it off before he got up. She talked in her sleep all night and thought there were lots of people in her room. She turned her lamp on and off many times so all these people could get out. She yelled at my grandson and I never did find out why.
Somebody tell me if you've ever experienced a loved one talking in their sleep and being so loud they could wake up the dead. She didn't stop at one or two episodes of this. It went on all night long.
My husband says he's going to give her a sleeping pill tonight. She doesn't have one prescribed, but he thinks Tylenol PM should do the trick.
We are thinking of you,
Carol