NAO Update 2

Here’s a quick update on my NAO, and a little longer update on the things going on in my life. Feel free to skip either, or both, if you must.

I can’t remember the last time I went two nights in a row without drinking (though it was probably only a few weeks ago.) I woke up feeling fine this morning, but I’m still in a grumpy mood. I’m sure that’s because of the ongoing issues I’m having with the devices at work. We should be fine tonight, but the weekend will be the real test.

My mother is in a memory care center at a nice retirement facility in our area. Her dementia has been a growing problem over the past 10 years or so, probably brought on to her reactions to anesthesia she was administered during various operations she’s had over that time. She went from being mildly forgetful to noticeably unsure of most things over the past eight years, but my stepfather was able to handle the issues and even hide them to an extent. I don’t think he was purposefully doing this, and certainly not out of any bad intent; he was in denial as to the extent of her growing problem and saw it as just normal age-related forgetfulness.

Two years ago, early summer, mom had hip replacement surgery and that led to a huge drop in her cognitive ability. It also led to an increase in the anger issues that she’s really had all of her life. Whatever filter had been working for her to maintain civility most of the time (with some notable exceptions) suddenly expired and worked for less often. Sometimes she’d be fine, but increasingly she was not. She would become irrationally angry and mean, lashing out at whomever was around causing her annoyance. I won’t go into details, but she went from making Christmas day (which she and my stepfather insisted the family spend at their house) uncomfortable to damn-near intolerable.

For the most part my stepfather was able to keep mom in check, but last year he fell and suffered a series of small strokes, which put him in the hospital and then in physical therapy. It quickly became apparent that mom couldn’t stay at home on her own, and I started looking into having her placed in care temporarily until my stepfather was healthy enough to come home. He resisted at first, but when she wandered off from the hospital one day for several hours when nobody could find her, he finally relented. (She was fine, but it became apparent that she could do the same thing at night from home, and anything could happen then.)

When my stepfather finally got healthy enough to come home, he discovered quickly that he wasn’t going to be (or get) healthy enough to resume taking care of mom. He couldn’t even drive himself anywhere, relying on my stepbrother to get him around most days. I helped when I could, but working full time in a new job made it difficult for me to be there much.

He visited mom almost daily until he got sick again. On top of the other issues, he’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease a year earlier, and during his stay at the hospital they discovered that he had stomach cancer that had spread extensively. Knowing he didn’t have much time left, he finally got motivated to get the legal documents done that would ensure that mom could be taken care of. He died three days before mom’s birthday (and a week after his own.)

There isn’t much that can be done for mom’s dementia, but they have tried to regulate her bi-polar issues with meds. Once they realized the extent of her issues, they were initially able to control her mood swings and anger issues, but lately it’s been getting harder and harder to do. Apparently one’s tolerance can grow towards these drugs and it becomes a delicate balancing act between keeping her in a good mood and making her into a zombie. Of course the alternative is that her moods aren’t controlled, and she lashes out at people (thankfully just the staff so far) or things (like recently kicking a refrigerator and hurting her foot.)

The wife and I go by most Saturdays to look in on her, unless we’re out of town, and stay for about 10 or 15 minutes. When she’s in a good mood we’ll stay a little longer, but lately she hasn’t really been in a good mood. She wants to go home, which of course she can’t. Not only could she not take care of herself to any degree, the house was sold after my stepfather died to help pay for her care. Fortunately money isn’t an issue at this point, although if she is around for another five years or so (which is very possible; her physical health is pretty good) she’ll eventually run out of estate funds. Then Medicaid (or Medicare, whichever is for retired people) will kick in, but that will mean moving her to an actual nursing home. At the rate she’s going, I doubt she’ll have enough cognitive function when that happens to be aware of the change.

My stepbrother is in charge of the estate and of making the medical decisions for mom, per my stepfather’s wishes, which is fine with my sister and me. He keeps us informed and gets our feedback on anything big, which is nice, but I have no desire to be the one in charge of that stuff. Neither does my sister and she’s in Kentucky anyway so it would be a lot harder for her.

I’ll update my NAO progress again soon, and if I have time I’ll catch up with some other things going on.