I had a shock today.  Mother had no idea who I was.  

Rewind to 2012.  Mother was diagnosed with kidney failure, given 3 months to live and we brought her into our home fully expecting the worst every day when we got up.  But, she came back and instead of dying she became my constant companion for the next 3 years. My husband adapted to having her in our home.  She stayed out of his way, didn't take his favorite chair and tried to help with chores when she could. The changes we had to make for her were annoying but not impossible.

Slowly over that 3 years she became less and less able to do for herself.  Dementia took it's toll, slowly and unyielding. Short term memory loss, weakening in her limbs,and the inability to do "normal" things got more prevelant. 

Mom and I took frequent little trips. Some lasting as much as 2 weeks.  We always traveled by car for she loved seeing the country side.  Loved pulling off to see some crazy tourist trap and having me take pictures. Our last trip, Jan. of 2014 was to Disney World.  We met my daughter and her family along with the "other" grandparents and spent several days exploring, riding rides and eating to much. On the way home was the start of Mother's spells, for lack of a better word. First of which she thought I had kidnapped her. Somewhere between Orlando and Tallahassee, she totally forgot who I was, where she was, where she had been or where she was going. I checked into a hotel and we went to eat.  She was afraid to eat becasue she thought I was going to poison her but by the time we returned to the hotel and I got her ready for bed she remembered who I was.  

Since the first "spell" Mother slowly slipped little by little.  Physical activity became harder and harder.  Her love for going to the movies changed. She lost interest in sitting in the garden. Little by little the things that she loved went by the way side. She had a stroke which was documented by a hospital and since the first one, has had several smaller strokes.  Each taking more and more bits of her away.

My sister, Judy, and I had determined that we would keep her at home as long as we possibly could. I kept Mother in my home for 3 years while Judy was still working full time. Then last year there was another medical emergency in my family for which Judy had to keep Mother for a few weeks.  Mother enjoyed being with Judy but also wanted to come home (to my house) so we started sharing the time with Mother, two weeks here and two weeks there.  It was working beautifully until the small strokes started coming every couple of weeks.  It has taken more and more time to recover after them.  Today when I went to pick her up...Mother had no idea who I was.

At present Mother is staying with my sister and we now have her on Hospice. The progression over the last three and a half years has been heart breaking to see and draining to handle.  There are very few resorces that say, this is what you do when your Mother has a hallucination that George Clooney and his wife are sleeping in her bed and you are expected to fix breakfast for everyone. A support group would have been wonderful but I live in the country, 30 minutes from town and the two are small towns.   There is such a hole in the area of helpful information for day to day care giving for those who want to keep their parents at home. Is there anyone interested in joining me to write a book?   

3/3/2015