The title has nothing to do with this post. It's just one of my favorite lines, and it has been stuck in my head all morning. It's a song by pulp., underwear. In my younger, wilder days i was an avid pulp fan. Listen to me, "younger, wilder days". i'm just shy of thirty. Yet my lingering middle aged housewife feeling remains; the other day at the fair i even looked at a surviving a midlife crisis book. Mostly as a joke.
So much happens in my life; i'm going to endeavor to be more faithful in posting to this blog at least. This is where i chronicle my life most truthfully, perhaps. This is where i can tell stories like the one below. Because this is where i have anonymity; well relative anonymity. Those who have been given the link to this and know me in real life are those i trust not to take it amiss. i hope.
Mom is degrading. Not in any major way, and she is still very strong in many ways. Yesterday, as a test, i assigned her to put the calendar numbers in numerical order. (We were up helping a kindergarten instructor friend prepare her room for the new year, and had just cut new calendar numbers out of lamination.) She was able to do so, only asking me a few times whether i wanted the lower numbers on top. This was a small victory in my eyes, a confirmation that she was still okay. Though it is somewhat sad for this to be my victory, that my brilliant mother can put 31 cards in numerical order.
The idea that this isn't really alzheimers still haunts me, the idea that it might be something infinitely curable, and i'm ignoring the treatment under the assumption that it is untreatable. i want to make her an appointment with a psychiatrist, just to be fully evaluated. This, of course, will cost money. we do what we can though, right?????
i've run around the block, speaking of money, of late trying to find ways to keep mom's. Basically, the end result is, that if she ever needs subsidized care, we cannot. They will take all of our inheritance (which we turned over to her years ago to manage for us), and they will force me to sell the house. There is no way easy, or even moderately difficult, way around it- she is being punished, in my eyes, for being responsible. My parents had our house paid off when i was a child, and they did not mortgage it. They were always very proud of this. She did not spend the inheritance when daddy died, she carefully saved it in an account for us. Now they will take this, to provide her with the same care they offer freely to those less responsible, who mortgaged their houses three times and squandered their money into thousands of dollars of debt. i'm going, i think, to talk to a recommended elder care attorney, but my tentative current plan, then, is to spend it. Spend it on her care, else they might make me pay it back, and spend it on house repairs (it being her house apparently that is accpetable in their eyes too.) For this year, while we sort this all out, i plan on setting an account up from this money to pay a companion while i'm at work. Next year we will revisit my move to lackawanna county to get her into the good adult day care.
For now, her attachment to this town is so strong i would hate to move her. This is against advice. People tell me that if i took her to the better program, she'd be better off. She would think she knew everyone anyway, and would adjust. i'm afraid, though, that to change her environment might cause a tramatic decline. Plus, she loves this town, and its people. Best yet, the people here know her. They are okay with her wandering, and her questions. The talk with her, and repeat themselves with a smile. If she is in trouble, they call me. People in an unknown town might not do so.
The bicentennial event was the highlight of her summer, i think. It was our borough's 150th anniversary, and our township's 200th. She spent most of the weekend at it, dressed up for most of it, talking with people, being recognized and loved. During the parade she was almost crying, and thanked God repeatedly for it, and that she had been allowed to see it. This is why we are staying here, in this run down house, at least in part. This is why i do not want to move her. She is still e., though he disease has changed who that is bit.
No comments:
Post a Comment