Summer has abandoned the mountain, and the colors of autumn are fast spreading from valley to valley.
Just before the bright orange full moon, my mother seemed to have lost another bit of her brainpower. Several times a day, now, she says that she doesn’t know where she is and she wants to go home. She is terrified of being abandoned, left alone to fend for herself, despite the fact that we never leave her alone, not even at night, now that I’m sleeping on a bed in the next room. Any kind of altercation — even on the television — sends her mind imploding. She cries. She cries a lot, but not from pain anymore. We took her to an orthopedist, who looked at her recent x-ray and gave her a cortisone shot in the shoulder that has been so excruciatingly painful. She has not been complaining about pain in that shoulder.
Her pain is her awareness that she is being abandoned by her “self.” When she asks “where am I?” it’s not the confusion over “where” that terrifies her; it is the loss of the “I.”
“Am I going crazy?’ she asks in lucid moments.
We can’t bear to tell her that, yes, she is.
91 years and counting.
Kalilily Time
Just an old lady talking to herself
Hello,
I happened upon your blog through “Blogs by Women” and enjoyed it very much. I am sincerely sorry to read about your mom.
I read in one of your entries titled, “reuniting” and you mentioned Rye Beach and the Sacred Heart. Am I correct in assuming that you mean Rye Beach, NH and Newmarket, NH? If not, forgive me for being presumptuous. I only asking because I am from Portsmouth, NH (now living in the South) Some of my family lived in Newmarket and and are of Italian descent. I do know that many Polish descendants also lived in Newmarket.
Thank you for your time.
Liz
Every sympathy. My mum has passed beyond that stage now & has no presence in the immediate world. Most of the time she is calm & we draw comfort from this & the fact that she continues to recognise us. May your mother (& you) find some peace & calm soon.
It seems that this disease progresses differently with different people. Thanks for your empathies and sympathies. I remind myself that “this too shall pass.”
It also seems better for those afflicted when they retreat completely into their own worlds. It might be harder on us caregivers, but at least they are not on the kind of emotional roller coaster that my mom is on.