Tag Archives: hyperthyroidism

Maybe That’s Why She’s Quiet… I hate Dementia

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Mom continues to gain strength, and has actually gained around 15 pounds as near as I can tell.   Over the last several weeks, when asked about her weight, Mom would reply that she weighed 112 or 127 or 119 — all within the same conversation!  My sister and I were concerned because Mom’s weight is relevant due to her Congestive Heart Failure.  My sis has since bought a small dry erase marker board which sits right by the bathroom scale.  Mom’s daily journal seems to confirm the 127, give or take a pound each day.

However, it is complicated because now that the Hyperthyroidism is under control, of course, she is gaining weight.  Her appetite is back, and she is eating well again.   I try not to take offense to “the eating well again” comment when my sister says it.  Hey!  I was feeding her well when she lived here.   But, seriously, 85% of the time Mom was with me, she was a very sick woman.  And with the thyroid out of control, it didn’t seem to matter what she ate, she still lost weight.  I haven’t opened any of Mom’s cupboards in the new apartment, but my sister says she tends to gravitate to the candy aisle whenever they are out shopping.  That, too, could be responsible for a few extra pounds.  She also has dessert choices at every meal in the dining room — she does love her some lemon pie!  That’s okay, eat whatever you want, Mom.   At 84, some habits are just not going to change.

Since I posted last, I have seen Mom a couple of times.  She has been fairly reserved and quiet.  She will talk when asked direct questions, but she rarely begins any conversation herself.  I think that is the biggest personality change I see.  She doesn’t seem mad anymore, just not herself.

I hate dementia.  What an awful disease.  There she is right in front of me.   But where is SHE really?  Like many other daughters around me, I have cried myself sick over my mother.  (The hour and half drive home serves me well that way.)  Grieving…

Our family worked like crazy over the last year to get Mom healthy again.  We fought the doctors at every turn when they gave up.  And we were right when we said,  ‘something isn’t right; you are missing something’.   After eight months, the doctors landed on the correct diagnosis, and here we are two and half months later, Mom is certainly healthier — she has gained back strength, stamina, and weight.  She looks good.  But, I can’t help but think all that havoc on her body accelerated the dementia.  She is a different woman than she was — even 9 months ago.  Sure, we saw the signs, and we knew things we a bit amiss, but the rate at which her mind has stopped playing nicely is alarming to me.  And it grieves me.

I think it grieves her too.

Does she hear the repetition?  I know she hears the repeating stories in some of her fellow residents, and it drives her crazy.  (smile)  Yes, that does make all of us kind of snicker.  Oh, Mom…

Does she know she is confused?

I think she knows.  And it probably scares her death.

Maybe that’s why she’s quiet.  The less she talks the less she reveals to us … and to herself.

10signs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Its Not About Me And Yet…

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Mom just fixed her breakfast.  She has been fixing her own breakfast for about a week now.  She brought her laundry out to the mud room yesterday — rolled it on her walker.  I was already in that room, so I loaded the washer for her and later transferred it over to the dryer.  Once it was done, I took it to Mom, and she folded it.   This is good progress.  For months, she has not had the health or energy to do any of these things.  We ran a few errands earlier this week, and Mom seemed to enjoy that day.  She got in and out of the car several times and did fine.  She bought some new clothes at a local shop — much needed items as her own clothing hangs on her now 60-pounds-less frail body.

All that progress, but still, I sit here looking up Movers and Self-storage Units.   She wants to go back to her apartment.  She loves that apartment.  It is sad.  Heartbreaking.  Melancholy: a gloomy state of mind.  Sigh

Even since our “family meeting” on Sunday, where we talked very frankly to Mom about her physical and mental health and explained why she cannot go back to her apartment, she tells everyone she is going home next week.  And seriously, I do not believe she is being stubborn; I think she does not remember most of that Sunday conversation, and in her mind, she intends to go home.

And that is why she cannot.

She is still too confused to live alone.

Her physical body is healing and gaining strength.  Her clarity has improved dramatically over the last 3 weeks, but her mental state seems to have stabilized about a week ago.    She is almost “there” but not quite.   We cannot, in good conscience, allow her to go back to an apartment building to live alone.  Would she forget to turn off the stove?  She never has.  But what if?

My Mom is in a hard place.  She has had so much taken away from her in a short period of time.   Even though she just celebrated her 84th birthday, and by anyone’s standards, that is an old age, she was on the golf course 9 months ago.  She took a road trip with a friend out West just a couple of years ago.  This is not the average 84 year old woman.

I have been a little uptight and anxious the last few weeks.   I have been too quick to complain and see the negative.   Her half well/half sick state challenges me on many levels.  Shame on me.  I can do this better.  I will never have another chance to do this.  I want to do it right.

This is my Mom’s story.  It’s not about me, but yet, do I have some control on how we all walk down this road?  My attitude and mental state affect not only me, but they affect my Mom and my children and grandchildren.   It IS my story in that sense.   How do I want to do this?  Who do I want to be in this?  When I look back…

Lord, I need discernment, wisdom, kindness and strength.  Help me to do this better.   I want no regrets.  Help me to do this right.

Sometimes There Is No Air

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Graves Disease.  Hyperthyroidism.  Both very treatable.  Both easily identifiable.  Both missed.  Wow.  My mother has been sick for months, really really sick, like the close-to-death kind of sick.  And the whole time, it was something that they missed.  I don’t even know what to say.  How does that happen?   And the doctors are shocked as well.  They are being open and honest with us, saying things like, ‘we missed it’, ‘checking thyroid is standard procedure’, ‘I feel like an idiot’.  Yes, a doctor actually said that.   This was all avoidable.  Her thyroid numbers were off as far back as May 2013, and no one followed through with that report.  14 months.  Wow.

So the good news is, Mom is going to get better.  She is already so much better.  That is wonderful and we feel blessed.  We sincerely thought we’d be burying her before summer’s end.  All signs point to another chance.  She has been given more time.

The bad news is she won’t be content here.  We’ve been through this before.  Every time her health improves.  Same story.  And I don’t blame her.  She had an active life she loved.  She wants her life back.  And who knows, maybe she’ll get it back… time will tell.

I called my sibs together today for another family meeting.  Mom was so sick 6 weeks ago when we met, she doesn’t even recall that conversation or any of the decisions made during the meeting.  Her lease is up at the end of the month.  We need to move ahead packing and storing, and I need some reinforcements before I forge ahead.  Even though Mom seems to be on the path to recovery, she will not be able to live alone for months.  She has already paid five months rent for an apartment that no one is living in.  The lease is up, the apartment has to go.

We talked in circles — the dementia rearing its ugly head — but she did, in the end, agree about the apartment.  I will get supplies and begin packing evenings this week.  I wonder how much of the conversation she’ll remember, and how much of it will be twisted and repeated incorrectly.   She has already had one phone call from a friend — 10 minutes after everyone left — and many details were skewed already.  It is sad.

And so I’m struggling right now.  Feeling sorry for myself.  My sibs have left — all to their different Sunday evening activities, and I’m here at home — with Mom.  Even my husband and daughter flew the coop.  (After the tense afternoon meeting, my husband decided it was a good time to power wash the house — anything to get outside).

Mom is mobile, and we can get out.  But frankly, we’re kind of tired of each other.  We’re both well-mannered enough to remain cool, calm and collected.   We’re both kind and considerate to each other.  But I want out of the house to do something else.  And so does she.

I did go out to eat with my husband earlier today, well, my husband…. and my mom.  My mother is always here.  Around every corner.   And I know some day, I will not be able to say that.  She will be gone.  Guilt.  But it’s like a new mother with that toddler.  She loves him more than life itself, but he is always there.  No escape.  The days are long and monotonous.  I’m sure that is exactly how my mom feels too.  I am always here.  She never has any privacy.  She never has a minute to herself.  We just need air.  Sometimes there is no air.

We are buggy.

We need a break.

I am reading a book on listing good things.  Remembering and counting.  Practice.  Practice thankfulness.

I am thankful for the time I’ve had with my mother.  I am thankful for the lessons being learned as I care for her.  I’m thankful for the relationship she has developed with my grandchildren, and the fact that they will remember GG.  I’m thankful for a husband who has been kind and generous to his mother-in-law.  I’m thankful for Mom’s second chance at life.  I am thankful for the health, strength and time I have to invest in my mother.

I am feeling a little blue,  sorry for me, but I know God is faithful.  I know He is good.  And He is working all this out to His glory.

Today is just a bump in the road on this journey with my mom.

Tomorrow we will be fine.

It’s all good, and we will be okay.

Everyone has moments, or days, when they just feel overwhelmed with what’s on their plate, right?  Practice. Practice.

its all good

 

 

 

 

 

Who Are You, and What Did You Do With My Mother?

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Who are you, and what did you do with my mother?

That is the question I just asked my  84 year old Mom as she sits painting her fingernails in my living room.  She smiles as she kicks her legs out and asks me if I think she got all the hair.  What?  She says she shaved her legs this morning.  Who is this woman?

She came home from the hospital last Thursday evening.  If you’ve read my previous posts, you know she has been one very sick woman, and quite frankly, we thought she wasn’t long for this earth.   As the doctors talked about releasing her, I was very concerned about my ability to take care of her this time around — she was so sick in the hospital.  All day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning, she was weary, weak and had absolutely no energy.   I intended to “make her comfortable” and hope for the best, but expect the worst.

But Sunday afternoon,  she rallied, and we are shocked.  We don’t know what to think.  Is it the new thyroid meds?  Is it my sister visiting from out of state (adrenaline)?    Weren’t they just chasing a “last stage, incurable cancer last week? (we have heard nothing more out of the oncologists) Wow.

She doesn’t look like the same woman!

She went with my sister to their rented lake cottage on Sunday afternoon, out to lunch with us on Monday, and back to the cottage this afternoon.  Amazing.

I don’t know what this means.

Yes, she is weak and certainly, still frail.  But her energy level is up, and her appetite is good — very good.  Even her dementia is barely noticeable; she seems pretty lucid.

This could just be a fluke.  Maybe she is just having a couple of really good days.  I don’t know.  Time will tell.

But for today, we’ll take it, and be grateful for it.   Thank you, Lord.

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