Good Lifestyle

My mother was crying as she broke the news: the son of my 18 year old sister was killed in Iraq. It was late at night and I was in bed home in New York. She had called Oregon. It was February 2003 and as Groggy as I knew there was no war in Iraq. At least not yet. Of course, the news was full of stories about the accumulation to war, but there was no chance that my nephew was in danger. I assured her that her grandson was still in high school and was safe at home. Then I hung up, shocked, depressed and worried.

My mother was more than a confused grandmother surmounted by grief. She was a federal judge whose spirit was his greatest asset. There was his ticket from Klamath County, Oregon, a rural and sparsely populated part of wood and cattle at the Californian border. Too poor to pay the college, she graduated from Phi Beta Kappa with the help of scholarships and subsidies. A mastery, marriage with my father and three children quickly followed.

In 1963, she applied to the law school. Seven years later, she was appointed vacant on the state court. Ten years after that, Jimmy Carter proposed it to the Federal Bench. But after hearing his sob in the receiver that night, he got up on me that his mind betrayed it.

The next day, I called Patricia, my mother's clerk and told him that I did not think my mother should sit in a courtroom. She has accepted. I did not tell my sister what had happened, but I started using theA word, if only with myself.

Although I lived some time zones, I would have recently aware of the deterioration of my mother's mental health. Often, when we talked on the phone, she would ask the same set of questions again and again. Once she sent a birthday message without the card, the empty envelope. Another time she told my elder son that she had a telescope for Christmas. He never appeared, even after interviewing it about it. It was irritating more than anything.

Two months after the Iraqi incident, my mother flew to New York to visit. She was not alone; She came with Bob, her "dance partner". My father had died 15 years earlier, and it was the picturesque euphemism that she used with me, even though the two of them lived together for 10 years. Outside the law, my mother's only passion in life had become a ball ball dance. And Bob was a good dancer. Tangos, Waltzes, Foxtrot - They all danced all, the Bob leaves with white hair and white hair and my mother follow. It did not seem to be of importance to one of them that he was married and a member of the life of the Mormon Church.

Although I had seen recently, the change of behavior was remarkable. She seemed confused, disoriented, lost. Walking in Central Park, she saw someone with a small white dog, a bichon frieze. She turned to Bob. "Where is Tippy?" She requested worried. Tippy was his own bichon frieze and, while I listened for darkly, Bob patiently explained that Tippy was at home in Oregon. An apologetic laugh followed, a laugh that I would often hear over the next few days, while attempting to cover his signaling ability to stay oriented in space and time. But stumbling on space and time was not the worst. What really rocked me, it's the moment I found it by looking at my 8 year old son with virgin eyes and lifeless. It was as if it were with regard to an inanimate object instead of his own grandson. Of all the indicators that something was horribly bad in his mind, it was these vacant eyes that frightened me.

In August, 4 months after the mother's trip to New York, I received a Patricia call. Something had happened, something that focuses us on the guard. The judge, while Patricia returned him, had suddenly and not slightly thrown from Bob. For the first time in years, my mother lived alone. Given what I saw in New York, the news was troubling.

By coincidence, I had to fly on the west coast at the end of the week to attend my 30th secondary meeting. I planned to have a family vacation, take my wife and two of my youngest children with me. Now, fearing that my mother's life is suddenly outfit, I put the holidays waiting and led straight to see her as soon as we landed.

Patricia met me at the door. She smiles strange, revealing braces on her teeth. They made his look impeccable and even younger than his 50 years. I resolved and I went inside. A thick layer of dust covered everything, and cat fur floated in the air. And the smell-Jesus. Once my eyes fit in light of light, I could see the flat China full of pet food placed at random around the house. They were perched on the edges of edges, busy chairs and covered the dining room table. Half a dozen has more powder the floor of the kitchen. Added to the bouquet of meat Rance was the pungent smell of unchanged litter. I was horrified. It was like an old crazy lady inhabited the place instead of my own mother.

From the door, my wife and my children looked at me with apprehension and fear. I drove them to the courtyard where once threaded a colorful and fragrant garden. No more. Everything was now dead or dying - intact, he has appeared for several years. But at least we could breathe. When she is finally emerged from the rubbish inside, my mother seemed more surprised to find us there. She barely said hello before asking me aloud if Tippy was hungry.

"Do you want a bit of attack boy! Baby? Are you hungry?" The dog's tail was moved with joy. "Go, Tippy, Mom will feed you."

I caught Patricia's eyes. In a murmur, she confirmed my worst fears: it was serious; It was the big ones; The wall had finally been touched. Just the day before, the judge had lost himself while walking Tippy. With Bob out of the picture, there was no one around to pick him up. She was blocked, carried out on a fucking bag-de-sac in the middle of the suburbs, without defense to fend for herself.

I should stay in Oregon. Although I have two younger sisters, they had been cut all the links with our last years. In addition to his reclusive brother, I am the only family she has. So, he went without saying that my family would return to New York without me.

Imagine 48 years old and live with your mother. Now, imagine that you have to put your own live waiting while you assume the homework and responsibilities of his. In addition, there is no downtime. No weekend. No vacation days. You are 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and by "there" I mean there, on the point, with her, engaged. But I was lucky; I am a writer and I was doing projects. I could allow me time. I shuddled the thought of less lucky people who had no choice but to throw a parent struck in the first retirement home that had an openness - that is to say if they could pay for that . Lucky, too, was the fact that the appointment to the federal bench is still, which means that uncle sugar would continue to pay the salary of my mother until the day she died. And unlike millions of other Americans, she had health insurance to circumvent the cost of her illness.

Nevertheless, my stay in Oregon for a few weeks or months was a Stopgap measure: I had to offer a plan. The first thing I did was conspire with Patricia and my mother's secretary, Mary Jo, for the judge to go down to the courthouse twice a week. His day would be composed of mixed papers that she could not understand, broken through a long and easy lunch. It would allow me to find substantial blocks of time to understand how I was going to face the harsh new realities of his life.

I needed an accident course in Alzheimer's care and I needed it fast. I started by calling a good friend in California whose father had died recently from the disease. From there, I searched for advice from local professional organizations and support groups. I interviewed hospitals and clinics. I made appointments with gerontologists and seniors' lawyers. I asked the intimate questions of people I barely knew. I have intruded on foreigners. It did not take long to learn much more than I wanted on the serious realities of age in America.

Even as the days became in weeks, she never read, never interviewed, never presented her behavior that led me to believe that she knew what I was doing. The only evidence I have ever noted that she was aware of her own situation was an Alzheimer newsletter that I discovered hidden in a sock drawer. How long ago there was there, I could only guess. Even my presence has not attracted more than an occasional issue.

"When are you returning home?" She would have asked.

I have always answered the same way. "In a few days."

"I bet your family lacked me," she will observe.

"Yup. I make sure." And that would end it. That was all she told the fact that we lived under the same roof for the first time in 30 years. We quickly fell into a routine. She got up in the morning to feed Tippy before getting up and getting methodically all the curtains. She would eventually arrive at the room of friends, where I was sitting at the camp, opening the door and jumps for fear when she saw me. I would greet her as happily as I could, already worried she might not know who I was.

"Oh, I forgot that you were here," she said with a laugh. Then she go back to bed while I got up and I found myself a piece of toast and a sliced ​​apple. How the rest of the day ran varied, but this morning ritual, once established, has never changed. Only once she has comments.

"All these years when I repaired your breakfast, and now you spread my breakfast," she watched one morning, never questioning the reversal of roles. I patted it on the head like a child, making the complete transition.

Determine if the disease is present requires examining a cerebral tissue sample for plates and entanglements. This extremely invasive procedure is rarely carried out on living patients. As a result, doctors can diagnose "possible" or "likely" alzheimer only by disposal process. They try everything that could cause similar symptoms, including Parkinson, Huntington's and Diabetes. If the tests prove negative, your close choices until there is nowhere to go, nothing else to explain the erosion of memory, dementia, the inability to follow the instructions, the paranoiaous.

The doctors we consulted did not find anything diagnosis, anyway - so they did what the good practitioners of Western medicine would do: they prescribed drugs. If Toast and a sliced ​​apple started the day, a handful of pills has finished. Often, my mother would hold the pills of his hand until they dissolve in a glutinous mess. In hell, I would think, it's not going to kill her to miss one night. Then I would throw what remained on the left of the pills and cleans hands, and we continued with everything we were doing, which usually watched the news on television. It was the only thing I could get it to sit again.

Speaking of pills, I should confess that after a few weeks of this routine, I started to self-meditating. I seized my elbow playing basketball a few weeks before my secondary meeting. While the emergency X-rays had revealed no break, I had damaged the tendons and ligaments enough for the doctors to give me a sling and a bottle of painkillers. The sling I had dropped after a few weeks. The analgesics, of which I still had, were in my suitcase.

It is just said on the small plastic bottle that you should not mix alcohol and prescription analgesics. He also says that you should not use heavy equipment. While I hold the game on the machines, I started combining the rum and the percocece in a nocturnal ritual of escape. I know myself myself of oneself, but my mother, the feeding of the relentless animal could really jicule my nerves. The experts call him the sunset. Although no one knows exactly why, the fixing of the sun seems to trigger an increased level of agitation and erratic behavior in many people with Alzheimer's. They can rhythm; They can turn on and off the lights; They can wander. My mother, of course, had her dog to feed. It was like the last light of the pink cloud day that this obsession would manifest itself in its most virulent form. As if on cue, she would go to the kitchen to open another bobbin from Atta Boy! And scoop the disgusting content with the right money.

After dinner in the living room in front of the TV, my mother sipping a diet root beer while I shot the rum and Percocet - I was then able to handle the long and hard process to lend it for the bed. This included a shower, which needed me to transform the water and invite (Alzheimer speaks for Nag) with endless of the other room.

Once she called me to help her with clothes, she could not go down. "Can you help me with that ... that ..."

I got up to help. "This" turned out to be his bra, that she could not get away. I told myself, a wave of horror sweeping on me as I helped my mother 72 to remove his underwear.

"Take your shower," I said, bolting the room.

At the moment when I finally bring it to bed, it was usually after midnight. I ramp up in my own buzzing bed. Sometimes I would hear her get up, turn all the lights, and jerk off the kitchen to feed Tippy and cats. I would already say the dishes on the floor and I pleaded with her. "Tippy has food. You have ever fed it."

"But he licks his lips", she was counting as the dog went up to me about apologies. "It means it's hungry." It was ridiculous, of course, but as his concept of time, the notion of how to say if a dog was hungry was completely his. I even had a dream about it. In this, Tippy, speaking of the voice of the late actor Peter Lorre, boasted of the quality of his quality as the "old lady was part of the deep bottom". I often wondered if he could feel the change that had taken place, detects the slowness of his mind, his erratic behavior; But apart from this dream, he never said a word.

Sometimes I would let her feed the dog. At other times, I got up to find her in the kitchen with her hair hanging on her face, carrying her checked bathrobe with carats and talking to Tippy with soft voice, I called her "mother voice". Whenever I heard it, I was immediately transported when I was a child and she was my loved mother. Once, however, when I was particularly f * cked up, I heard that voice and completely loss. After having managed to hold it together for weeks, I was overwhelmed by the sadness of all this. I start sobbling quietly, finally at the rest of my head on the back of his shoulder and whipping like a baby.

"What's wrong?" She asked, turning around and seeing tears running my face.

"Nothing," I say, because there was nothing I can say.

"You are a funny boy." She smiled and put the bowl of dog food on the floor. "Go to bed, Tippy," she goes down. "Go with mom."

In an endless series of emotional stockings, that night was perhaps the lowest.

And then there was money. Before "getting out of the depth", like Tippy put it, my mother had signed the necessary documents giving me the power of prosecutor (POA). Patricia had conceived it. Alarmed by the erroneous belief of the judge that my nephew had been killed in Iraq, Patricia had managed to convince her that the provisions of the POA were necessary for someone of his age. Nine months later, this single piece of paper has proved invaluable. He gave me the ability to revision completely the administrative details of his life bank accounts, public service invoices, insurance requests. And the redesign I did, especially when I took a look at how vulnerable she was.

Rrrrrrrrrrr-A rugged lawn mower by the window. "Who is it?" I asked my mother an afternoon while we sat in her living room. She looked at the 300-pound man who cut the grass into the yard.

"It's the big guy who lives in the street." That's what she called it. She must have known her name once, but that, like so many words and sentences, had been made too difficult for her to recover at a time of notice. So he was simply became "the big guy who lives in the street". She paid him $ 12 to mow his lawn. It did not take it for a long time, perhaps 20 minutes, and since it worked a night somewhere, it would appear at random hours on random days to cut the grass every time it is too long. Every two weeks, it would leave an invoice in the mailbox.

Rrrrrrrrr-The same lawn mower roars with the same window. It was 3 days later and the big guy was back. At first, I did not believe anything as he struck the courtyard of the court; I thought he ended something he had missed. But he continued and I quickly realized that he was doing everyone. A day or two later, when he appeared once again, I asked my mother who mowed the lawn.

"It's the big guy who lives in the street," she says as for the first time.

It turned out that he was not alone with a Swiss fault ofaine from the old old lady. The phone rang every night with myriad Telemarketers sites and solicitations that had my mother's number on their wind list. I found his closets and drawers stuck with promotional gifts and collectibles, some of whom were shipped on a monthly basis. Most packets had never been opened. Since his credit card has been charged automatically, the stuff continues to come. And come. Plates, panty pipe, video video - The list was infinite endless. Also also catalogs, magazines and magazines that clogged its mailbox. I discovered that many of them were also sent to his desk, which herself herself herself extensive junk mail stores, including a collection of black forest cuckoo clocks and a series of dolls of Princess Diana that I found particularly disgusting.

Money, both as a concept and a daily living tool, quickly lost sense for it. This was evident by the fact that Mary Jo, his secretary, has written several of his checks. My mother has signatories only. There were other checks, however - checks given to my niece and Bob-Mary Jo had not written. My 25-year-old niece fantasized hip and urban and lived in the pearl, a gentre portion of Old Portland is full of others at twenty years. My mother had legally adopted it at the age of 4 after my young youngest young and the most flaky was known forheguely. In some way guilt, my mother had raised it as a free-reach chicken, rules of fainting and discipline for the desired sur-impulse and materialism.

I found checks for the rent on the expensive apartments of my niece, checks to pay a renovated bathroom, checks for life insurance policies, checks for a new car, vouchers for travel, clothing checks Check checks. A lot of money. In fact, several ATM cards floated around what I knew that my mother could not use because she could no longer remember a four-digit code she could not fly a jumbo jet. As I examined 5 years of bank statements, it was not difficult to understand where everything was going.

"Gram said I could:" My niece told me when I questioned withdrawals. It would be the first of the many instances when my niece tells me that she had got the permission of her grandmother to do something that some people could call. As I discovered, my mother has already paid the rent, car and credit card invoices of my niece. She paid her cable, her cell phone and her utility. She even paid for her subscription to the newspaper and his slats. In addition, she was $ 1,500 a month transferred directly to her bank account. Why my niece had to press the ATM for additional funds, I did not want to know.

In a way, I could not blame her. My niece, like Tippy and the big guy across the street, had just taken what was given to him. Whether it's a bobbin of Atta Boy! Or an ATM card, it seemed like no one wanted the party to end. As Tippy in his voice of Peter Lorre could have said, "Do not tell the old lady. She will kidnap the Atta Boy! All you do, do not say to the old lady."

If there was a brilliant spot at all, it was Bob's return. The old "dance partner" of my mother came by the house one day to remove his junk food from the garage. It was the first time they had come from each other since she had expelled her. I will not say that the earth moved, but there was clearly a kind of emotional deposit that transcend the tragedy of the situation. They stood and looked at each other as a few children. If there was not the fact that it was my mother, it could have been beautiful.

Before going from that day, Bob asked if he could take it to a dance. He approached me as a young pretender asking my daughter's hand. He promised to say or does nothing that would upset her. He swore he would have accomplished her quickly, perhaps after disappearing for ice. Slim. It was pretty serious to take my mother's life; Did I have to give my permission for her so far?

Both of them started attending dances regularly. I can not say that I was happy about it, not at the beginning. She seemed too fragile, too vulnerable to re-engage in an emotional relationship, although it was Chaste. I gave my permission reluctantly, but I quickly understood that it was something she needed. His ability to work had abandoned him, as had most others. While his malfunctional brain put serious limits on the rest of his life, the dance of the ballroom would give him at least a certain joy of living several afternoons a week. In addition, I needed time. I still did not find his place to live.

I do not mean finding a new home for my mother looked like trying to get my children in a good kindergarten New York City, but some similarities were some similarities. I discovered places that would take anyone who walked to the door - a little happiness, but most sinister and depressing with small dark rooms often shared. At the other end of the spectrum, retirement villages with huge buy-in fees and luxury apartments.

My first choice was a beautifully designed residence in the field of a former convent. Surprisingly expensive, it would provide my mother with quality health care as she passed through the different stages of the disease, life assisted with end-of-life care. But there was a capture, something called the examination of the mini-mental state, or MMSE. The MMSE is a simple test used to evaluate the memory and cognitive capabilities of the person suffering from senior dementia or Alzheimer at the beginning of the stage. By using a standard set of questions and guidelines and to affack the age and level of education, it tries to quantify these capabilities. There is a possible score of 30, with anything above 24 considered in the normal range. My mother had already had the mini-mental once, 6 weeks ago. She had got a 14. To enter this new place, it will have to be removed and mark a minimum of 12.

Like many New York Citchen parents do with their children, I tried to lend it for his future review. Since there is no professional preparation course available for the mini-mind, I did coaching myself. "Mom, what day is it?" I will ask.

"Tuesday", she would offer. But she did not have compensation. "Wednesday", "she would answer when I told him to try again. The seasons were different. She would look at the trees, always full of leaves and concluded it was summer. Even if the workday was behind us, She was technically correct. I felt a hue of hope.

"Mom, I'll name three objects. I want you to repeat the names." I would choose three random objects: car, tree, house. Then I would ask him to repeat them. She ran as a child, covering the fact that she could not answer. Even with matches, can it remember one. Most of the time, she has just grown. It reminded me of the moment when my friend California told me that he had found his father, an infantry commander of the Second World War and an IBM leader with a Harvard degree, observing the muppets on television.

She never took the mini-mind. I knew it was desperate and I decided not to humiliate him, even if I think I really spared myself more than her. It would not have known the difference anyway. But I certainly did it. It meant that the parameters of my research had moved. Instead of having a place on the part of his on the magnificent retirement pardon of retirement attempts, I should find her a situation of assisted life, where his life could be more closely supervised.

I fell in soned on senior centers. I visited retirement residences, retirement homes and assisted facilities, then shivering on the car park. I led by foster families for adults - and continues to go. I even consider it seriously moving to New York and went until my wife inquires on a place near us.

"Mom," I say one day, I feel mostly down, "If you could live anywhere you wanted, where would you live, where would you live? You could go to New York, see children every day, come for dinner, spend a holiday with us ... or you could stay in Portland ... "I felt, half-afraid she would like to move and half afraid she would not do it .

"Well," she said, seeming to think about the question deeply, "I think I would like to live with Bob."

The look at his face as I told him that she could not live with Bob overwhelmed with guilty and added only to the difficulty of the situation. I swore I never ask him a question that I did not know the answer.

In all my peregrinations around Portland, I had neglected to look at the village of West Hills. Less than 3 km from my mother's house, West Hills is nestled in a small wooded hollow right next to the main road and is both a retirement residence and a retirement home convalescence center. In fact, my mother had recovered there after she had broken her hip 3 years ago.

But it was a life. When I took it on tour, she did not recognize the place. I showed him a two-bedroom apartment overlooking a courtyard with a soft fountain and a dozen Aspen trees in full autumn color. I spun a wonderful story of his life, tranquility, housekeeping, open dining room all day.

And Tippy was welcome, too - I took into account that. While West Hills did not have some high-end conveniences from other places, there was a good atmosphere. Anyway, it was more style: bas-key and unpretentious.

After nearly 2 months, there was finally the light at the end of the tunnel. I bought his new furniture, a new TV, a new bed; I put on my oldest sister to help me clean the house and found new houses for cats. My mother danced now with Bob twice a week and seemed to have gone out of the steep dive she had been in. I had moments of fleeting optimism. I imagined it in West Hills for the next 10 years, taking advantage of his life, age with dignity and grace, and see his grandchildren. I even reduced the percocet.

I moved my mother into her new place in the coming weeks. I took it there every day longer and longer time, eventually passing most parties there. A night when it was time to go home, she told me she wanted to stay. It was a revolutionary moment. I ran it in the bed and Tippy hugged next to her.

"We see each other tomorrow," I say, as if a rock had suddenly been suddenly raised from my shoulders. I finished moving it in the next day. By turning another installation, I met Bonnie. In the early sixties, she was a private guard with a friendly and Midwest charm that made my mother feel immediately comfortable. They had a nice afternoon together, talk and laugh and walk on the dog. I organized for Bonnie to visit my mother two afternoon a week. She asked $ 20 an hour more expenses. I was happy to pay it.

I can not wait to go home after 2 long months, I booked a flight a few days later. The night before my departure, my mother had a date with Bob. They would dance and she is quite chrolee of excitement. As I helped with his cloak, I told him I lay out at home early in the morning and gone when she woke up.

"Oh. Well, have a good trip," she darled happily, and she disappeared the door without another word.

PostScript:My mother lasted less than 3 months in West Hills. She became delusional and started wandering. I have been forced to move it to a memory care unit in another installation, where its decline is measured but relentlessly. Later, when closing his office, in his closet, I fell on a box addressed to my eldest son, now 19 years old and a first-year student student. The box was 10 years of dust on it and the wordsDo not open until Christmaswritten in his hand. Inside was a telescope. Even though I laughed, I cried.

Note: This story was originally published in the May 2006 issue ofBetter life.

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