My brother is taking Mom to a new senior center today. This place has far more rigid rules than the old one in Astoria, they have to go 5 days a week and call in advance when they're not going (in order to have enough meals there) ..they pick up members and bring them home if requested.
B thinks Mom will hate it ..and I agree. Yesterday she told him a lot of bizarre things .. I am going to cut and paste parts of his email here:
(Quote) Still on for tomorrow's Center. Sure enough, Mom thinks she's doing the exercise class, but with a twist: "Since they are all pig farmers, they move little. (?) I'll show them how to stretch out their fingers. (pause) I can't understand why M wanted to move to Farmingdale with all those pig farmers."
(pause), then:
"Billy knew a man who collected trains and sold them in Farmingdale. That's how we discovered this place. The man was 12 years old and too old to play with trains, so he sold them to Billy in Farmingdale."
No Alz. patient spins a story like Mom. She has something else, some other affliction. E has it too. Make up stuff, add details, put in a few things that did happen, and sell it as the truth. E is writing a book that is filled with this stuff. "Hysterical Fiction" I call it. THAT's what Mom has. Hysterical Fiction Disease! (end Quote)
He knows that Mom has some kind of dementia, He is only trying to find words to describe her 'stories.'
I wonder if any of you out there have a similar phenomenon .. does your AD loved one take one or two facts and spin an impossible story out of them? In the above story one thing was correct: my daughter does live near a pig farm (not near enough to smell it) in Indiana, and I also moved to Indiana but to a TOWN. Mom moved to Farmingdale, and that is where the Senior Center is, no pig farmers in sight... that is how her confused mind now works. and she is convinced she is right and everyone else is impossibly forgetful.
I just hope she doesn't wander off. Bill is unconcerned. He says at her rate of walking she will not get far. Yet, she could get far enough to walk in front of a truck. I worry more than he does which ai a good reason why HE has Mom and I no longer do!
love
Martha
Last edited by Martha H; 08-19-2005 at 08:16 AM.
Reason: sp
My Mom does that all the time. She takes a mish-mash of facts and spins her own tale.
Actually, she had started doing that in earlier stages, but because I didn't live with her, I didn't realize that her stories weren't always truth.
I asked the doc about that and he said it was common. They have pieces of memory and aren't sure how they go together. So they put those pieces together in a way that makes sense to them.
An early experience for me was when one of her neighbors had gone off to a family gathering. When she came home, she brought my mother a covered dish for dinner.
When Mom told me the story, this woman's children had come and picked mom up (total strangers) and whisked her off to this elegant party. She was embarrassed because she didn't know anyone. But it was really fun and they brought her home when it was over. Safe and Sound.
I was apalled that this woman's children had done such a thing...until I learned the truth of the tale.
Now, I take most stories with a grain of salt. And, have had her spin tall tales that I know aren't true. The thing is, she can recount the exact same story the next day and it's totally different.
It's almost like she's trying to compensate for a lack of past history now. Very very sad.
After Mom had AD, her older sister tried so hard to help her. That sister was tiny, frail, 89 years old, and starting to get a little fuzzy around the edges. She had a calendar in every room and crossed off each day on each calendar just so she would know for sure what day it was. She lived alone in the family home and drove to the stores and to church. One day after Bible study, she was driving home and had a massive heart attack and wrecked her car or vise versa, wreck then heart attack. She needed a pacemaker immediately, had broken ribs, was unconscious, and was put on a ventilator. Long story short, my cousin and I had copies of her Living Will, knew she'd never want to stay connected to a ventilator, knew how fiercely independent she was, and so we agreed we would not agree to let the doctors do a tracheostomy. After a week, she was taken off the ventilator and did well the first day. Then on the 2nd day, sweet Connie wore out. She couldn't breathe on her own even 9 days after the wreck. We had to let her go. She had a good long life, so we were only sad because she was gone and we missed her. I still miss her. She was wonderful.
I tell you this to say that it would not be the worst thing in the world if your mother slips away suddenly because of an accident or something. She's had a good life. Imagine how few souls are healthy enough to teach exercises at the senior center into their 90s! Be at peace about Bill's care. Worry will not help. Be at peace about your mother's end when it comes. She's 96. Be at peace.
Bill told me the other people at the new center did not welcome Mom and told her she couldn't sit at thier table and he found her sitting in the foyer looking rather lost. She said she enjoyed the food. he doubts if she'll go back again ...
Greetings from COOL, sunny Indiana! Relief at last!
Just as we thought, Mom refused to go back to the Senior Center today. So Bill and Anna still have no free time (of course they can take turns, so it's still easier than my non stop duty...)
But sister E finally agreed to have Mom for 3 weeks in October. (we will wait and see if that comes to 21 days of maybe 15 or 16 .. that's 3 weeks to her) and during that time Bill can work full time at the Model Train Store ..he hasn't been back there since he took over Mom's care in June.
The boss goes to a big train show in PA in October and absolutely needs Bill to open and close the shop and stay there all day, so he has been trying for weeks to get E to agree to take Mom then. It will be the same procedure as in March: send her with the airline as an 'unaccompanied child or person with special needs' which worked out fine last time ...
I wonder if the people at the new center were so rejecting because maybe she didn't smell good? Even if she left their house fresh as a daisy, it is possible that something happened on the way .. it happened all the time when I was the caregiver, and it was always next to impossible to convince her she stank ..OR, she went and washed only her HAIR whenever she felt 'dirty.' It is a loathsome sickness. I wouldnt' wish it on my worst enemy.
Bill and Anna may go upstate again for a few days, and hope she stays off ladders and doesn't get hurt this time around ...
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