Caregivers and Stress

[Kätzchen]

Originally Posted by Kelt

Dementia is hard, that’s all there is to it.

A couple of times in the last couple of weeks when I have called my mother it has to be explained to her who I am before she can get on the phone. Over the last few years I’ve been learning how to cope with these bumps in the road as each new development comes along. I know that she has forgotten my life, her life, and her 60 year marriage. But I call her often enough that she knows my name, my voice, and that I am a force for good. We are getting to the point where this is starting to erode.

I know in my mind that this is the natural progression of what she’s going through, and it is not her fault. Each of these steps though, still hurt the first couple of times they happen. I adapt and accept and get over it pretty quickly learning each time that this is the new normal.

It still sucks.

That's got to be so incredibly hard on you Kelt. My sincerest condolences to you, as you walk your mother 'home'.

Your post about your mother's dementia squares with an event that happened yesterday at work, while taking calls on the corporate reception telephone line. There's this elderly gentleman, with a southern Mississippi drawl, that draws you in for the 'klll'. He calls at weird random times; I'm guessing it's when his care attendants and nursing staff don't see him pick up the phone.... but he's got dementia super bad. At first, his voice is disarming. You feel like he's got your best interest at heart. Until, he lashes out at you in the most vitriolic of ways, which are as equally disarming. He kept calling the corporate line, wanting to talk to his favorite salesman on the sales and service team. Two minutes after his first call, which I patched through to the sales and service team, I get a call from his favorite sales and service contact on campus. I was told that "Clayton" had dementia and that next time he called, to stall for time, so IT could go behind the 'scene' to establish the identity of the phone number he was calling from... so they could permanently ban him from being able to call and harass the sales and service staff. When they disclosed the story behind the horror show this person was capable of, upending the whole entire day with his cut-throat vitriol, I felt incredibly sad for the sales and service staff, as well as the elderly gentleman who had the disarming Mississippi southern drawl. Dementia is indeed, an very unsettling medical condition for the person affected by it; and also for the people who care for those affected by this life altering end-of-life-story condition.

My heart goes out to you, as you navigate your mother's care.