On Saturday March 13, 2010 my Mom moved into our home. After living with my sister for the past year and a half it had become clear that she could no longer be left alone for the long stretches of hours that my sisters job requires her to be away from her home. My sister, husband and I made this decision without consulting my Mom and she was not exactly thrilled with the idea. I think she was more upset to realize (or rather that we had realized) she could no longer fend for herself. It is just one more step or stage of life as a asenior citizen that has hurt her pride, after all even though she is eighty pushing 81 she does not consider herself a senior citizen!!
My Mom has been a widow for 15 years and has traveled extensively during her marriage to my Dad and after his death. She went to Russia twice, China once, and spent a great deal of the year in San Miguel de Allende after she was widowed. In Mexico she worked (volunteer) for a school for handicapped children but had to stop that about four years ago. I think her heart still belongs in Mexico but her health has deteriorated so she had to stop going.
Mom suffers from Parkinsons and dementia. The amount of pills she has to take each day just to cope is disturbing. The doctors have changed her pills over and over and over again trying to find the right mix. Parkinsons is a very difficult disease to control and the dementia just confuses things. It has been a struggle for her to take the pills at their scheduled times, she loves to eat sweets instead of meals and that sets off her sugar tremors.
It is very sad to see her have what she calls siezures, I call panic attacks. She will start to cry and then the shakes start and she screams and screams. Sometimes a Zanac (sp) will help other times nothing helps.
We thought that when she left her home and moved in with my sister she would improve by having supervision with her meds but it seemed the more time went by the more help she needed with every day tasks such as meals and meds. Amy once came home and caught her on the roof of the garage sweeping the leaves, several times we would find the burners left on the gas stove. It became stressful for my sister to even leave her home alone so that she could do her job. My husband is home most of the time and we had a guest room so it just felt right to take Mom in.
We moved our room to our former guest room so Mom could have the largest bedroom and a private bath. Mom had stayed with us several times in the past year and a half so the move from the guest room to the Master bedroom confused her. The first few days were trying for us and for her, she would go in and lie down on my bed, go through my makeup, chased the grand kids out of my room and fell a lot. She was totally confused. It has now been eight days and things have improved a great deal.
We are here almost all the time and cater to her, atleast for now. She eats every two hours and we try to make sure gets lots fo protien in her diet, I have read that it helps Parkinson patients to get lots of protien and to cut the sugar. Apparently it is common for Parkinsonians to crave sugar sweets but that attacks the dopamine in the brain which is the main problem of Parkinsons in the first place. A high protien diet is being tested to see if it can counter act the sweets.
It has only been eight days so far but I am hopeful.