Sunday I was at the nursing home to visit my mother while my father was there feeding her lunch. I held my mother's hand while Papa fed her. Her tendency is to rest her face in her hand and sleep. That is less that desirable when you are trying to get her to eat and drink. My holding her hand helps her to stay awake a bit for Papa to feed her.
I watched my mother very closely this time. I have been doing this for the past couple of weeks. But Sunday, I was particularly in tune with where she is physically and how she is doing.
Since her bout with shingles she has taken a decided turn downward. Feeding her is a much bigger struggle that ever before. She appears to have a hard time remembering (or maybe just having a reflex action) to drink through a straw. She has for a long time pushed her tongue forward instead of taking food in and using her tongue to get the food to the back of her mouth. Now you must press her tongue down to get the food back in her mouth. Then, often, she will let the food lay there for a bit before she recognizes she needs to swallow. Sometimes we try to get her to take a drink through the straw just so she will swallow what is in her mouth. And sometimes, it is like she has a sore throat and swallowing is just difficult. We have been told by the nursing staff that sometimes Alzheimer's patients completely forget how to eat. The instinctive actions are just gone.
The other item is her inability to look up and take notice of things. I can have my face right in front of her, big smile in place and talk to her calling her by name. Most of the time now she doesn't look at me. Yesterday I did coax one smile out of her just before we left.
Her eyes can only be called vacant. My mom has big brown eyes so her pupils tend to blend in with the iris of her eye a bit anyway. But now it is just one brown spot. And when I watch her eyes closely they almost look like someone having a seizure. They even seemed to roll around a bit yesterday. To me the eyes are the biggest manifestation of how far this decline is.
My feeling has been that they gave or were still giving her medication for the itching of the shingles. I determined to find a nurse and be sure what medication mom was receiving.
I found a new nurse and she pulled mom notebook and looked up her medication chart. It seems they are giving her vitamins and a blood pressure medication, that is all, nothing else, no mood levelers, nothing more for shingles. I thanked the nurse for helping me to have peace of mind. At least now I know for sure, this is a step much further into late stages Alzheimer's.
I share this just to acknowledge that I work much better knowing the truth about things. It hurts to know my mom is coming closer to the end of her struggle with this vicious disease. But there is a peace of a sort in understanding and knowing that is okay. There is further peace in knowing so I can prepare myself to handle the end as it comes.
As hard as it will be for me, my heart aches for my father. His purpose in going on each day to provide a meal to my mom and a visit each day of her existence. He is so tender and caring with her in his own way. I'm not sure how he will handle that emptiness that will come when those hours aren't filled with her care. I'm sure he will persevere. He knows and understands the Plan of Salvation and the purpose of life. That knowledge will carry him along.
So I face this week knowing we are definitely closer. Mom is not sleepy or unable to eat and drink easily because of medication. Mom is just a lot further along in the last stages of Alzheimer's. I'm grateful for knowledge and understanding. It helps the hurt.
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