Caregiving For Dementia

This is just an update of the family. 27 Months after losing Mommy!

This Episode is a continuation of what went on after Mommy was picked up.

This is the first of a few episodes that goes through what you may feel right immediately after your loved one has passed away. There's not a whole lot to show notes with these episodes it's just me talking about what had happened immediately after Mama's death. What I thought would happen that didn't and that kind of thing. I hope these few episodes help you get along for a few months immediately following your loved one's death.

This episode is just a brief message to all those that are still downloading the podcast happy Thanksgiving to all.

Episode # 93

There comes a time in caregivers journey that they know time is very close to running out. We hear caregiving for dementia have realized that fact.

The past five days Mama has not eat anything at all, the past four days Mama has not drank anything, and for the past three days Mama’s been very hard to wake up at all. When she is awake it’s about two minutes and she’s right back out.

Mamas, breathing has also changed its no longer normal breathing. Doesn’t look the same, doesn’t sound the same as the normal breathing does Mama breeze through her mouth now and has for the past three days. And also she’s breathing through her mouth it’s not as loud as you would think it should be.

If you listen to me anytime at all you know that we keep my older brother and his wife informed as to what mamas doing anytime something changes with Mama last night we had the hardest conversation the family can have. We talked about what to do when this journey is over. What to expect and what not to expect from Mama. From the people that we need to talk to when it’s done. What we want and what we don’t want as for his funeral arrangements.

I guess I’m kind of lucky in this respect because my older brothers always told me that he married mom, meaning that his wife and mom think an awful lot alike and I know from my own standpoint I’ve had conversations with mom and turned around had same conversation with his wife and dam near had the same conversation and there was no way, absolutely no way that mom and his wife had talked.

So now I find myself trying to come to grips with the fact of not having mom in the living room. Mama not be in there when I come home from the store. Not knowing exactly how to fill. All kind of emotions are floating through my head, my heart, and I’m sure that the same kind of things are going on with Stephanie and Michael I’m sure they have all kind of feelings running through their brains as well. Feeling helpless is probably my number one feeling right now. Not being able to help mom do anything at all.

 Everything is changing so rapidly this week, although mom is still with us for now we are getting prepared for Mama’s last trip to West Virginia.

 I’m not sure if there will be in episode next couple weeks I’ll have to play that by ear.

Episode #92

Show Notes

There are so many things in life that normal people take for granted. This becomes more apparent the longer you take care of your loved one. There are things that I take for granted because there things that come natural to me that Mama can no longer do for herself.

Mama can no longer wash her face, brush her hair, brush her teeth, or even talk. Mama tries so hard to talk to us and you can see the frustration in her face as she tries to say something and can’t. Mama tries to hold a cup of something to drink and because of her Parkinson’s she shakes so bad that some of whatever’s in the cup spills out. Mama so apologetic when she makes a mess.

One of the things that I have taken for granted myself in my caregiving was the fact that when Mama was taking care of my grandmother who fortunately was not as bad as Mama is Mama never asked me to stay with grandma to help with grandma. I always had free time on my hands to do whatever I wanted to do. And I’ve forgotten that in my caregiving because we were leaving Michael with his grandmother way too much. We sought that it was good training for a after all he is old enough to have a child of his own. And until recently here we did not realize that Michael was having a troubled time taking care of his grandmother. And I’ve forgotten how much free time I had with my grandmother.

A lot of times I’ll go out and check on Mama and mamas asleep, but there are other times where mamas really fidgety, and the only thing I can do is just sit there to chair and hold her hand. Tell her she’s okay, tell her that she’s safe, that I love her.

A lot of the time in my own caregiving, I take for granted the fact that I can go brush my teeth, my mouth. Mama can no longer do that and here the other day I was trying to give her some ice water out of a spoon and this white flaky something another come out of her mouth. I asked Mama said Mama what is that and of course I didn’t get a straight answer, all I got the beat was mumbo-jumbo, come to find out what ever this crap was all through her mouth, was on her tongue, the roof of her mouth. Now I don’t have nerve enough to stick my fingers in my mother’s mouth! That’s just not going to happen. So I ended up taking a toothbrush and brushing her mouth her teeth, the roof of her mouth.

So if your loved one stops eating check their mouth make sure this pasty crusty group is not in their mouth. Because it could stop them from eating could stop them from swallowing.

In your caregiving a lot of times you do things in the heat of the moment. After time goes by you wonder whether or not what you did was the right thing to do.

A lot of caregivers won’t tell you everything that they go through in their caregiving. I am one of those people who won’t tell you every little thing that goes on in in the house with the caregiving I am one that won’t tell you what Mama has done to us I won’t tell you what we’ve done to Mama.

What I tried to do in this podcast is tell you what we do and what we don’t do because of dementia. When we first started caregiving we didn’t know what we were doing at all.

I’ve gone out to Facebook to the caregiving support groups and I have found that a lot of posts in those groups are things that we have had questions about in our caregiving. So I try to take this podcast and tell you what we have done in that situation and what we haven’t been in that situation All to try to help you in your caregiving.

I am also taking some courses in podcasting through the school of podcasting and you can find out at www.schoolofpodcasting.com and while taking these courses we have meetings every once in a while and in one of those meetings I had a lady asked me, if I had any regrets in my caregiving? Immediately the answer was no. If you hurt listen to me anytime at all you know that I have the attitude of I’m not doing anything for Mama that Mama didn’t do for me when I was a kid. So now I don’t have any regrets taking care Mama.

There are times when Mama doesn’t want to eat or drink anything. That seems to of gotten worse for some reason this past week. We don’t know why all we do know is that there are times when we could get her Glucerna shakes down her when we couldn’t get her to eat anything but for some reason this week were having a lot of problems getting her to drink anything. We’re having to take a spoon and try to get her to take a sip out of the spoon. We’ll have to see how long that takes. If you don’t get anything down her and she doesn’t get her medicine the right way the right time.

There comes a time in your caregiving where a lot of things don’t matter anymore. If the one that your caregiving for doesn’t eat or drink anything, there’s not a whole lot you can do about it. That would probably be my, if I had to pick a regret, in my caregiving that would probably be it, the fact that you can’t make them eat, you can put food in front of them, you can put drink in front of them, but you can’t make them drink, and that that would be my one regret the fact that I can’t force Mama to eat or drink although I may try you can’t force them to take anything in.

Care Giving for Dementia Know It All Doctors Episode # 90 While in your caregiving journey there will be a lot of things that happened that you don’t understand. I know when not when we first started there was a whole lot that went on that we didn’t understand there’s a whole lot that I haven’t gone into with this podcast that went on when Mama first got dementia. That’s one reason why I started this podcast. What is a post on Facebook was talking about talking to a loved one’s doctor who asked the question, why are you getting your mothers hair done? He was told because Mama used to get her hair done Mama feels better getting her hair done Mama likes getting her hair done. I’m here to tell you after dealing with this stuff for eight years or more there are times when my mother still knows what’s going on around her. She may not know exactly what it is or who it is or exactly what’s being said but she still knows that somebody stalking door she knows it’s something’s been said to her. Stephanie and I asked Mama if you want to go get her hair done this week and she said yes. So we made her hair appointment to go get her hair done but when it comes time to go Mama, decided she didn’t want to go she didn’t feel good she didn’t feel like getting dressed to go get her hair done. Now fortunately we’ve got it fixed to where the lady that does mom’s hair knows what what’s going on and so we can work within that couple hour window. But if Mama would’ve told us yes that within that two-hour window to go get her hair cut we do gone and I don’t care what the doctor would’ve said about it. If I stop for one minute it made mom feel better we to take her. I’m here to say you can’t tell me that the doctors know everything about this dementia. Because I’m here to tell you that they don’t have seen too many reactions good and bad for mom was conversations that have gone on with mom. For any doctor to ask the question why would you do something they had your loved one doesn’t know what’s going on is BS. If you to left every decision that you make four or about your loved one up to the doctors you would have a absolute living zombie on your hands. They’ve proven that to me and if I get mom all the medication that the doctor wanted to give mom mom would be a living zombie. All all they want to do is push pills that make him sleep all the time. Mama sleeps enough the way it is let alone with more medication to make her sleep. So I just said all that just to say the doctors don’t know what everything. Doctors may think they do but they are not God! They do not know everything and for some doctor to say they don’t know what’s going on around them just because they have dementia doesn’t know what he’s talking about I’ve seen too many changes to many expressions good and bad for my mother for any doctor to convince me that she doesn’t know what’s going on. So just make the right decision for you and your loved one and don’t worry a whole lot about whether or not to Dr. seems that think they know what’s going on because they do Mama has proven that to me and yours will to given the chance.

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Care Giving for Dementia

Trying to get your loved one to do what ever

Episode # 89

There are times when you try to get your loved one to do something that they don’t want to do. When that happens the only thing that you can do is back off and give a little better time and try again you just need to keep trying until it works.

There are times where your loved one doesn’t want to eat now here with Mama sometimes that’s three days. We usually are able to get her drinks down her but not always. Mama sometimes just takes these spells where she just doesn’t want to eat anything at all doesn’t want to drink anything at all, and most of the time she’ll let you know that she doesn’t want it. We have come to the understanding that these ensures, boost, and Glucerna drinks are meal within themselves so as long as we can get mamas Glucerna her, she’s okay.

With taking a bath there are times that Mama doesn’t want to take a bath I have come to conclusion that this is part of dementia. A lot of times we have to bath mom whether or not she wants to take a bath. And a lot of times you have to back off and give her a little better time and go back to trying to give her a bath and she’s fine with a bath.

As far as sleeping when Mama was first diagnosed with this dementia and at times it was a pain to get Mama to go to bed. The boy had to get up early in the morning and go to school when the wife had to get up and go to work in various things and Mama didn’t always want to go to bed when we went. I didn’t like going to bed and leaving her awake by yourself so I stayed up as late as she did and then I would lay down most of the time when she was down.v

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