Mom’s Attempted Getaway

I think mom has been feeling a little confined lately. Not that there’s a whole lot she likes to do outside of the house. But I think she senses that her independence is slowly being taken away and is determined to keep a hold of it. Her newest fixation is taking walks; I’m not talking about a leisurely walk. Her walks have a purpose, a destination. Her favorite places to walk are: her sister Ellen’s house (who lives about a mile to a mile and a half up the street), the bank and the grocery store (both are half a mile up the street).

It’s good that mom wants to get out. She needs to do more than just sit at her computer all day long. Plus it’s good exercise. But there a few concerns we have with mom leaving the house.

1. What if something happens to her while she’s out and none of us aware of her whereabouts?

2. She’s in her own little world…will she notice the car driving down the road as she crosses (or any other dangers)? 

3. How will people respond to her when they come in contact with her? Will they think she’s on drugs and call the police? (this might sound silly, but it’s happened to many people with dementia).

4. We have concerns about her withdrawing money from the bank as well as buying things that she’s not supposed to be buying (such as medicines).

We know that the time she usually leaves the house is in the morning between 10 and noon. She rarely emerges from her room before 10:00 am, and she is religious about her lunch and naptimes. She seldom ever tries to walk after her naptime (before dinner); I’m not sure why, but morning seems to be primetime for getting out of the house.

We’ve taken measures to ensure mom’s safety. We try to make sure that someone is there each morning. Each week, I take a morning, my Aunt and Uncle take 2 mornings, and sweet ladies from church have been taking 2 mornings a week. Mom is growing more and more resentful about having people there in the morning because she wants to do these things alone (likely because she knows she isn’t supposed to be doing these things). Today, she thought she would be sneaky and charge out the door before my Aunt and Uncle knew what was going on. Luckily, they were on the ball. He called me shortly after 10:00 to let me know that mom had escaped and that my Aunt ran after her. I will paste his account here (taken from his facebook update) to give you a more accurate synopsis of the morning’s events:

“More excitement today—more for my wife than myself. Shortly after arriving today at my sisters's house she got "happy feet". She emerged from her bedroom purse over shoulder raring to go walking to the bank and supermarket. In a flash she was out the door with my wife chasing her. Although she came with no hat, she knew it would be necessary to have to walk to the store with Deana lest something dreadful happen in spite of the sweltering heat. Fortunately my wife had a bottle of water with her. My wife hung onto Deana's arm to keep from being left in the dust. Deana is tall and Tina is short.
At the bank it was a fiasco. The teller asked for ID and it was as if she had asked in German. My wife tipped off the teller and called my niece to let the teller know about what was happening. The teller was very helpful and said there was "no money" in the account. (There was.)
Then she was off to the market without any money. Her goal was to buy some sleeping pills. A big no-no! While searching for the brand she uses, she opened the bottles and broke the foil seals to be sure they were her favorite ones. Startled, my wife told her she couldn't open the product. Big mistake! Deana snapped back telling her to stop telling her what to do!!
When she found her pills, it was off to the checkout stand. Problem was, she did not have the money to pay! After standing in line at checkout, the line behind her grew and grew. Frustrated, she spied the small change box on the checkout counter where people make charity donations. "I can use that money people have thrown away!" My wife had to convince her she couldn't have it. Finally she left it all behind and walk out of the store.
I'm betting next time she gets happy feet, she won't let my wife tag along. I can wait for that!”

I’m afraid my mom has worn my dear Aunt out today! My Uncle also updated me that mom is now giving my Tia Tina the silent treatment (that’s mom’s way of letting us know she’s unhappy with you!) I’m sure my poor dad will get an earful (from mom) when he gets home as well. Just another fun day of dementia.

Camping With Mom

Since before I can remember, my mom’s family has been going camping every Memorial Weekend at a place called Heartbar Campground in the San Bernardino Mountains. In talking with my Uncle, we established that this tradition began the year I was born (1981). It’s fun to look back and see how these camping trips have evolved over the years. My earliest memories are walking across fallen trees with my cousins, our arms outstretched to our sides to balance ourselves while listening to my cousins speak of the legends of children gone before us who had fallen into the camp’s pit toilets. As we grew into teenagers, we spent most of our time going on hikes to the meadow and having big competitions with cards and board games. As a young newlywed, I still enjoyed a good game with my cousins but I also enjoyed the quiet moments of laying out on our camp chairs, snuggling with a good book. Nowadays, I watch my kids play and make their own memories with their cousins. I try to get a chapter read or a hand of cards played in between my chasing of my 2 year old or wiping down dirty hands and faces. And making sure that everything is going smoothly with mom.

Last year, we thought it would be our last year camping due to mom’s condition. Earlier this year, when my Uncle made his reservations, I decided to book a couple camp sites for my immediate family and in hopes that my siblings and parents would be able to join us. We talked about camping with mom, and as it turned out, she was actually looking forward to going. She even talked to my dad about bringing up her bike so she could be “active” and get some exercise.

That was a couple of weeks ago. Things change on a daily basis with mom. Thursday night, mom was complaining about feeling “so severe” and by Friday morning she told my dad she didn’t want to go. A lot of preparation goes into a trip like this (and in prepping mom and dad’s trailer), so dad wasn’t going to give in that easily. We all figured she could feel severe at home or she could feel severe in the trailer. At least if she was up in the mountains, she would have some distractions and maybe even feel better.

I didn’t make it up the mountain until Friday night; my dad and my brother’s family joined my Uncle earlier in the day. According to them, mom was a mess when she first arrived. She was complaining and throwing fits and was quite unhappy to be there. As I drove into camp, I saw my two Aunts walking beside my mom and holding her arms while mom hunched over, taking baby steps to the trailer. Oh great, I thought. This is gonna be a long weekend!

Mom went to bed early Friday night and when she woke up Saturday morning, she seemed to be in better spirits. Granted, I didn’t sleep in the trailer and I don’t know all that ensued the night before or even that morning. But by the time I saw mom, she was drinking her Slim Fast and seemed to be over her temper tantrums. She stayed in the trailer all morning and then eventually, in the early afternoon, she peeked her head out the door to see what was going on in the outside world. Several of us were sitting in a circle, chatting with one another while the kids played nearby. We called to mom and she apparently decided it was safe (and warm) enough to come outside and join the crowd. She sat in the sunniest place the camp had to offer, wearing a thick, fleece sweater (it gets pretty hot in the sun…but mom likes the heat nowadays!) She stayed with us for a little while and took a short walk with my Aunt (maybe 100 yards) before returning to her trailer to lay on her bed and take a rest.

And this is how the weekend went. Mom came out for short periods of time, and then went back inside to rest on her bed. She took short walks here and there, never more than a couple hundred yards at most. Dad reminded her about the bike that she had begged him to bring up. At first, she looked blankly at the bike and backed away from it. After a while, she seemed to remember that she wanted to ride her bike and she asked dad to help her remember how to ride it.

We all watched, nervously, as mom teetered on the bike. Last year, she rode around the campground with my nephew. It didn’t seem to us that she still had the ability to ride a bike. We all started to protest that it was a bad idea to let her ride. But…then she figured it out! We were still very nervous about her riding the bike, so I hopped on dad’s bike and decided I’d follow her to make sure she was safe. We rode a couple hundred yards (at most) and then mom turned around and said,

“Please let’s go back to the trailer now.”

The next day (Sunday) mom made an appearance again outside her trailer. She went back in to lay down and rest but surprised us all when she came back out to sit and snack on Poppycock (popcorn)…during her nap time!!!

Camping with kids (and mom) can be very fun but very tiring. It’s hard to find a peaceful moment. On Sunday afternoon, the guys finally took the kids away on a hike, leaving us ladies with some peace and quiet as we lounged in the hammock and in our chairs, reading our books and enjoying the fresh, crisp breeze of the mountain air. Peace and quiet at last! No sooner than we opened our books then we heard music begin to blare from the trailer.

See, one of mom’s favorite things to do on a Sunday afternoon while camping is to blast her radio as loud as can be playing her “church” music-usually the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

My sister-in-law, family friend (Stephani) and I all looked at each other and sighed…and then chuckled. Just our luck!

“At least it’s not in Spanish,” Stephani joked.

As the song ended and a commercial cut in, my eyes grew wide and I turned to Stephani,

“It IS in Spanish!”

We laughed even harder and listened to mom’s Spanish music while trying to read our books. Not too long after, dad returned to the trailer and mom was complaining about the radio not working right. She began nagging him to help her put on her CD and when he put it on, she turned it up full volume. Dad looked out at me and said,

“Why don’t you see if your mom wants to go for a bike ride.”

I took that as my hint that dad needed a break and convinced my mom to take a ride with me. Again to my surprise, mom was easily distracted away from her music and agreed to take a ride with me.

My sister was trying to get mom to pose for the camera, but mom was oblivious to her requests. Please excuse this awful picture of me, keep in mind that we were camping, and I was roughing it!! I told you before, this blog shows the good, the bad and the ugly! Ha ha. ;)

 

This time, we made it more than 200 yards. As we rode, mom talked about a road that she used to always go down, but was having trouble remembering where it was.

“And it was the main road place, we always went by that one place too where it went up like that and do you know where that is too?”

When we reached a slight incline, mom stopped her bike and slid off the seat, her legs straddling the bike as she walked it up the hill.

“It’s so weird too how this makes my legs hurt so much too like this and I wish I could get a bigger part too to sit on too because it hurts to sit on this. Does it hurt you too to sit on it?”

Mom chatted my ear off as we rode a couple loops around the campground. She always let me know when she was done.

“Now take me back to the trailer please.”

Overall, I think mom did pretty well camping…much better than I thought she would do! She even called me today to let me know how happy she was about our weekend trip.

“It’s so good too that everyone was able to go to that place together too for the camping thing too and even that you went on the bike with me too, that was so fun too so thank you for taking me too.”

I’m glad that she enjoyed herself. Despite her intense desire to sit this one out, she ended up having a good time after all and I really feel like it was a good thing to get her out of the house. It is very likely that this was the last camping trip that we will be able to bring her on (although we did think that last year…). While we had a great time together as a family, it was sad to think that this trip probably marks the end of our family camping memories with mom. But we will hold onto these memories forever.