Dementia: The Mindkiller

In addition to dealing with my own recent health issues (the dreaded heart palpitations & the horrid RA), I've been having to bear witness to an even more insidious disease... not mine, of course, my mother's dementia. 

This is a road I've traveled before, as I got to see my maternal Grandmother's own slow descent into it, nearly 30 years ago... I watched my strong, smart, stubborn, not very demonstrative, former teacher, Granny Fannie's mind fade away to nothing. Now, it wasn't ALL bad, because as her mind started to go, she recalled long forgotten memories, like the time she came to America as a 7 or 8 year-old girl, in steerage, with her mother, as the last 2 members of her family to make the perilous journey from Chernigov, Ukraine, where Jews knew nothing but suffering & poverty at the turn of the 20th century, to embark on an unprecedented voyage to a new land, with a new language, new hopes & dreams, where the streets were paved with gold & a poor, peasant family could perhaps have a better life for themselves and their children. She recalled that when the ship pulled into NY harbor, she saw the Statue of Liberty, standing there with her book and her torch, beckoning the stranger, bidding them welcome and she thought it was a REAL lady! Her mother had to explain to her that it was just a statue, not a real person... Can you imagine THAT being your very first impression of America???!!! She then went on to tell me about her memories of being processed at Ellis Island and how twin girls, who had also made the journey with them, were put into quarantine, because of a problem with their eyes... And then how an immigration officer handed her mother an apple and her a banana, but had to show her how to peel and eat the banana, because tropical fruit was NOT something they had in the shtetl! She told me that she was excited to see her older sisters, her father & her half-brothers, who were already ensconced in Chicago, but the missed her pet goat.

My Granny lived alone in a small, modest 1 bedroom apartment for many years after my grandfather died, it had a big living / dining room with green, wool carpeting that I used to help her vacuum with an old Electrolux. She also had a small kitchen, a bedroom a hall & linen closet, a bathroom with black & white penny tiled floor & a 40's pedestal sink with separate taps for hot & cold, plus a small kitchen. when I would have weekend sleepovers, we'd watch PBS, I'd read her National Geographic magazines & sing showtunes to her, while she read the paper & smoked Winston's or chewed Dentyne cinnamon gum. For breakfast we'd have Corn Flakes with sliced bananas or Bays English muffins with apricot jam. She even let me drink coffee from her ancient percolator, with plenty of milk & sugar added. She had a huge, crystal candy jar on her mid-century, round living room table, filled with Brach's sour ball candies. I'd always swipe the purple ones, since I liked those the best & I'd pop one into my mouth, before sneaking underneath her mahogany dining room table that had claw & ball feet, where I'd spend hours drawing pictures & looking at story books... Sometimes, her friend, Mrs. Bergman would come over to visit & bring me a toy or candy as a treat. We'd often go for walks to the local park, which was right next to the Misericordia home for children with Down syndrome, run by the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese or we'd walk down to the White Hen Pantry convenience store a few blocks away to buy bread eggs & some cheap toy, if I was lucky. Sometimes, we'd ride the bus down Peterson Avenue to her bank or a doctor's appointment, since she didn't drive, but I loved the "adventure". I even remember her telling me to always put toilet paper on the seat if you ever had to pee or poop in a public bathroom! I pretty much had Granny Fannie all to myself, since my sister was 5 years younger than me and my first cousins, her other 3 grandchildren, lived far away in Des Moines. She was never very affectionate or demonstrative with me or anyone else for that matter, but I loved her dearly.

So she lived alone for many years, on the north side of Chicago, between West Ridge & Ravenswood, which was not quite Edgebrook... It was a mistake though, because even though this was the time before assisted living or retirement communities were a "thing", it didn't do her any good to be all alone and not that close to where we lived. Eventually, my mom had a lovely woman from Belize come over every day to help cook, clean, dress, bathe & be general companionship for my grandmother, who's mind was clearly fading... one night, my Granny got up to go to the bathroom & fell, breaking her hip... She laid there all night until her caretaker came the next morning, found her & she ended up in the hospital. From there, it was off to the nursing home, because she clearly couldn't be left alone anymore & there wasn't room enough in our house for another person, plus we had 2 flights of stairs.

My Granny ended up in a very good nursing home, not far from us, chosen carefully after much deliberation & visiting of other facilities. She was placed on a Medicare floor, filled almost exclusively with Alzheimer's patients... The nursing staff LOVED my Granny, because she was pleasant & not carrying on or having outbursts, plus she could feed herself & go to the bathroom on her own. She didn't know who the hell anyone was or even where she was, but it was honestly the happiest I ever saw her! She was fed, bathed, dressed & well-cared for every day & didn't have a car in the world... She had even reverted to an almost child-like state of existence. I once got permission to  bring the family cat, a big, orange tabby named Michael, to visit her as a "therapy pet & she LOVED petting his soft fur as he sat quietly in her lap, loving the attention.

One night, they put her to bed & went to check on her an hour or two later & she was gone... Died in her sleep of either a stroke or a heart attack, which is frankly, how "I" want to go. I remember my mom getting the call late at night & then having to go gather her clothes & few belongings the next day. The Filipina nurse, who my Granny was a favorite of, came in to work for her shift that morning & apparently had a breakdown when she saw that my Granny's bed had been stripped & her things were gone... I barely remember her funeral, but I wasn't all that sad about her death... She was 86 & had lived a long, full life before dying peacefully. During her few years at the nursing home, she had been well cared for & was spared the mental anguish of knowing she was losing her mind & not in her own home anymore... It was a blessing, really.

And now, here I am, seeing history repeating itself, only this time, my Father is the main caretaker, so HE has to watch his wife fading before his very eyes from her diabetes ravaged kidneys, which require thrice weekly dialysis sessions, to her asking him the same question 20 times a day... She was never much of an extrovert, but her personality has most definitely changed as her cognitive degeneration has slowly continued... She used to read, talk on the phone, have lunch with former teacher friends, go to movies & plays... She's not up for any of that anymore. She sits in her recliner chair all day & watches stupid Lifetime movies or golf... I KNOW it's not good for her mental state & probably provides very little mental stimulation for whatever neurons are still firing, but what else can we do?... We can't force her to go out walking or do crossword puzzles, which she used to do religiously, because she simply doesn't have the energy or stamina for it. My Mom is 79 & she may as well be 86 at this point.

Gone is the woman who drummed the message "You're not good enough. You will never be good enough."into my head from a very early age... Gone is the woman who was always emotionally unavailable, except when you were sick, yet demanded perfection in academics, dance, gymnastics & piano lessons, even in former boyfriends, because THEY were never good enough either! Gone is the woman who would judge the f@ck out of every outfit, every hairstyle, every choice in friends, school plays, bad test results & less than C grades, to the point of giving me an eating disorder from her insanely unrealistic expectations & constant need to live vicariously though her daughters. Gone is the woman who blamed my sister for her heart attack in 2000 & me for not knowing that the psycho ex-boyfriend was in fact, a psycho! I can't even be mad at her for how badly she tried to destroy my self-esteem & victim blaming, because I know it comes from her own messed up family dynamic & failed educational & career choices. I scared the f@ck out of her from day one, because I was stubborn, with a mind of my own & I never wanted to be her "perfect", compliant daughter. I never wanted to be valedictorian of the class & go to an Ivy League college or marry a nice Jewish doctor or lawyer... It was never my dream or my sister's, although at least my sister got a Master's & a PhD, while I produced the only grandchild (who is also stubborn & strong willed & unimpressed by expectations). I never had her "approval" & I knew I never would, so I just stopped trying to get it.

I've now had to find a caretaker to assist my Dad in looking after my mom & it's now MY job to help them go through 22 years worth of stuff in their townhouse & then help them find a reasonably priced condo, with everything on one level, no dangerous stairs for my mom to trip & fall on, where they will spend their remaining years. I am the eldest daughter, the strong one, the brave one, the one you want in a crisis because I get shit done, that's now I roll... I am the one who will probably have power of medical & financial attorney for my aging parents. Thankfully, my Dad is still active, both physically & mentally, so he is able to make most of the decisions about my mother's car at this point, but as I know, that can change in a heartbeat. He is the one who has to deal with seeing his wife deteriorate & slowly lose her mind & her very personality right before his eyes... I'm sure he hates it, in fact, I know he does. Instead of a quick, painless process, it's a long, slow, descent into nothingness & I'm actually glad I'm somewhat removed from it. my mother hasn't been my mother for YEARS, at least not the mother I actually needed, so I'm actually quite objective about the whole process, because I've been here before. I know this play, I know all of the songs & I even know how it ends. I just hope the applause at the end is good, so my mom finally gets the standing ovation she deserves.