Bob and I had a WONDERFUL weekend seeing and hearing Anna's clarinet recital.
THANK YOU, Kathy, for coming to stay with Mom so we could go. Mom says she and Kathy had a good time together. "She made good coffee!" And I'm glad Paul could come for the afternoon on Sunday too!
I read an enlightening book about Alzheimer's while we were traveling. It's written by a man who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's when he was 57. It's called: Losing My Mind: An intimate look at life with Alzheimer's by Thomas DeBaggio. He wrote it as he was grappling with the diagnosis and the deterioration of his mind. He dwelt a lot on the changes he was experiencing and his realization of what he was losing. Mom doesn't dwell on the 'what she's losing' much at all. She acknowledges it but rarely. Maybe because she's older and has lived most of her life already and Dad's not here losing Her; maybe because her Alzheimer's is working differently. Mr DeBaggio was very concerned with losing the ability to retain ideas or words (since he's a writer). Contrarily, when Mom struggles to find a word or thought, she actually laughs about it. Even today, she was trying really hard to tell me something (We haven't figured out what it is yet), she tried and tried, and she laughed when she couldn't come up with the words and continued to try. She looks around when she's trying to find a word and inserts the word for the object she sees. She continues on and then stops and says 'no, that's not right' or 'I'll tell you tomorrow'. Finally we changed the subject and she's forgotten (temporarily, I think) what it was she was trying to get across. For Mom the struggle/frustration is with Time, as I've said before. It's always 'what is happening next' or she's confused about the 'when'. This book was enlightening because it gave me an insight about what her mind might be going through.
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