What Is Happening To Me?

For those of you who don't know me, one of the most painful periods of my life was when my wonderful Mother lived the last few years of here life with Alzheimer's Disease. We hear people joke about this dreaded disease and make light of it, but for someone who has had to watch a loved one go thru it's debilitating process and have to suffer watching the pain and agony that goes along with it, it's nothing to joke or make light of. Mom passed away four and a half years ago, and it's in her memory that I am writing the following. This is not a reflection of her life or her own bout with the disease, but it is an overview of a typical lifestyle of someone who is afflicted with Alzheimer's. I write the following piece in loving memory of my mother, who I am sure would agree with me, there are some things worse than dying. Alzheimer's is one of them.

What Is Happening To Me?

I'm keeping my curtains shut now, not so much because I don't like the sun coming in anymore or that I'm trying to hide from the window peeper I know comes around each week. I keep them closed because I don't want to have get dressed and clean up each and everyday just in case company arrives. With the windows and drapes closed, I can look out the window, and if it's one of my good friends, I can always let them in. If it's one of my kids, they can let themselves in because they have a key.

I spend a lot of time lying in my bedroom now with the tv on, although most of the time I have the tv on for the noise it makes, because I seem to have trouble figuring out what is going on with the programs. They don't seem to make sense to me anymore, and everytime I try and change the channels with my remote, I can't seem to get the remote to work right anymore, the darned thing. It used to work fine, but I can't seem to remember which buttons I need to push to get the tv to even go where I want it to go. Sometimes the volume goes up when I'm trying to change channels, and sometimes the channels change when I'm trying to turn the tv up or down. I think I need a new remote because this one just doesn't work right.

I still take the two newspapers I've always taken, the local one because I can actually make some sense out of it, and the one from the state capitol I take because we always have taken it. I can look at the tv paper in it and find programs I like to watch, but I don't get much of a chance to watch them because I can't figure out the remote control. Have I told you about that remote control of mine?

My phone rings a lot, and it's always these nice people one the other end talking to me and telling me they want to send me things or have me join things, and when I tell them I better not, they tell me they already have my address and I have an account in good standing, even though I'm not sure what they mean by that. And don't you know, those nice people do keep sending me these nice gifts in the mail, books and magazines mostly, and I can't ever remember getting as many magazines as I'm getting now, but they surely must like an old lady like myself that takes the time to talk to them because they keep sending them to me. I don't really get a chance to read much of them, it interferes with my tv time and my newspapers that I like to read, and some of the words don't look like English to me. I can't understand a lot of what I'm trying to read, so I just lay them aside and I intend on throwing them out in the trash someday soon...my bed is getting kind of messy with all these papers and magazines lying about.

It seems like so many of my friends have either passed on or they don't come around anymore. I used to go with them each day for coffee and breakfast, but they got to talking about things I didn't seem to have any interest in, so I quit going. I have my coffee here at home in the morning, and for some reason, it seems my kitchen appliances don't work like they used to because I have a hard time cooking my meals or using my microwave. There's this nice restaurant just a few blocks away that delivers, and bless them, they call me each morning to see what I'd like to have for breakfast and then they check later in the afternoon and they take my order for supper. They ring the bell and come on back to my bedroom with my food, and I pay them and always give them a tip for being so nice. I never can eat all they bring, so I put it in the refridgerator with the intention of having it later, but since I can't work that microwave anymore, the food just kind of stacks up in there. When then trashmen come on Tuesdays, if I don't forget, I usually fill up a couple of bags with the uneaten food in it. Since I don't walk real well anymore, I just put it outside my garage door and they make the walk up from the street and take it for me. And because they're so nice, I always give them a nice tip at Christmas time for helping me out that way.

Some of the people that come see me tell me they were sons or daughters of old friends of mine that I haven't seen in years. They come in and spend time and talk to an old woman like me and they let me tell them stories that so many others don't want to hear, and after a while they get to telling me about their lives, and how they're struggling to make ends meet. I always thank God that I have a home that's paid for and while I don't have a lot of money, I can't help but give these people a little bit of cash or write them a check to help them out. They always seem grateful and they come back again a month or two later, it seems, and we do the same thing again.

I told you about people calling me, but when I try and call my friends and my family, I keep getting wrong numbers. Some of the people are so nice and they tell me that either I have the wrong number, which I know I don't, or they tell me that the person I'm calling died several years ago. I try and act surprised when they tell me that, but I know they're lying to me because I saw some of these people not long ago, or at least I don't think it was very long ago.

What I don't want my kids to know, I'm really having trouble getting around now, and a couple of times I've taken a fall. I've always worried about falling and breaking a hip, but so far, my falls haven't been all that bad.

six months later:

I don't like this place I'm staying at. It's not that it isn't nice and kept real clean, and they try and make some really nice meals, but I don't understand why I'm having to stay here. I remember falling at home early one morning, and I remember sitting in my chair for hours before someone from the restaurant called and when I didn't get to the phone, they called my kids and they drove over and found me in this chair, and I couldn't get up and walk, so they took me to the hospital, and after going to a place called a nursing home and them having me exercise, I got to where I could walk with this darned walker. After I got to walking again, my son took me to this place he called assisted living, but I really think I'm staying in a motel in Madison now and I can't understand why my husband hasn't come to pick me up or at least stay with me.

I've tried calling him at home and I keep getting my son instead. My son, he's such a joker with me, always has been, but when I tell him I'm trying to get ahold of his dad and find out why he's mad at me and won't come and pick me up at this motel, he tells me my husband died almost twenty-one years ago, and I don't think that's funny. He's so insistent about it, and then he gets mad at me, I guess cause I don't go along with the joke, but he tells me I'm not in a hotel in Madison that I'm still in Rushville in something called assisted living. It's funny, too, this furniture in this two room hotel suite looks like my furniture from home, and the bed not only looks like my bed, it feels just like my bed, so I don't have much trouble sleeping at night, at least the nights that white cat doesn't come in and climb in the bed with me and sleeps with me until morning. Then, when the nice lady comes in to get me up and tells me I need to get ready for breakfast in the dining room, the cat is always gone.

I tell this nice lady, and there's another one two, although I don't ever see them both the same day, I tell her I really don't want to go down to the dining room for breakfast, because I don't like sitting down there with all these old people. Some of them are nice, but there's this one old man down there that flirts with me, and if my husband ever found out, then I know he'd never come and take me home, because he would be so jealous.

I can usually eat breakfast at my own kitchen table, the lady brings me in a nice home cooked breakfast and coffee, but I don't eat much of it, because sometimes it looks like there's bugs in the food and roaches in the coffee. They bring me a drink that tastes like milkshake, and as long as I drink it quick, nothing ever seems to be in it. And these nice ladies help me take my medicines each day, which is something I had quit doing when I was still at home. I quit going to the doctor because I never got to feeling better so I just quit taking his medicine he was giving me to, even the drops the eye doctor told me I had to put in my eyes because of something called glaucoma. Well, these nice people give me all these pills and they put the drops in my eyes, but I think something has happened to my left eye, because I can't see anything out of it anymore. I guess that means I've gone blind in one eye and I sure hope it wasn't that medicine that did it because now that they're giving it to me, I'm so afraid I might go blind in my other eye, too.

My kids come and see me almost everyday, and I can't figure out how they can afford the drive down here each day. My son comes to see me in the morning before he goes to work and my daughter comes up after she gets off work. Those kids are driving a lot of miles to see me but they won't take me home where I need to be. They keep telling me I am home, but I know better. One of these days my husband will quit being mad at me and he'll come and pick me up and take me home with him. I just wish he would hurry up and I so wish he'd call me, I miss him so much.

I tried to call my mom the other night. This nice voice came on an answering machine and it was one of my daughters friends. She called me back last night and told me that my mom had died almost 40 years ago, and since she was a friend of my daughter's, well, I just let her go ahead and tell me her lie and I quit trying to call Mom, because I know one day soon she's coming with my husband to see me here.

I got all dressed up last Saturday night, because my brother was supposed to come up and have supper with me. One of the ladies told me he wasn't going to be able to make it, but I sat in the nice recreation area next to the dining room and waited for him, because I just knew he'd make it. After he didn't make it, I thought maybe he might have gone to the wrong hotel room, so I went looking for him. I found a man in his room that wasn't my brother, and he let me in to call 911. After the police got here and I told them what was going on, someone who runs this hotel that I hadn't seen before butted her nose in and told them that I was having memory problems and that my records showed that my brothers were all dead. She wasn't very nice to me, but the policemen were and walked me back to my suite and told me just to go ahead and get ready for bed and maybe he'd come and see me some other time soon, he had probably just forgotten.

Then there are times, and there aren't many of them, but there I times I swear, I think maybe I really am in Rushville in a place called assisted living, and I once in a while almost believe my kids when they tell me my husband is dead as are my brothers. But just about the time I start to actually believe maybe some of this is true, then I realize that if any of that had really happened, I'd remember it.

And I don't remember any of that happening. And those thoughts I have, why, they're probably dreams I'm having. Dreams can seem so real sometime.

And things could be worse, I could be sick and I could be losing my mind, but I'm not. And I'm staying in a really nice hotel with such nice people looking after me and making me wonderful meals. But I so wish my husband would come visit me.

I want to go home where I'm safe.