Recovery

Mom's had more surgery since I last posted. All went well this time, and she is home recovering. We're mostly staying home and mom gets a bit stir crazy from sitting in the house all the time. Occasionally we go out, but we're pretty much limited to places that have motorized scooters because mom can only walk for a few minutes and then has to sit down. We have a wheelchair, but mom doesn't like to use it. She says it's low and she has to crane her neck upwards to see things. Apart from the scooter issue there is the problem that mom has difficulty hearing so that limits what we can do too. 

We try to keep mom as comfortable as possible. To make life a bit easier we got her an electric lift-recliner. She's been having trouble getting in and out of her chair so we hoped this would help. The only problem is that she hasn't been able to learn how to use the remote control for the chair. It has two buttons... up... and down. Push the up button and the chair puts you in a standing position, push the down button and you can sit down and recline with your feet up. Two buttons... simple right? Wrong! It's been nearly a month and she still hasn't been able to figure it out.  Regardless of how many times we show her, within a few minutes she will have forgotten. Dementia is so cruel!

I found a large print word search (mom has vision problems) that I thought would keep her busy. She complained 'These puzzles are not like they used to be. I can't find the words!' I watched her try. She would read the word and then begin to look for the word in the puzzle. By the time she gets to the end of the first line in the grid she has forgotten the word. It makes her frustrated and she puts the book down. She tried quite a few times because she had forgotten that she had tried before - each time with the same result. 

Mom likes to talk on the phone, but making calls is a challenge. Today, my daughter sat down to help her dial the numbers. Mom called quite a few people. She called one of my sisters and asked how she was. 'I'm sick with a cold' my sister said. Mom replied 'Oh I'll let you go then. I don't want to catch it'. She called my other sister twice, having completely forgotten that she had called the first time. One call was to a family friend. When their voice mail picked up mom said 'Hey! It's your grandmother' We were entertained by mom's phone calls for a good part of the afternoon. Then it was time for mom to take a nap. 

Maybe tomorrow I'll take her to Home Depot to look at the flowers and plants in the nursery section. They have got good motorized scooters there. Then when we come home I will pull out some old photo albums and we can reminisce about the past. That will keep us busy for a while.