Dementia is a 4 letter Word

I want to preface this by saying that I know some of you have been through and unfortunately will go through much worse than what our family experienced with my mother. She had dementia, not Alzheimer’s. She always remembered who we were, we didn’t worry about her running off, and she somewhat kept her sense of reality, if maybe a little distorted. For those things I am grateful.

My dad always said that the downturn started when Mom turned 80. She felt that her life was over and there was nothing to look forward to. She was still active and had no physical ailments but she really did just sort of stop “living.”

We still lived in Stephenville when it started and I tried to go as often as I could because I know my brother and my dad needed some help with her.

My mother never liked or treated my sister-in-law or Jacky very well. I don’t think it would have mattered who we married, that’s just how she was. After 1 visit when I was heading home I called Jacky and he asked how everything was. I said, “Her mind is really going. She told me today how lucky I was to have a good husband.” He said, “I didn’t realize it was that bad yet.”

She, had always cared about her appearance and all of a sudden she only wore faded cotton blouses, old jeans, and a pair of worn out Keds. The saddest time I remember was the weekend of Clay’s graduation from Tech. We had a dinner planned the night before graduation to celebrate. My dad was all dressed up and there was Mom in her old cotton blouse, faded jeans, and Keds. I wanted to cry. To make matters worse, the next morning about an hour before we were to leave the hotel to go to the ceremony my dad called and said they had to go home because she was too sick to go to the graduation. Johnny and I have no idea how many trips to the ER they made in the last couple of years she lived at home, but they knew her by name when she came in. Her heart was always “pounding” and she was dying but her heart was fine. I assume now she had panic attacks.

Mom was addicted to Ambien. My brother and I are both convinced that her abuse of it caused her dementia. She turned into a stranger to us. The mother who had raised us, traveled the world, worked cattle, sheared sheep, and hauled us all over Texas and New Mexico to rodeos was no longer there. Johnny and I would take turns going to their house and “cleaning out” the pills but my dad would get the pills in his name, take her to the ER, or they would “doctor shop” and get more sleeping pills. We couldn’t understand why he would get more pills for her but after a nasty fall that put her on a care-flight to Lubbock and then in the hospital for a few days we understood. He was just trying to survive. We took turns staying with her in the hospital. She kept both of us up all night and all day either telling us to get a nurse or using the call button herself. Just about the time we would fall asleep, here she would go again. Daddy later admitted that the night before her fall she had taken 4 pills. She weighed less than 90 lbs. so you can imagine what that did to her.

I guest my point in this post is: We never know what someone else is going through, even those close to us. I’ve always wondered why and how people could enable their loved ones but I see a little of it now. This is only part of what I have in my head and heart to write about those years but there is just too much to write in 1 post.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Proverbs 3:5

The preceding verse became my mantra. It gave me peace and allowed me to let go of trying to “fix” my mother.