What exactly do we do now? As we were packing up Mom's stuff to bring her back home from memory care, I asked The Other Girl if it was okay to threaten Mom with moving her back to memory care when she got dementia-naughty at home. This plan was met with a firm negative. I sighed in defeat. It was all I had come up with. But my sister had more humane ideas for our re-entry to 24/7 care (suck up). You see, the issues that prompted moving her to memory care are all still there: the increased confusion that requires heroic feats of patience, the progression into incontinence territory that demands one (literally) tread lightly through our days, the heightened anxiety and anguish that has to be c

Be afraid… Be very afraid. Last Monday we ended our memory care battle with Monterey Court by beating a hasty retreat and taking our mismatched curtains with us. Oh, and Mom. We took her too. It actually wasn't that much of a battle; they were sincerely trying to make Mom's residency work, but there just wasn't enough staff and resident engagement to pull it off. Mom vacillated between wretched and despondent, with a touch of aggression thrown in for good measure. The Other Girl and I could no longer justify buying ourselves some freedom at the expense of her all-encompassing misery. So, she's back home. And while I wouldn't exactly say she's happy (that's a very tall order for dementia) she

So... that didn't go well. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes you get pulverized beyond recognition. That's what's happened to Mom, The Other Girl, and myself in the last five weeks of Mom living in memory care. Every day now brings some new anxiety-induced behavior in Mom that confirms this, and alarms us. She's angry. She's refusing medications, showers, not eating. She's lashing out at care givers both physically and verbally. She was so hateful to me on Thursday I was utterly shocked. We've met with the administration to discuss issues, improve her care, repeatedly attempted to communicate everything we know about Mom to help them help her. All to no avail. So, this mor

In the first two weeks of Mom living in memory care, The Other Girl and I have had vastly different experiences when visiting. Mom. I've been spending my days with a smiling, giggling, anxiety-minimal Mom. My sister, however, has been treated to a resistant, unhappy Mom with a pronounced degree of confusion. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... Week 3: The Kids Are Not Alright Monday So today started with... me walking in right before lunch. I see residents already in chairs, waiting to be served. Curiously, Mom is hovering behind a seated resident. As I approach with a big smile and a "Good morning, beautiful!" I don't even register to her. She is bending down over the woman, aggressively tr