Hard to believe it has been almost a year and a half since I have been here, but life just keeps on happening. On a personal level, my Mom’s dementia has gotten progressively worse (of course, there is no other way for it to go). Eight months after my last post, my husband and I were in FL, my twin was here to do meds for my mom while we were gone. My Mom got really angry with my sister and tried to hit her. John’s Dad got really bad while we were gone. When we got back, John started going with me to do meds, he would visit with my mom while I was doing my sneaking around (my mom’s words) and fixing her breakfast, feeding the birds, flushing the toilet, moving laundry, etc. He also removed the hasp and lock from the basement door (her trigger) and fixed up a lever on the back side of the door which kept it from opening. Not quite a month after we returned from our trip, John’s Dad was moved to a nursing home and passed 5 days later. That changed several things in our lives, mainly having a little bit of money in savings that we never had before. John missed a few days going with me to my Mom’s during his dad’s passing but for the most part continued to run interference for me and keep my mom on a more even keel, because you know, MEN are just better than women. Flash forward to the following May, it is time for our annual trip to FL and John stated one morning mid week before our leaving on Saturday that it was time to put Mom in memory care, past time. I made arrangements with the memory care in Mooresville and it was decided rather than to have the sisters be on pins and needles waiting for me to get back to take her that twin would take her midweek while we were gone. I can’t say it was a smooth transition, for the first several weeks when she would see us, she would ask if we were there to take her home and sometimes get kind of hateful that we weren’t taking her home. That phase passed fairly quickly with one incident where she lam-blasted me with, if you cared about me at all you wouldn’t leave me here. After about a month, she quit asking about taking her home, seemed to know who we were and was easily “re-directed” (memory care staff use this term a lot and is terminology for her memory isn’t any longer than a second. In December (a week before Christmas) I got a call that she was “bad”. She had an infection, they had given her something to calm her and get her to sleep and she was in bed, mostly unresponsive and hadn’t eating anything in over 36 hours. We made arrangements with hospice and beating the infection did seem to help but her leaving the facility with her friend on Sunday mornings to go to church were over, she could no longer play the piano and is in a wheelchair and diapers. She is only eating because they are feeding her and is still loosing weight. She is on hospice care and has slightly better days but not near what she was bi (before infection).
On the quilt front — have many pictures to post but that will have to wait until later. Am making community quilts for Sleep in Heavenly Peace an organization that builds bed for children in the community between the ages of 3-17 that are sleeping on the floor. I am facilitating making quilts for those beds instead of giving the child a store-bought comforter to go with their bed.
Well, enough for now, have half-way caught this up. Will try to post pics soon and try to get here every week or so (HA!) to post.
Life is like a Quilt 