Day 365 - A Year in Review - Version 4.0
Dec. 31st, 2011 07:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wolfsbrideOh my gosh! Are we here already??? We must be. Wow.
Okay, all silliness aside, let us now take stock of the year. Having lived through the last 365 days, I can honestly say that for me, 2011 SUCKED!!!
Let me count the ways...
As you may, or may not, know - since I can't remember how much I've talked about this here and I'm too lazy to look it up now - in April of 2011, my mother was in the hospital for three weeks. She originally ended up in emergency due to a nose bleed that would not stop. After they ran tests and did their thing, it was discovered her blood pressure was off the chart and her r somethings were too low.
What are r somethings you ask? They tell the doctors what the consistency of your blood is. Being too low meant that my mother's blood was WAY TOO THIN. I guess that combined with the extremely high blood pressure is what made her nose bleed copiously.
Let me tell you, there is NOTHING quite so frightening as getting a phone call saying so and so is in the hospital and NO OTHER DETAILS. When I walked through emergency and around the curtain of her bed, my mother was curled up like an infant sleeping. For a moment, I honestly thought she had died, which, in retrospect is silly since they wouldn't have let her lie around like that, but that's what my mind instantly jumped to.
She looked so tiny and fragile in that bed. Shudder. Anyway, I only had to think she was dead for a few seconds, since she woke up but ugh. And then she started to talk and my brain went oh dear. Now, some history. I had noticed way back in 2009 that my mom was becoming a bit forgetful. At that time, I talked to her about wills and power of attorney and such things, but you know people, you can't force them to do something they don't want to.
In the latter part of 2009, my mom disappeared from the radar. I had moved out the year before but I would call her daily and go visit regularly and such. All of a sudden I can't get a hold of her. She doesn't answer her phone. She's never there when I go to visit. The reason behind this behaviour?
A MAN!
Now, some more background. My mother, for some reason, has VERY BAD TASTE IN MEN! It's not like she was a trollop. She didn't hang out with men a lot but when she did get into relationships with them, most of the time they were idiots. The one guy that wasn't an idiot, she decided she didn't like. So!
This man had persuaded her to go live with him, to, as it became clear later, wait on him hand and foot apparently. That's why I could never get in touch with her. And she was secretive about him. She would never give me any details about him and the only reason I found out his number at all was because of call display. Every time I asked her about him she would say, oh, you don't need to know.
Whatever. My mother is a big girl and normally I wouldn't care. But this GENTLEMAN took it upon himself to convince my mother to stop taking her pills. His reasoning was thus: HOW DO YOU KNOW THEY WORK IF YOU DON'T STOP TAKING THEM! It didn't help that mom was in the process of losing her memory and could have USED some help in managing her pills.
So. Now comes the confession. I HATE HATE HATE HATE THIS MAN. I have never hated anyone before. People who know me know I'm a laid back person but I hold this man directly responsible for speeding my mother's descent into dotage and I can not even be in the same room with him less I smash his stupid ignorant face in.
Anyone who spends five seconds with my mother can tell there is something wrong with her mind. I can not believe this man let my mother live with him for a year and a half and either didn't notice or didn't care enough to think about getting her help or contacting someone - me - to get help for her. I loathe him and I would happily see him DIE A HORRIBLE DEATH AND DANCE AT HIS FUNERAL TOO! If that makes me a bad person, so be it.
So this year involved me basically moving back home again because there was NO WAY I was going to let my mother continue to live with that guy but mostly because she needs supervision with both taking her pills and eating. This whole memory loss thing has been one of the most frustrating and yet fascinating experiences I've ever been through.
When I think of memory, I think of reminiscing about childhoods or old loves or whatever. I never contemplated how entangled memory is with our every day lives. I quickly realized that if you can't remember things, you can't work things. You can't follow instructions because you can't remember them long enough to act them out. You can't hold complex conversations because you can't hold ideas in your head long enough. It's a very narrowing thing, losing one's memory.
Later on in the year, around August of 2011, I finally got my mom in to see a memory specialist. He put her through a two part test and the result of the test was that she has Alzheimers. I asked the doctor what the difference was between Alzheimers and Dementia because the doctor at the hospital had given her a diagnosis of Dementia and I was confused.
So! For those who've always wanted to know and those who didn't - Alzheimers is a KIND of Dementia. It's a more complex version. Dementia involves simple memory loss. Alzheimers compounds the memory loss by incorporating losing other things such as reasoning, rationalizing, spatial awareness etc. The test that he gave my mother had a total score of 30, with 21 out of 30 being the standard. My mother scored 11. So as the doctor put it, she is on the downside of the Alzheimers hill rapidly approaching the bottom. Apparently though, there is medicine they can give you. It doesn't reverse anything but it slows the process.
As for myself, 2011 brought me nausea, vomiting and other nice things courtesy of the newest disease in my collection - diabetes! It's a case where you wonder if the cure is worth it. On the upside, my lungs are doing the best they've ever done! Let's hear it for lungs! YAAAAAAAAY LUNGS!
The year hasn't been all bad though. I've seen a couple of fun movies and I'm actually reading - GASP! - REAL BOOKS! I don't know how long that will last as I'm really annoyed with Chapters and their refusal to accept on line shopping as a valid alternate to in store shopping. They keep sending me coupons for x% off books if you buy them in store. I sent an email to their complaints department pointing out how unfair that is to those of us who DO NOT LIKE TO SHOP IN THE STORE. I have yet to hear back from them. Nice.
So to sum up. 2011 - I'm glad to see the back of you! Bring it on 2012!
Okay, all silliness aside, let us now take stock of the year. Having lived through the last 365 days, I can honestly say that for me, 2011 SUCKED!!!
Let me count the ways...
As you may, or may not, know - since I can't remember how much I've talked about this here and I'm too lazy to look it up now - in April of 2011, my mother was in the hospital for three weeks. She originally ended up in emergency due to a nose bleed that would not stop. After they ran tests and did their thing, it was discovered her blood pressure was off the chart and her r somethings were too low.
What are r somethings you ask? They tell the doctors what the consistency of your blood is. Being too low meant that my mother's blood was WAY TOO THIN. I guess that combined with the extremely high blood pressure is what made her nose bleed copiously.
Let me tell you, there is NOTHING quite so frightening as getting a phone call saying so and so is in the hospital and NO OTHER DETAILS. When I walked through emergency and around the curtain of her bed, my mother was curled up like an infant sleeping. For a moment, I honestly thought she had died, which, in retrospect is silly since they wouldn't have let her lie around like that, but that's what my mind instantly jumped to.
She looked so tiny and fragile in that bed. Shudder. Anyway, I only had to think she was dead for a few seconds, since she woke up but ugh. And then she started to talk and my brain went oh dear. Now, some history. I had noticed way back in 2009 that my mom was becoming a bit forgetful. At that time, I talked to her about wills and power of attorney and such things, but you know people, you can't force them to do something they don't want to.
In the latter part of 2009, my mom disappeared from the radar. I had moved out the year before but I would call her daily and go visit regularly and such. All of a sudden I can't get a hold of her. She doesn't answer her phone. She's never there when I go to visit. The reason behind this behaviour?
A MAN!
Now, some more background. My mother, for some reason, has VERY BAD TASTE IN MEN! It's not like she was a trollop. She didn't hang out with men a lot but when she did get into relationships with them, most of the time they were idiots. The one guy that wasn't an idiot, she decided she didn't like. So!
This man had persuaded her to go live with him, to, as it became clear later, wait on him hand and foot apparently. That's why I could never get in touch with her. And she was secretive about him. She would never give me any details about him and the only reason I found out his number at all was because of call display. Every time I asked her about him she would say, oh, you don't need to know.
Whatever. My mother is a big girl and normally I wouldn't care. But this GENTLEMAN took it upon himself to convince my mother to stop taking her pills. His reasoning was thus: HOW DO YOU KNOW THEY WORK IF YOU DON'T STOP TAKING THEM! It didn't help that mom was in the process of losing her memory and could have USED some help in managing her pills.
So. Now comes the confession. I HATE HATE HATE HATE THIS MAN. I have never hated anyone before. People who know me know I'm a laid back person but I hold this man directly responsible for speeding my mother's descent into dotage and I can not even be in the same room with him less I smash his stupid ignorant face in.
Anyone who spends five seconds with my mother can tell there is something wrong with her mind. I can not believe this man let my mother live with him for a year and a half and either didn't notice or didn't care enough to think about getting her help or contacting someone - me - to get help for her. I loathe him and I would happily see him DIE A HORRIBLE DEATH AND DANCE AT HIS FUNERAL TOO! If that makes me a bad person, so be it.
So this year involved me basically moving back home again because there was NO WAY I was going to let my mother continue to live with that guy but mostly because she needs supervision with both taking her pills and eating. This whole memory loss thing has been one of the most frustrating and yet fascinating experiences I've ever been through.
When I think of memory, I think of reminiscing about childhoods or old loves or whatever. I never contemplated how entangled memory is with our every day lives. I quickly realized that if you can't remember things, you can't work things. You can't follow instructions because you can't remember them long enough to act them out. You can't hold complex conversations because you can't hold ideas in your head long enough. It's a very narrowing thing, losing one's memory.
Later on in the year, around August of 2011, I finally got my mom in to see a memory specialist. He put her through a two part test and the result of the test was that she has Alzheimers. I asked the doctor what the difference was between Alzheimers and Dementia because the doctor at the hospital had given her a diagnosis of Dementia and I was confused.
So! For those who've always wanted to know and those who didn't - Alzheimers is a KIND of Dementia. It's a more complex version. Dementia involves simple memory loss. Alzheimers compounds the memory loss by incorporating losing other things such as reasoning, rationalizing, spatial awareness etc. The test that he gave my mother had a total score of 30, with 21 out of 30 being the standard. My mother scored 11. So as the doctor put it, she is on the downside of the Alzheimers hill rapidly approaching the bottom. Apparently though, there is medicine they can give you. It doesn't reverse anything but it slows the process.
As for myself, 2011 brought me nausea, vomiting and other nice things courtesy of the newest disease in my collection - diabetes! It's a case where you wonder if the cure is worth it. On the upside, my lungs are doing the best they've ever done! Let's hear it for lungs! YAAAAAAAAY LUNGS!
The year hasn't been all bad though. I've seen a couple of fun movies and I'm actually reading - GASP! - REAL BOOKS! I don't know how long that will last as I'm really annoyed with Chapters and their refusal to accept on line shopping as a valid alternate to in store shopping. They keep sending me coupons for x% off books if you buy them in store. I sent an email to their complaints department pointing out how unfair that is to those of us who DO NOT LIKE TO SHOP IN THE STORE. I have yet to hear back from them. Nice.
So to sum up. 2011 - I'm glad to see the back of you! Bring it on 2012!
