It's been lousy for me tonight, I'm turning in. I'd like to again soon, though. More people on here should try them out, they are almost always a lot of fun. 'night peoples.
My aunt just decided she wanted to get out of bed for the 4th time tonight. I had to pick her up and place her in her wheelchair each time. She's now sitting 5 feet from me with a blanket pulled over her head like a turtle proclaiming "God help me." I never envisioned this for a Saturday night, ever. If I was an asshole I'd jump in my truck, leave, and never look back. She's calling for my grandmother, her deceased husband, and keeps thinking I'm my father. She does not want to go to bed even though I keep explaining to her it's almost midnight. She may look peaceful under that blanket, but she's keeping up a running commentary with dead folks. This will go on all night. I did not stage this picture, this is her life. 81 years old, worked hard all her life, and is now confused, frightened, and spends 22 hours a day under a blanket. If there is a God I pray he will hit me with a bolt of lightning before this happens to me.
I know fuck all about Alzheimer's, but is it an issue to pretend to be the people she's talking to? You would think with people who are that mentally gone, giving them the satisfaction of talking to the people who they want to talk to would be beneficial. On the other hand, I could see how that could backfire and they could flip their shit if they realize you are lying to them. Shitty situation. Why again are you doing this? I mean that as nicely as possible.
Alzheimer's is the cruelest form of punishment a human being could endure. It erases the entire life you spent building and rots your brain like a dried-out old sponge. Horrible beyond words. When Reagan died, he didn't even know he'd been president of the USA. You have to watch people with this disease. They could poor them self a boiling hot bath and not realize getting in or leave something hot on a stove. And it's never their fault.
See, there's your problem. If the baby had been smoking, everything would've been just fine. Reference Alzheimer's, I don't have any special expertise, but I'll point you all in the direction of this article: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/01/health/01care.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/01/healt ... d=all&_r=0</a> The solution is bacon.
I went to a wrap party yesterday and there were definitely underage kids there. They bucked the rules because it was a "closed party" and they're actors so people bend over backwards to accommodate the little shits. That said, open bar led to some really regrettable text messages last night. And some incredibly quiet organ work at church this morning.
I was gonna make a joke along the lines of, "What, you kept your hand over the priest's mouth?" but you aren't an altar boy...
I've only worked around theatre actors and I have to at least half of them deserve to perish via Brazilian Microwave method. I shudder to think what the REAL egos are like. Especially young actors. Films always say they harm no animals, but what about the kids?
We've been taught in school to play along as long as it isn't an upsetting or stressing hallucination/ delusion. My grandma was really lucky... She had Alzheimer's but she was happy as a clam. She could still play the piano pretty far into her dementia, so she played the majority of the day and loved it. She didnt know who any of us were, but she seemed like a content 4 year old. For her, it wasn't the worst way to go.
It's comforting to hear not everyone suffers from it, because its heartbreaking to see how it eats your head like drain cleaner. Just seeing what it physically does to a human brain is what depresses me. It's bloody Horrifying. It turns it into charred coral. I felt like crying the first time I saw the before/after photos.
Yeah, it sounds like that isn't the norm, unfortunately. It is really sad to think about your memories being erased...the MRIs are pretty shocking.
I think hearing that I was stricken with it would cue me an entire bottle of sleeping pills as a nightcap. I would rather die with remembering the life I had instead of not knowing who the fuck my own kids are.
Look on the bright side. Most of you will die alone in a retirement home visited weekly by grandchildren sick of the obligation and children so emotionally numb to your decay they're already calculating how to spend the inheritance.
Good news: We're finally getting some rain down here. Bad news: I was planning on taking Li'l Bandit and my nieces to the beach today.
]Yeah, my mom and I are agreed that she can come live with me when she's too elderly to take care of herself. I never got casting people off because they've become an inconvenient hassle. I felt bad for my great grandmother. She died in her late 90s, having outlived all her children. Her husband died at 22 during an explosion at a factory producing bombs for the war effort. She never remarried and didn't even date anyone else. Different era. By the end she was always excited to see us, but couldn't follow anything we were talking about.
My grandfather was 88 when he had a massive stroke. Turned him into a vegetable. For 2 months he lingered, bed ridden, until he died in a miserable state in our house. Insurance paid for very minimal nursing aid. Enough to check the feeding tube equipment and a once a week bathing. The rest of that time it was basically up to my mom to feed him, change diapers, monitor equipment, scrape the build-up in his mouth, clean bed sores. I, at 11, did quite a bit too. Her brother gave her so much grief for this. He took ZERO part in it, instead quoting scripture about looking at one's parent's nudity and the shame of it. He wanted to throw his pops into a nursing home despite it being the old man's number 1 fear. It pleased me to no end that the last two years of that cunt's life he had his daughter doing much the same damn things he chastised my mom for. This guy was a minister too, talked out of both sides of his alcoholic mouth. I hope there's a hell just so he can burn in it.
I could not just dump my folks off at some shitty adult day-care like they're unwanted pets. Some people had shitty parents, but mine were not so they deserve a little more respect and dignity than being left on the curb. I think they should at least get the option on having some choice in their final years. Nursing homes suck in this town (even the newly built ones) and are always under bylaw fire. That's no way for people to run out the clock. And you guys wonder why so many of us choose Florida after retirement instead of here. I want Arizona for me. Love the weather and scenery, and I'll be too old to give a fuck about the shittier people that live there.