Hello!

First let's all agree, Alzheimers sucks. It sucks the memories out of our loved ones. It sucks the energy out of those of us who have to live with them. It sucks the joy out of friends and family. Mostly, though, it just plain sucks. 

I'm Michelle. (Hello Michelle) And my mother has Alzheimers. She's probably had it for years, maybe even a decade. She's almost 73. It's hard to say when the Alzheimers started because Mom never was keen on dates and directions. She forgot people's birthdays, appointments, medical history dates, and sometimes how old she was. She got lost easily if she turned down the wrong way and would spend quite some time driving around looking for something familiar to reorientate herself. She'd been that way for as long as I can remember. It was a joke between my brother and me. "Mom's lost again." Sometimes it hurt when she forgot it was my birthday. I mean, didn't she give birth to me? How do you forget something so special? And so there was a long period of time where we look back and wonder if it was just Mom being Mom or Mom on Alzheimers? And then we realized it really was Mom on Alzheimers. 

Mom was smart. She was artistic. She was talented. She was energetic. She raised the two of us while putting herself through college.  She made a stained glass window for her church. She threw pottery. She spun wool into yarn and taught people how to knit. She made tapestries and artistic weaving pieces. She quilted and sewed. She made ecclesiastical vestments. She and I went to university together and while I was off giving her grandchildren she went to seminary and started a new career as an Episcopal priest. She was well-read, studious, articulate, strong, brave, and loving. So to see her forget people and places and things that were part of her very being is sad. And it sucks. 

The secondary (although right now it is the primary) part of this is that my dad is in his last weeks of life. He has pulmonary fibrosis. He's mostly chair bound and rarely gets up. He has good days and bad days and as the days go by the bad days outnumber the good. So my time is precariously balanced between caring for Dad and keeping up with Mom. I left my job and my business (I'm a bookseller "by day" and an indie yarn dyer "by night") and moved a thousand miles from home to live with my parents while my father sees his last days in this world. I hate doing it. Not because I don't want to be here, but because I hate that I have to be here. That I have to see my parents who were so accomplished and respected being so helpless. That someone has to be here. That my brother and I have put our lives on a different path than we had thought we would. That we have not one but two parents who need care. 

The point of this blog is to give me a place to rant, to virtually scream, to cry where my parents can't see, and, hopefully, to help someone else who may be dealing with the same struggle that I am. If you see something that is familiar to you, feel free to comment. Have an idea that may help? I welcome your advice. Know someone who is going through this as well? Share it with them. This may be my blog, but I'm hoping to find others who are traveling this path so that we don't feel so alone as we go.

Michelle