<p>Thanks, mods, for merging the temporary thread back here.</p>
<p>Glad to report the Passover Skype Seder between our home and brother’s (ALS) nursing home was deeply satisfying to all. The awesome power of music as we sang old family tunes lifted our careworn spirits.</p>
<p>In addition to Elijah, the nurse visited their table midway through with painkillers. My younger brother had set a pretty little table in the quiet chapel of the nursing home. </p>
<p>Mom (late stage Alzheimer’s) was fetched from her nursing home and did fine. We just read the basic elements of the entire service with ritual foods and no big meal. For My younger brothers girlfriend, a thoughtful practicing Catholic, this was her first Seder --what an intro! Did I mention she has a heart of gold? </p>
<p>I take away the reminder of how helpful is any kind of music-- even a simple nursery rhyme-- to engage someone lost to a mortal illness. </p>
<p>When our Skype connection broke down with a half hour to go (a laptop overheated), we just kept going by passing cellphones. Starting with Skype established the scene visually across miles, so phones were really okay just to finish out. </p>
<p>Sorry for length. Just glad for some success and tips to share!</p>
<p>So glad this thread is back, restored from wherever it was lost/stored.</p>
<p>Music therapy is said to be a helpful way to connect with folks of all ages. I know my mom used to play the piano. Haven’t heard her playing now in quite a long time, sadly. Not sure why she doesn’t seem to play any more and wish she’d pick it up again.</p>
<p>My dad mentioned to me maybe a month ago that he could remember the words of all the songs of his youth but couldn’t remember the words for chicken or toilet paper or newspaper sometimes. Memory is a strange thing.</p>
<p>I noticed that this thread has a ‘pinned’ symbol, but is not actually pinned or stickied.</p>
<p>
Nope … I’m really glad this thread has been restored … it’s my best legacy to my 10+ years on CC. However all my other posts and threads are still missing … it’s like my 10 years never existed.</p>
<p>Look left … I’m now a junior member with 237 posts … a few thousand posts have disappeared into vapor. </p>
<p>Yay we’re back! </p>
<p>@paying3tuitions - that sounds really lovely and meaningful for everyone. I’m not Jewish, though I have Jewish friends and I always really like hearing about the traditions and meanings. Why I even make a fabulous matzoh ball soup if I do say so myself. 
</p>
<p>@3togo - almost sounds like a movie getting your past wiped out like that! What did you do or say anyway? lol </p>
<p>I’m on day 2 of removing myself from my moms situation. My blood pressure is lower and I feel better already. I will check in obviously but I really needed a break.</p>
<p>First time posting in this thread (I think), but long time lurker. It’s a wonderful thread and I’ve learned a lot about coping with senior parents. I’ve been absorbed with D14’s college search the past 12 months +/- and it’s been quite the journey. Now that the decision is made and deposit put down (hooray!!!), I finally I have time to think about what could be a very difficult summer. Only child heading 3,000 miles away to “dream” college and only relative within 1,000 miles, my 80-yr old, mentally perfect, but physically frail MIL, whom I adore, is possibly leaving for AL in Ill. to be closer to her two daughters (against her wishes, but financially necessary). Other than husband, the extended nest could be depressingly empty come fall. </p>
<p>My own mother passed away at age 45, so MIL, whom I’ve known for 35 years, has been a wonderful replacement and I’ve been very blessed to have her in my life for so long and living within 2 miles for the last 15 years. Change can be hard and I know it’s not going to be easy for me to give up being the “go to” person in D’s or MIL’s life.</p>
<p>Thanks for being a great outlet to vent to share life’s ups and downs.</p>
<p>@momofwon, you and me both. It’s just me and my daughter. Now that my dad is gone and my stepmother moving far away, I have a lot of planning to do to fill up my life.</p>
<p>The thread was only restored through January earlier today – glad to see they found the rest of it and merged the interim thread. 3togo, I hope they can restore the rest of your posts. I have been tempted sometimes to print out my posts from certain threads as a journal of sorts, but I assume that is probably a violation of TOS and that others would freak out, so I pray my posts stay here in the ether. </p>
<p>P3t, your seder sounds lovely and poignant. Our former rabbi is now a chaplain at one of the local Jewish nursing homes, and he says the best part of his job is watching seniors who are wracked with dementia and Alzheimers come alive when he plays music or sings to them. Suddenly they remember every word. (I taught S1 & S2 our address & phone number when they were pre-reading toddlers by putting them to music. They still remember that ditty!)</p>
<p>Was so glad how so many found the temp thread. Though the skip showed a pitfall, the temp regroup says something positive about the dynamics among this thread’s people.</p>
<p>The Skype Seder is touching. Thank you for sharing.
And Eyemamom sorry you are dealing with this. I’m now back in touch with my mother, when she feels like it. Of course she questioned me over and over why I had blown up at her, so many months ago. Just has no place in her for the possibility she is hurtful. I could explain it, in psychological terms, but the net result is the same. Two days ago, I left her a message about lunch with D2 and me, tomorrow. No response. Not a big deal, but an example of the tugs of war.</p>
<p>What helps is that dedicated friend, who somehow knows my ghosts. She’s an e-penpal. (“Met” after her D pm’d me, several years ago.) When I say, eg, how concerned I am that I not be to my girls as my mother is to me, she knows the right words. When we’re the middle of all this, we know it’s complex and there are no easy assurances. But this helped me, so I’ll share it with any of you who need it:</p>
<p>“You are NOT your mother.”</p>
<p>momofwon- it is an oddly empty feeling when your last kid first leaves, the house feels empty and all those routines change. But after a few months or a year, you may find yourself enjoying your freedom!</p>
<p>I had not been on this thread for a while and caught up tonight on the ‘news’.</p>
<p>oldmom4896 sorry for the loss of your dad. Glad about step-mother’s move to CO and hope her son will continue to do ‘right’ by her. I figured out the 4896 as you indicated your age and with your DD going to college. You are only 8 years older than me (my younger DD is also going to college in the fall), and I recently had lunch with a friend who is 9 years younger than me and looks maybe 10 years older than me - and om4896 I bet you are ‘young’ at heart with your sense of humor (reference to Dr. Freud). Hope your DD has a great college experience!</p>
<p>eyemamom - enjoy your vacation, and do not let your mom ‘age’ you - lucky you to be in your 40’s from my perspective of 57/turning 58 :)</p>
<p>When talking about parent lack of filter - some people pre-dementia sometimes use information as ‘power’ - one time I made a comment about one of our small town insurance agents, and mom totally embarrassed me by saying to the person with me standing there “my daughter thinks you are a phony…” I think my mom got a kick out of making me squirm and acting like this insurance agent’s ‘friend’. I was a teenager. My mom was very manipulative even back then.</p>
<p>I agree with thumper1 about some older people being frustrated with life - we all have disappointments, but I think the losses as we age does mean the use of coping skills that some just have trouble developing.</p>
<p>I can also relate esobay with the badmouthing by ‘unhandy’. Sometimes in small towns people want to nit-pick and believe what really is not believable but kind of falls into why people like to gossip (without truth in the mix). Probably most people with sense will see the opportunist that he was.</p>
<p>We all have personal limitations. I am sad to say that when my dad was dying of lung cancer at age 63, mom (age 61 at the time) said no hospice at home. His lung cancer was not able to be restrained by chemo so radiation only bought him a little time (and at the very end, he was hospitalized and died in a hospice hospital bed exactly a week after hospital admission). When my dad died, mom was in shock - she so believed in a miracle, but it was a sign of her personal limitations, her mental illness, and start of dementia which she hid pretty well. Mom (died at age 78 with hospice in her home, ironically something she denied my dad) was very challenging like many of you are experiencing with your loved ones. My ex-SIL is the only person more needy than my mom that I have ever experienced.</p>
<p>In addition to personal limitations, some seniors just so totally focus on themselves and their needs. Sometimes it is their personality, some can be brain deterioration. Instead of being so emotionally wrought by this, it is better IMHO to try to think of them as having a medical condition that just does not make them ‘themselves’ any more. Enjoy the good days and try to insulate yourself emotionally from the bad days.</p>
<p>somemom I understand your frustration with grumpy dad turning off others.</p>
<p>somemom and Marilyn I have concerns about your parent still driving - more so with somemom’s dad. I like the disappearing keys since it sounds like he would not process how to go the next step on replacing the keys. Can the car maybe only be available when someone like the caregiver is there to drive? For Marilyn, hindsight is 20-20, but after mom age 88 did not pass the driver test the first time, that was the opportunity to rally the forces to have driving stop. I recently looked at the file (from 2002) when we wrote letters etc to DMV in WI (which ended up being effective - DMV wrote a letter telling mom her license would not be restored, and her lawyer said nothing more could be done). I do think the doctor was a bit borderline at that point on driving/not driving (mom was 69 at the time and masking her limitations pretty well). My letter was relaying many facts. I also had a Catholic church deacon, retired from FBI (who mom had traveled with on a group vacation) write a letter to DMV (he actually offered). I bet WI DMV never got as many letters about someone not to drive, as my sis gave forms to everyone who told her that mom should not be behind the wheel (in WI you could do it ‘anonymously’ by having a separate paper notarized that was submitted).</p>
<p>I think that ends my two cents worth for now. For me, I am now rallying to get ready for DD’s graduation and company.</p>
<p>So sorry I didn’t have any tips for photoop and grumpy string parent. It IS ok to say no sometimes. But no real advice for you that I think “works”</p>
<p>I am in the trenches again. Traveled to home town, checked with tax lady…taxes wrong, she hadn’t gotten a key piece of paper. So now I get to pay her for doing them twice, but at least we checked. Got one house semi sold, at least got earnest money on it, it is a terrible liability so want it sold $7500 so I hope it goes. Got the demolition permit for my old childhood home that burned in December for the fire department to burn the rest of the way Down. It is weird, in some ways I am grateful because now the insurance money is a bit of a cushion for mom… On the other hand, if we could have kept it rented… Then took Mom out for Easter to visit her grandson and niece. She was pretty good, although tried so hard she went off the deep end by night. I Have three major thing I need to do by two pm tomorrow, if they get done I can go home where DH spent This last week alone, except for lunch with DD.
And I truly believe more than ever that dementia is contagious, I can’t think of the word for this week, and am beginning to wonder if I know my own name!
Holidays were a big family deal, run by Mom when I grew up. I can’t let her do the holidays alone, but I don’t know how many manufactured events like this I can handle. Plus I worked hard on " loving the Mom on the couch" tiring.</p>
<p>So, Mom (85, generally physically and mentally sound) is coming to live with me for the next three months. She’s been living with a younger sister for the past 2 years (with a 3 week “summer vacation” with me), lived on her own before that. </p>
<p>I’m the away daughter - my other 3 siblings live within a few minutes of each other (and where we grew up); I’m a 3 hour drive from there. My sister and Mom need a break from each other, but that means Mom loses the weekly visits with her 5 grandkids she’s used to; it will be just Mom and me (DS away at school, then away working for the summer, no DH).</p>
<p>My sister and I are thinking shared custody- 3 months at a time with each of us, and I’ll take her back once a month to visit for a weekend for family occasions. At least that’s the plan, we’ll see how it goes. </p>
<p>Lots of concerns, so I’ve been working my way backwards through this thread. Thanks to all of you for your sharing and wisdom.</p>
<p>scoutsmom, my dad and stepmother used to go to Florida for 3 or 4 months every winter. As she got older, it became terribly disorienting for my stepmother. I don’t know if it accelerated her dementia but it surely didn’t help. It would take her almost a month to get back to 90 percent of where she was before for each move. And the one and only time she wandered off was when they were in Florida.</p>
<p>I really admire your desire and willingness to do the right thing for your mom and for your sister, but I would keep an eye out.</p>
<p>I’m not convinced that change accelerates dementia so much as it makes dementia more obvious. The hallmark of early Alzheimers is loss of short term memory; the person has difficulty making new memories. If they remain in familiar circumstances, they don’t need to learn/remember new things nearly as often as they do when they come to a new area. </p>
<p>So a person who is living where she has been living for a long time, visiting her children’s familiar homes, going to her familiar local places, can seem to be unaffected by cognitive decline. But bring her out to a new area, where she needs to become familiar with a new house, new routines, new people-- and she may have difficulty.</p>
<p>A couple of years ago, my sister and I went on a cruise with our mother. She had seemed like she was doing well cognitively at home-- but when she got to the ship, she had trouble remembering where our room was, trouble remembering what our room number was, trouble remembering what plans we had made for activities. The trip didn’t make her worse. Rather, it exposed existing cognitive decline.</p>
<p>Cardinal Fang, all I know is that my stepmother was completely befuddled for about a month after they came home from Florida the last time, less so the year before but it was also hard for her. She recovered some of her marbles after a few weeks. Of course dementia reveals itself in different ways but this was clearly a setback.</p>
<p>The fact that Scoutsmom’s mom has stayed at her house for extended periods regularly could certainly make the process of moving back and forth twice a year less difficult.</p>
<p>I have experienced that since I was without oxygen during my cardiac arrest. It shows up as pretty subtle word retrieval and reflexive thinking – but if I am out with a group and having to maintain a conversation about things or with people that aren’t in my usual routine, I find I have to really concentrate to keep up. People tell me they can’t tell, but I can. I find I am more reliant on my lists than I used to be – I have always needed to write things down, but just the act of putting pen to paper committed them to my brain. Now I actually have to check the lists. </p>
<p>Has anyone here communicated with the IRS on their parent’s behalf? I need to help clear up some issues and there is no way my Mom and Dad are capable of this. Is it easier to pretend you are them? Or is it better to send a copy of the POA documents and request communication come to you directly?</p>