Demented

 

Watching your parents become old and feeble is hard. I spent the day following a half-day at work driving to the Mayo Clinic to have a medical professional tell me what I already know deep in my soul. My mother (like her mother twenty years ago) is losing all touch with reality. I don't think she is really aware that this is happening because of the brain insult she had when she had her kidney transplant 6 years ago now. She is not oriented to time, space or place. She apparently did know that GHBush is president of the US and that she does not like him or his father. Maybe there is an emotional aspect to some of this. My mother has conversations that wander around the galaxy. She talks about her mother and told strangers on the elevator that she was on her way to visit with her. She talked about my dog being in the car with us. She talked about not wanting to be an inconvenience for any of us; she asked me why I was being so mean to her. She mentioned just moments later that she was really enjoying talking with me. She traversed half a century in moments and recalled moments from my childhood. Then she was back in the present or stopping on her way to a future that I am not privvy to.

I am the one who feels confused and worried. So we will have to have around-the-clock coverage for her once she returns to Atlanta. I spent a chunk of the afternoon searching for adult locator bracelets. Harder to find than I anticipated. GPS chips that can be injected under the skin; I think that we have that for lost pets. Maybe those are just ID chips. Bracelets, anklets, you name it. Cheap ($40) to expensive ($500). But you have to ask yourself; what price for your loved ones.