Oh boy, Thanksgiving dinner almost did me in. I was sooooooooooo stuffed. It was all so delicious. My contributions to the festivities were the pumpkin pie, the fresh whipped cream to go with it, a Waldorf salad and my famous clam dip. (I also made the pie crust dough for my sis' and another friends' apple pies.) I also worked Thanksgiving day from 6:30am - noon. Stuffed and pooped by the end of the day but oh so grateful to be with my family and share the love.
Mom wasn't feeling up to par so she didn't come, even though I went to get her, gave her my Turkey Trot t-shirt (and hell no, I didn't run it, just got one) and my lunch given to me at work! As I was leaving she then pretty much demanded that we come back and deliver to her 3 plates of dinner! Excuse me?!? I was a bit stunned. Plus, she's poking her finger at me exclaiming "I'm serious." It's the dementia. I have to keep telling myself that, it's the dementia. Agggghhhhhh!
We did make up a plate but they're going to have to share it all. She didn't get it 'til the next day either. ...And no, she wasn't happy about having to wait.
I really hate this disease known as Alzheimer's. It seems to have literally killed my mother and replaced her with this pod person whose self-absorbed, mean, nasty, attention hungry, self-pitying, you get the idea, blah, blah, blah.
John's Hopkins website, www.johshopkinshealthalerts.com listed 10 warning signs of dementia for you to be on the lookout for in your loved ones. It's great because it also mentions typical age-related issues to NOT be confused with dementia. Here ya go with the signs;
How to Tell the Difference Between Dementia
and Normal Aging: 10 Warning Signs
As more brain researchers are finding that subjective cognitive complaints may be the earliest sign of Alzheimer's disease, how can you tell the difference between normal age-related memory problems and early Alzheimer's? The following 10 warning signs from the Alzheimer's Association will help you differentiate the two.
1. Significant memory changes. Forgetting important dates, events or appointments and repeatedly asking for the same information. If you are aging normally, you may sometimes forget names and doctor appointments, but not important events. Once you are reminded, you will continue to remember them.
2. Difficulty solving problems or making plans. Difficulty doing things that were once easy such as keeping track of bills, working with numbers or following a recipe. When you age normally, you may occasionally make mistakes on these tasks but not routinely.
3. Difficulty completing familiar tasks at home, work and play. Inability to complete normal daily tasks, trouble driving a car to and from a familiar location or difficulty remembering the rules of a favorite game. An age-related issue would be needing help to work an HD television or change settings on a microwave.
4. Confusion with time or place. Losing track of the passage of time, forgetting day and year or not knowing how one arrived at a destination. With age-related changes, a person can be slightly confused about the day of the week but will figure it out when given clues and then retain it.
5. Trouble understanding visual images and spatial relationships. Difficulty with judging distance, reading and determining color or contrast. Vision troubles may be a sign of Alzheimer's for some people. Recognizing familiar places or people, not just family or friends but even famous people, may become challenging. Blurred vision or changes in eyeglass prescription are typical age-related changes.
6. New problems with words in speaking or writing. Increasing trouble joining a conversation, calling things by the wrong name or repeating oneself. Occasional trouble finding the right word is a normal age-related issue.
7. Misplacing things and losing the ability to retrace steps. Putting things in unusual places, losing things and being unable to find them or accusing people of stealing. Misplacing things from time to time but being able to retrace steps to find them is not an uncommon age-related issue.
8. Decreased or poor judgment. Difficulty dealing with money or giving money away, often to strangers, when this is not a lifelong behavior. Making a bad decision once in a while is a normal age-related problem.
9. Withdrawal from work or social activities. Becoming weary of work, family and social obligations: trouble remembering how to complete a favorite hobby or how to keep up with a favorite sports team. People with normal age-related complaints will sometimes complain of work, family and social obligations but their activity level does not dramatically decrease.
10. Changes in mood and personality. Becoming confused, suspicious, depressed, fearful or anxious. A normal age-related change entails doing things a certain way and becoming irritable when the routine is disrupted.
Moms pretty much got all of these going. Maybe not #5 so much but the others...oh yeah, definitely. There's also a fixation thing going on with her. She fixates on needing a Kleenex in hand. She'd fall before letting go of that thing. There's always something, if she falls, it's that point of contact for days, weeks and even months. Long after the issue is over.
She does like to do word book puzzles but actually makes up her own words. Reading road signs can be pretty interesting too. I have no idea where some of the words come from but they're not whats on the sign.
I can't tell you how many times she's introduced me to same people again and again and again. It's difficult to not say something and just go along with it but I try. Kinda makes me crazy though, I have to admit.
This may sound mean but when I tried to get her to come with me to Thanksgiving dinner she said "You'll all be better without me there and in pain." We all actually did a little happy dance in agreement. Is that mean? Yeah, it is but it was also true. I'm going to hell, I know it, right? Oh well. So be it.
I don't do the frantic shopping thing either. Never have. For me, it takes away from the meaning of the holidays themselves. I wouldn't shop or decorate for Christmas until after Thanksgiving. I can't stand it when Christmas music is playing and Halloween hasn't even come yet. Ugh! This mad rush and fighting for this item or that one is crazy! What are we teaching our kids? It's all about the gift? NO! It isn't people. Take back the holiday.enjoy thanksgiving for what it is, not when you can shop.Just sayin'.
We've apparently made a decision to not buy gifts for the family this year. I say it this way 'cuz I was presented this idea after Thanksgiving dinner by my niece & sis. Mom hasn't really got any money anymore for gifts, having to pay for the adult care home now, my bro has retired, I had major surgery and have less available cash on hand (but I'm doing fine,) and I remember Mom being very upset by not being able to buy us anything as was my bro when he was outa work 1 year. So, the rest of us have decided to not exchange gifts. We'll still have a dinner and celebrate but without the pressure to buy things for each other that none of us really have a need for.
Shhhhhhh, I might buy a couple little things anyway though. I just like it. when I see something that screams out someone, I just have to get it for them. Get over it, I ain't changin' now.
Next week is the infamous Dance Week at work. I decided not to choreograph this time but I am in a funk/jazz dance piece. Oh good grief! It's being choreographed by a very talented, YOUNG gal at work. I have to tell ya, I haven't danced this style in some time and it's making me work. Holy moley, it's tough, although I secretly love the challenge. We've had 2 official rehearsals and 1 impromptu rehearsal among 4 of us and the show is next week. Yikes! We still have some more to learn and it's getting exciting.
I'm a bit stiff from an upper body workout I did as well. The bench press went without a hitch in the elbow this time but it did speak up some during my single-arm bicep curl on the cable machine.
Mom wasn't feeling up to par so she didn't come, even though I went to get her, gave her my Turkey Trot t-shirt (and hell no, I didn't run it, just got one) and my lunch given to me at work! As I was leaving she then pretty much demanded that we come back and deliver to her 3 plates of dinner! Excuse me?!? I was a bit stunned. Plus, she's poking her finger at me exclaiming "I'm serious." It's the dementia. I have to keep telling myself that, it's the dementia. Agggghhhhhh!
We did make up a plate but they're going to have to share it all. She didn't get it 'til the next day either. ...And no, she wasn't happy about having to wait.
I really hate this disease known as Alzheimer's. It seems to have literally killed my mother and replaced her with this pod person whose self-absorbed, mean, nasty, attention hungry, self-pitying, you get the idea, blah, blah, blah.
John's Hopkins website, www.johshopkinshealthalerts.com listed 10 warning signs of dementia for you to be on the lookout for in your loved ones. It's great because it also mentions typical age-related issues to NOT be confused with dementia. Here ya go with the signs;
How to Tell the Difference Between Dementia
and Normal Aging: 10 Warning Signs
As more brain researchers are finding that subjective cognitive complaints may be the earliest sign of Alzheimer's disease, how can you tell the difference between normal age-related memory problems and early Alzheimer's? The following 10 warning signs from the Alzheimer's Association will help you differentiate the two.
1. Significant memory changes. Forgetting important dates, events or appointments and repeatedly asking for the same information. If you are aging normally, you may sometimes forget names and doctor appointments, but not important events. Once you are reminded, you will continue to remember them.
2. Difficulty solving problems or making plans. Difficulty doing things that were once easy such as keeping track of bills, working with numbers or following a recipe. When you age normally, you may occasionally make mistakes on these tasks but not routinely.
3. Difficulty completing familiar tasks at home, work and play. Inability to complete normal daily tasks, trouble driving a car to and from a familiar location or difficulty remembering the rules of a favorite game. An age-related issue would be needing help to work an HD television or change settings on a microwave.
4. Confusion with time or place. Losing track of the passage of time, forgetting day and year or not knowing how one arrived at a destination. With age-related changes, a person can be slightly confused about the day of the week but will figure it out when given clues and then retain it.
5. Trouble understanding visual images and spatial relationships. Difficulty with judging distance, reading and determining color or contrast. Vision troubles may be a sign of Alzheimer's for some people. Recognizing familiar places or people, not just family or friends but even famous people, may become challenging. Blurred vision or changes in eyeglass prescription are typical age-related changes.
6. New problems with words in speaking or writing. Increasing trouble joining a conversation, calling things by the wrong name or repeating oneself. Occasional trouble finding the right word is a normal age-related issue.
7. Misplacing things and losing the ability to retrace steps. Putting things in unusual places, losing things and being unable to find them or accusing people of stealing. Misplacing things from time to time but being able to retrace steps to find them is not an uncommon age-related issue.
8. Decreased or poor judgment. Difficulty dealing with money or giving money away, often to strangers, when this is not a lifelong behavior. Making a bad decision once in a while is a normal age-related problem.
9. Withdrawal from work or social activities. Becoming weary of work, family and social obligations: trouble remembering how to complete a favorite hobby or how to keep up with a favorite sports team. People with normal age-related complaints will sometimes complain of work, family and social obligations but their activity level does not dramatically decrease.
10. Changes in mood and personality. Becoming confused, suspicious, depressed, fearful or anxious. A normal age-related change entails doing things a certain way and becoming irritable when the routine is disrupted.
Moms pretty much got all of these going. Maybe not #5 so much but the others...oh yeah, definitely. There's also a fixation thing going on with her. She fixates on needing a Kleenex in hand. She'd fall before letting go of that thing. There's always something, if she falls, it's that point of contact for days, weeks and even months. Long after the issue is over.
She does like to do word book puzzles but actually makes up her own words. Reading road signs can be pretty interesting too. I have no idea where some of the words come from but they're not whats on the sign.
I can't tell you how many times she's introduced me to same people again and again and again. It's difficult to not say something and just go along with it but I try. Kinda makes me crazy though, I have to admit.
This may sound mean but when I tried to get her to come with me to Thanksgiving dinner she said "You'll all be better without me there and in pain." We all actually did a little happy dance in agreement. Is that mean? Yeah, it is but it was also true. I'm going to hell, I know it, right? Oh well. So be it.
I don't do the frantic shopping thing either. Never have. For me, it takes away from the meaning of the holidays themselves. I wouldn't shop or decorate for Christmas until after Thanksgiving. I can't stand it when Christmas music is playing and Halloween hasn't even come yet. Ugh! This mad rush and fighting for this item or that one is crazy! What are we teaching our kids? It's all about the gift? NO! It isn't people. Take back the holiday.enjoy thanksgiving for what it is, not when you can shop.Just sayin'.
We've apparently made a decision to not buy gifts for the family this year. I say it this way 'cuz I was presented this idea after Thanksgiving dinner by my niece & sis. Mom hasn't really got any money anymore for gifts, having to pay for the adult care home now, my bro has retired, I had major surgery and have less available cash on hand (but I'm doing fine,) and I remember Mom being very upset by not being able to buy us anything as was my bro when he was outa work 1 year. So, the rest of us have decided to not exchange gifts. We'll still have a dinner and celebrate but without the pressure to buy things for each other that none of us really have a need for.
Shhhhhhh, I might buy a couple little things anyway though. I just like it. when I see something that screams out someone, I just have to get it for them. Get over it, I ain't changin' now.
Next week is the infamous Dance Week at work. I decided not to choreograph this time but I am in a funk/jazz dance piece. Oh good grief! It's being choreographed by a very talented, YOUNG gal at work. I have to tell ya, I haven't danced this style in some time and it's making me work. Holy moley, it's tough, although I secretly love the challenge. We've had 2 official rehearsals and 1 impromptu rehearsal among 4 of us and the show is next week. Yikes! We still have some more to learn and it's getting exciting.
I'm a bit stiff from an upper body workout I did as well. The bench press went without a hitch in the elbow this time but it did speak up some during my single-arm bicep curl on the cable machine.
Well, the food coma has abated and the dancing has begun.December has arrived, the days are shorter and colder. I'm actually wearing a sweatshirt to work these days, but still in sandals.
Stay warm and sane and active. Eat healthy, enjoy friends & family. Watch the party intake and...let the games begin.
Keep dancing. Peace to us all
Stay warm and sane and active. Eat healthy, enjoy friends & family. Watch the party intake and...let the games begin.
Keep dancing. Peace to us all
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