2011-12-11 7:39 a.m.
The Other Shoe
The other shoe fell. Mom has a diagnosis. It's fronto-temporal dementia. It was a surprise and yet it wasn't. Every memory issue and personality change over the last decade or 2 could actually have a reason. I've always thought my mother was a little crazy, a little narcissistic, a little selfish, a control freak and possibly bi-polar, but all of this could be explained by this diagnosis. Right now she is nice. The nicest I can remember. She is letting us handle whatever and she can't remember details unless she writes them down. They say she is mild to moderate. I have no idea what that means. She is still driving (well until the test next Friday), she dresses herself, still plays bridge and goes to church and feeds her cats. She cooks, but not often. The summer kitchen fire is probably a memory thing. I thought it was, but she explained it away (sorta). It all adds up, but I still want a 2nd opinion. My sister wants a pet scan, but the doctor says the insurance won't pay for that. Would it matter? I still have to figure out if she can live on her own. I looked at finances and she's not as good as I hoped. Probably better than some, but when nursing home costs can be $100,000 a year (or more), she doesn't have much. I think they are indicating I should plan for 10 years. I don't know how the hell to do that, but I'm working on it.
In other news, cat1 is also having issues. Of course you know about the medicines, they have been working out well but the one has a nasty side effect of making the cat diabetic and now cat1 is almost needing insulin, twice a day. I can't do it. There's the expense, the needles, and the closer monitoring. I hate, hate, hate to put her down, but ... well now I'm just avoiding the doctor. At least dh is with me on this. It was really hard to deal with cat2 when we put him down. I think I may have waited too long, but I wasn't ready. You never are. I'm back in the same boat again.
Work, at this very moment, I'm still working at home, but they asked us to come back Friday. I asked to delay until Wednesday. The issues with my mom have thrown me and I don't seem to get a lot of work done during work hours. For a little while I spent the mornings just crying and overwhelmed. I'm hoping I'm getting past that. Anyway, we are in a new building now. It seems ok. I meant to ask dh about the cubes. The outlets are not normal. It's annoying.
So I'm off my niece's birthday party. Time to be festive ... ha ha. I think I'll watch tv for a bit and then try to get my act together.