2012-02-12 7:38 p.m.
Feb 2012
Hi,
So mom is doing ok for now. I have power of attorney now. My sister has the health part. Mom has a meeting at a CCRC in about 2 weeks. Hopefully it will go well.
We got a 2nd opinion. This doctor said alzheimers. I took that as good news. I must admit that the difference I have noticed in Mom is the memory. It's been the thing I noticed the most. I am bothered by the fact that she doesn't understand what is wrong with her, but it's my understanding that will never get better. I also am worried about the "dumb" factor, which I have a hard time explaining.
My sister, her bf and I went to an FTD thing down town last weekend. It was very informative. I heard more about FTD then I have ever heard before. I found out it might be related to ALS. ALS? I couldn't have been more surprised. There were actually a number of diagnoses discussed at this convention. It was very interesting. Diagnoses that involved speech, muscle impairment and memory loss. I didn't know these were all related to things going wrong in the brain.
I am now more sure than ever that a friend of mine lost his father to FTD. It turns out that others in his family may have had it too, but they didn't have a name for it. He even has a relative that died of ALS. The convention had a topic about how this may be an inherited condition. They felt it was rare, but I think my friend's family definitely had the inherited variety. I hope my friend doesn't have it. I don't know if my sister or I do. Mom doesn't qualify as early onset and we don't know of any other relatives, but my mother's family tree is not well known. She never knew her grandfather. He left her grandmother and went back to Ireland. Her father had a huge family, but aside of her father, I know nothing about any of them. To top this off I don't even know if Mom has FTD. Sis and I talked to some of the people at the convention and one family has a lot of simularities. They noticed memory problems at first too.
We shall see.
In other news, my baby is 18 now. No more kids in the house. I guess I'm on to a new stage.
dh has a birthday next week. He has his diabetes under control now. Now he has to work on his blood pressure. I dearly hope he is ok. I just don't know how I would handle that.