Monday August 28

Y'all -- I'm rushing out the door right now to my third annual surgery follow-up visit. Weighed 134.0 this morning and hope to beat last year's weigh-in on the surgeon's scales.

I'll be gone all day to the Big City (a 5-hour round-trip drive) with shopping and errands afterward.

As is said here often, guard your skinny and have a great day. :)

VSGann--is this surgiversary?

Welcome Mike! I'm 7 years 3 mo. out and it's still a struggle. But right now gaining weight is my new "goal" (?) as I am pregnant.

Weight: 160.4. Slowly creeping up

Very laid-back weekend and DH got sick Saturday night, so it made it super lazy yesterday.

I've been craving very bad foods. It's scaaaary

A couple of vents/questions/need help that's off topic today.

First, I know several of you have dealt with aging parents or spouses with memory loss. I'm struggling with my grandmother. More than anything "it's not you, it's me." I don't know that it's alzheimer's--but I always make excuses. That being said, no doctors have called it alzheimer's, and she's about to be 87 and I think it's probably pretty normal to lose some memory. So the excuses I make are this: I see her nearly every day, but she does nothing every day, so maybe that's why I hear the same stories over and over, or sometimes her days run together and she forgets that you did x last week and not this week. Also, unlike me, she "hates old" as she says, and doesn't like to reminisce about the past--so maybe it just doesn't seem as important to recall? But I'm having a very hard time with it! I've been feeling very nostalgic recently (pregnancy perhaps?) And I'll ask her things or reminisce, and she has the most blank face on and will say something generic like "well I'll be darned" or "is it so" to things about HER HISTORY I'm telling her about!!! It's so sad and frustrating. Like I don't even have my grandmother any more :( For example: she lost her female pet poodle in June. My uncle just brought her a house-broken rescue dog named Arthur. My grandmother keeps forgetting he is a he, and I keep reminding her. She said "it's just so different for me having a male dog." I said "really, grandmommy? Actually, weren't ALL your dogs before Cindy Lu male?" And then I listed them off...and she seemed agitated as though I were lying to her. Not only did she not remember all her previous pets, but she seemed doubtful of me! I've tried to remember things about my granddad with her as well, and her responses are so canned, so generic, after having been married for 57.5 years! I know it's not worth getting frustrated with her--it's not her fault! But I'm really having difficulty adjusting.

One other quick question/vent. I work with my parents, and they work together, so it's a small world. Their problems are mine. They seem to have stopped making any new friends. I have some trouble with this too. It's a busy life and when you work in a small office, how do you make adult friends?! I think it's especially important that my parents have friends because when they get upset with one another, there's no one to vent to! (Except me and I don't need that). So I think I might have asked this before, because it seems to be a recurring theme, but how do adults make friends?

BB, Such thought-provoking questions!

First on your grandmother. A LARGE percentage of people who live as long as her have dementia. Doctors generally don't bother with testing etc at that age, so it doesn't really get a "label". My grandmother lived to 100 and had a lot of dementia for the last 5 years. My MIL was 97 when she died this year and she had the same probably from 90 on. People with dementia "compensate" for the memory loss by acting as if nothing is awry. I think sometimes they feel that is the case (and sometimes they are consciously covering up).

Making new friends as an adult isn't easy. Most of our friends are from the days when our kids were growing up (meeting on ball fields) or friends through work. We have been able to meet some new people in Florida because a lot of people are transplants there (at least for the winter months) at the development we bought in. I thought that DH would meet people at the gym, but everyone does their own thing and leaves. Community groups maybe Church groups would be a way to meet new friends?

I'm not sure that Alzheimer's can be formally diagnosed except thru biopsy/autopsy. Usually people end up with a diagnosis of dementia....which is a bit more generic but pretty easily diagnosed while the patient is still living. But all that is just splitting hairs. It sounds a lot like my MIL tho MIL is now further along in her memory loss.

You might goggle how to deal with family member's memory loss for solid tips from people that have been there. What I got from it was a general sense to not take it personal and to stop correcting.

Cover up with phrases like "well I'll be darned" are common and face saving for the patient.

In the early stages, patients are frequently well aware that something terrible is amiss. For many (most? all?) it is embarrassing and humiliating, When my MIL brings something up from her past, I might ask for more details. "How did you like living above the funeral home?" I rarely try to pick the subject.

MIL is terribly repetitive. In the early days, family spent a lot of time being frustrated. We were so used to the CEO-type brain with a computer like recall. Later, when it became PUBLIC, and apparent to all, it was particularly embarrassing for her sons.

I am sorry she and you are going thru this. Times are changing. So will you because you have the choice to change. (So easy to type that, so hard to do.)

Best wishes. It is very sad.

It's just sad. Sometimes it feels like a totally different person :(

Yes, parts that mattered a lot are absent. And parts that aren't so attractive are concentrated. At least in my MIL.

DH has an Alzheimer's diagnosis. You are correct that they are not 100% sure until autopsy, but if the neuropsychology testing indicates it, MRIs show loss of brain matter in certain areas, and a lumbar puncture has elevated tau and beta-amyloid, the neurologists are pretty confident about their diagnosis.

DH is still mostly himself (other than memory) except kind of unfiltered. That's with a mild anti-depressant (he was having paranoia periodically prior to that). We are hoping this will be true for a while, but eventually he won't be himself. One of the reasons I am retiring now.

Friends: that new baby is going to open up all sorts of chances to meet new people and having kids the same age (or close to same age) gives you common ground. Take advantage of those new opportunities. It won't always be an obvious home run. As you know, friendships take time but those kids take time to grow up.

Yes, very true. Kids can for sure help with that!

I'm noticing the beginnings of memory loss (mostly short term) in both of my parents. I hear the same stories again and again and my Mom was telling me about this restaurant they went to while visiting DH at Mayo when he had his surgery......I was well aware of the restaurant because I went with them and sat right next to my Mom! Lol!

As far as meeting other adults......church, clubs, hobbies. DH and I don't have any couple friends which I find kind of sad but I have my different groups that I hang with (scouts and leaders, ladies bible studies, scrapbooking girls, old friends from High School, co-workers). DH is somewhat of a loner and pretty socially awkward, so he doesn't have the groups of friends like I have. There is always us!!! ; ). I actually do consider each of you as a friend! Heck, I share as much with you as I do any of my other friends and a lot of the time more!