Monday August 28

Greetings Mindful Maintainers

137 so a half pound of travel weight gone. Today is silver sneakers so I gotta get my vitamins and some breakfast down so I can get there.

Welcome Mike. New members and posters always appreciated. As you can see we have become a close group and share our lives in addition to our weight loss journeys. And don't worry, there are other guys on here.

Shel, what a fabulous photo. National Geographic quality.

BB, my mother's first symptoms of Parkinson's' disease were mental. We thought she might have had Alzheimers but that was not the case. In checking up, I learned that there are any number of things that can cause memory issues in older people such as thyroid or other deficiencies. Only a neurologist can figure all that out and it might be hard to get grandma to see one. My mother and I used to spend time looking at old photo albums of us kids when we were little and she used to look at those pictures a lot when I was not there. You might do that with your grandma. I agree, no point in correcting or arguing. My mother used to take my grandmother (who did have Alzheimers) to adult day care which she seemed to enjoy. Before that onset, my grandmother made new friends after she was widowed mainly through church. My dad did it by playing bridge with old ladies. I did it by moving and joining a garden and bridge club. Ditched the clubs, kept the friends.

Well, old Liza is still hanging in there. She gets agitated later in the evening and we just hold her and pet her and it seems to calm her. Aging is not for weaklings.

Take care all. Diane S

Forgot to weigh again, but yesterday was 206.2. My SIL is having catheterization today to see how much damage from the heart attack. My daughter has been contrite and more grateful for the help.

When I saw my psyche last weekend, she told me to do three things 1. make an appointment with my son's therapist for myself. I just nailed that down for next week. 2. put myself first. Much easier said than done. I am failing miserably. 3. I forgot what the third thing was as soon as I left the doctor's office, I have been trying to remember but have failed miserably on number 3 whatever it was. I will just keep swimmin.

My dad had a terrible time with his memory and would become so agitated that he did not know what was going on or why, that I typed up a letter explaining everything. My mother was so angry and sad that she could not nicely explain over and over, but she could kindly hand him the letter to read. It was very specific though so I don't think this will help your situation, but the photo albums is definitely a good idea. My dad enjoyed the photo albums even when he didn't remember when they were taken or everyone in them. He would just flip through them.

I did not like my situation, so I have been changing it. I have been working my butt off on a second job that pays much less than my first job, but it is mostly moving boxes and sorting papers so it does not involve heavy thinking, which is nice. I can do most of the sorting at home, which is also nice. The extra money is keeping the wheels moving.

Thank you all for the warm welcome, I hope to become a regular here as well.

No weight today. Very little sleep - just over 4 hours. Many reasons, but mostly just plain busy and stayed up prepping for the week.

Cancelled my shrink session for today. Just tired and didn't have it in me.

I've dealt with memory loss with pretty much all my nonagenarian relatives. We are a long lived bunch, but after 90 the memories start to fade. My favorite story was about my PawPaw (grandpa) saying to my father, "Well, you're one of my sons! I don't know which one, but you are certainly one of them!" when my dad asked PawPaw if Paw Paw knew who he was. When the doctor asked my uncle if he had trouble remembering things my uncle pointed to his wris****ch and emphatically said, "Yes, I don't know what this says anymore, but I still put it on! Isn't that silly?"

Hoping for a productive, sane, self caring week.

Welcome duffman!

Devon, you always give me a chuckle!

BB, I am so sorry your grandmother's memory is failing. The following is MY experience (not yours). But parts of it may be useful to you. If not, please ignore the parts that don't apply to you or your grandmother or y'all's situation:

My mom (who died at 96 and a half) lived with us 8 of her last 12 years of life (and the last 4 years at a nursing home 6 miles from me). Nearly 3 years before I brought her to live with us, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. So needless to say, I feel like a bit of an Alzheimer's "expert."

Here are some of the things I experienced. It's not the universe of Alzheimer's experiences, but they're just mine:

1. It doesn't matter what "it" is called -- dementia, Alzheimer's, X, Y or Z. It simply is, as the saying goes, a very long goodbye. And all folks with severe memory issues don't necessarily behave the same ways or experience things in the same ways. There are many variations. So don't expect that because Mrs. Y had the same diagnosis your grandmother may receive that your grandmother's behavior or experience will mirror Mrs. Y's.

2. Loving and living with and caring for a loved one who has memory issues will teach you a lot about patience and love and acceptance and about what's important and what's not.

3. What matters most is that you do what you can to make your loved one comfortable and life less stressful for them. Correcting them constantly is not the way to make them comfortable and less stressed. If they ask about things, yes -- explain what the deal is. If they don't ask, just go with the flow.

4. Always let them save face -- they'll try to do that a lot. And some folks are brilliant at faking past their memory issues. I admire that. They need (and sometimes develop) a lot of new skills to get along during this very challenging time of their lives. Support them in what they need to do to navigate this phase.

5. And yes, this is a sad time for loved ones and caregivers. But parts of it also turn into beautiful times.

6. If at any time you are an actual caregiver for a loved one with severe memory issues, you MUST find other resources to help you care for your loved one. You cannot, cannot, cannot do it all by yourself. Make sure you take care of YOU FIRST. I cannot emphasize this enough. If you have money, spend it to hire other caregivers to spell yourself. If you don't have money, then rely on other family members to help out and find some government- or insurance- or charity- or church/temple/mosque-supplied resources to spell yourself. I'll say this again: You cannot do this alone.

7. There's every chance in the world that family tensions will be exacerbated by the stresses of caring for (or even jus****ching) a family member who's declining from memory diseases. This happened in my family. Doctors will tell you this happens in 95% of all families, no matter how loving, how generous, how educated, how high-minded, etc. those families are. I developed this mantra that helped me a lot during those hard years: "Everyone is doing the best they can right now, no matter how poorly they might be behaving right now. In the future, they might be able to do better." And that's exactly what happened with me and my many siblings: We always did the best we could (even though we behaved horribly at times). And yes, we did eventually behave much, much better.

8. Finally, some aspects of life just aren't easy be present for. I think at those times it helps to breathe in and out much more fully and to understand that we can't change these things -- we just have to accept them. For high achievers and control freaks (like most of us) that's a hard lesson to learn. But it's a worthwhile lesson to study.

Having offered this list, I suspect you'd have figured out all this (and much more) on your own, because you're a smart person. Some things we just have to live through to figure them out. And we do.

Really feeling for you!