Update on Mother

This has been my longest-ever period between posts, and I've been feeling a bit guilty about it! I will get back to regular posting tomorrow (by "regular" I mean with some science news and commentary, because there is some good stuff out there I have been saving up to talk about here).

Meantime, just a quick update on the ongoing story of my elderly mother, which has been a major focus of my attention and my emotional life during the last 3 months. We are now in the land of Alzheimer's, in the early-to-middle stages. Hard to tell, really, how to "stage" this stuff. In some ways it seems that the progression of her disease has been quite rapid; only 3 months ago, she was living on her own, paying her own bills, etc. Now, that is unthinkable; but on some days, when you talk with her, she seems just "fine." But that doesn't last, and if you talk with her more than 5 minutes, you realize that (even at her best), she is never fully oriented, she always has some confusion about her situation, about what is real and what is not. And a couple of days ago I spoke with a nurse in the psychiatric hospital (where Mother has been for the last 2 weeks), and she said that it appeared to her that Mother was approaching "end stage." She was suggesting that we get hospice involved. I was quite startled. Of course, her psychiatrist has been impossible to talk to; as usual, the physicians are so "busy" that they don't have time to talk with the patients' families. That's one reason that I hired a professional care manager; she is a nurse, she knows this guy, and he is willing to talk with her. I don't know what I'd do without her. I hope we can sit down and talk all this over (my care manager, the psychiatrist, and me) some time this upcoming week...

Anyway, at this point everything is, again, up in the air. Don't know if or when Mother will get to go home; and if everyone thinks that "home" will not work out for her, even with 24-hour care (because she is SO uncooperative), then I dread to think of what the alternative(s) might be.