Mom's 74th birthday was on Saturday April 30, 2011. Every year that mom gets older we always celebrate. Doctors over 30 years ago told us she would not live to be 42 but she has defied all the odds. My mother has a very strong will to live. Why wouldn't she? Mom has a lot of great things to live for. Except for the fact now that she has dementia. She is forgetting everything.....slowly, painfully becoming just a shell of Mom.
On Saturday, Mom's 74th birthday, she went into the hospital, heart related this time. Not a very good birthday gift. I went to visit yesterday, she seemed just okay. Seemed as if her breathing was laboring, sounded as if she was having trouble getting air. Her heart doesn't seem to be pumping oxygenated blood the way it should be but it is working very hard to do so; working too hard. Dad fears that after all these years that her heart is beginning to give out.
I try to remember all of the good, extra years we've had with mom, before the declining memory. Being caught up in the middle of this dementia diagnosis though, it is hard to think back to the good, extra years.
The dementia is making my mother "not mom". I am doing my best to hold onto those small windows where "mom" comes back but those windows are
becoming fewer and fewer.
On Saturday, Mom's 74th birthday, she went into the hospital, heart related this time. Not a very good birthday gift. I went to visit yesterday, she seemed just okay. Seemed as if her breathing was laboring, sounded as if she was having trouble getting air. Her heart doesn't seem to be pumping oxygenated blood the way it should be but it is working very hard to do so; working too hard. Dad fears that after all these years that her heart is beginning to give out.
I try to remember all of the good, extra years we've had with mom, before the declining memory. Being caught up in the middle of this dementia diagnosis though, it is hard to think back to the good, extra years.
The dementia is making my mother "not mom". I am doing my best to hold onto those small windows where "mom" comes back but those windows are
becoming fewer and fewer.
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