Dealing With It.

So far, I haven't used this blog for anything personal, maybe here or there. So for those who do not know me personally, my Mom Helen, had a massive stroke 3/4 years ago. Aside from Jeff, my partner, my Mom is my world. She raised me alone, we never had much money, but she overcompensated for those shortcomings with love. Sometimes she worked as many as 3 jobs, to make sure that us kids had what we needed. She always encouraged me in everything, be that horror movies, playing in bands, or being gay. She was always like my best friend.

After the first stroke, she suffered many other small strokes, and finally was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. Jeff quit his job and gave up his entire life to stay at home and take care of Mom. I have never met a more selfless person than he, not many people would do that for their own Mom, let alone someone else's. Mother's condition kept on deteriorating, until we could no longer keep her at home. She needed 24/7 supervision, not to mention being lifted and carried everywhere she went. I knew that she needed to be in a Nursing Home, but I had promised her earlier that I wouldn't do that to her. So it caused me great grief to do so, although I knew that is where she had to be.

She has now been in the Nursing Home for almost two years. Her health always goes up and down, a few good days here and there, then 2 weeks of catatonia. I feel for anyone who has a relative with Alzheimer's, it tears families apart, and watching your loved ones fade away so rapidly is devastating. They forget who you are, some days Mom doesn't even know my name, and I can't begin to describe to you how that feels. I am the youngest of her children, and she left me in charge of everything. This is not a good thing, I have 8 other siblings, and there are only 3 of them that will even help me at all, and go and see her. Some of the siblings have never even went to visit her. They always have excuses like "I don't want to remember Mom that way", well how do they think it makes her feel? This saddens me so much.

Well recently, a new round of experimental drugs, have made her memory sharpen up. I am happy, but this opens up a whole new barrel of problems. She gets some brain function back, and she thinks she is well. Every visit she begs me to come home. I try to explain to her that she is in no condition to be at home, but she is like a child in this manner. She now gets nurses to call me at work, so she can talk to me, and beg me to come home. This is the hardest thing that I have ever dealt with. Try to imagine telling your Mother, that she can't come home with you. It is horrible, she has lost all reasoning and takes it only as rejection. If there is a higher power of some sort, I hope that there is an end to her suffering. She lived her life"the christian way", and I have listened to her for hours, begging for her god to take her home. Yet, she still lies there, almost 4 years later, in the same condition.

There really isn't a "moral" or "point" to this story, I just need to unload from time to time. I also hope that people take this disease seriously, because it is no joke! It could happen to anyone in your family as well. Please make donations to charities and medical funds that support the cure for Alzheimer's. If it hits your family, it will test all boundaries, so make sure your family foundations are strong. If it weren't for Jeff, I do not know where I would be today. I damned sure couldn't have done it all alone. Today, was an extremely bad day, and he stepped up to the plate, and handled things when I fell apart, and for that I love him.