I didn’t take Mitzi to the gym on Saturday or go pick her up like I normally do. After the craziness of last week, my boys and I needed a minute to catch our breath. I felt really guilty, but I know my limits (occasionally), and I have to listen to my body when it’s screaming at me to chill out!
I did offer to take her with me on Monday afternoon to see some friends and, later, to dinner with our friend The Queen. She was thrilled when she saw me. Admittedly, Alzheimer’s hugs are the best. Mitzi is already a world champion hugger, but the time factor that gets lost with her makes her just as ecstatic to see you whether it’s been a year or 12 hours. It took a while to get out, but she did tell me, though, that she got really sad the past couple days because she thought she had done something wrong or upset me and that’s why I wasn’t there over the weekend. I promised her if I have to do that again that I will call and remind her of the schedule change.
Last week she had gotten somewhat terse with me a time or two, and that is highly unusual for her. But it was a chaotic week, we were doing things outside of our norm, and you just cannot push her to go at your pace. When she does get frustrated, I have to remind myself that she knows she has less and less control over every aspect of her life. She is often worried about getting confused or lost (she told me last week that is her biggest fear right now: that she will be in a familiar place but not know where she is).
It’s so important to keep in mind that beneath the frustration and irritation is a human being trying to make sense of a life they always knew and to keep themselves safe in a world they recognize less and less. Sometimes it takes work, but when you can dig around and discover the why behind the behavior, it helps immensely. There is so much that gets harder to decipher as her thoughts stumble out over the weight of finding her words…that’s why it’s so important to figure out not just what she is saying, but what she’s not saying, too…????
