Visit with my mom

I saw my mom yesterday. I had not visited her for about a week and a half. She looked pretty good and the nurses always tell me that she is doing good. She eats well and at times is pretty alert. She was temporarily moved from her room to a different room. I was told by the nurses that they moved her because her roommate was starting to deteriorate and appeard to be slowly passing away. This is really sad - her roommate is a really nice lady who always smiles and at times would ask how my mom was doing. She is pretty quiet and usually does not say much. I got there just in time to feed my mom. She ate almost all of her food but kept closing her eyes almost like she did not want to eat. The nurses have showed me how to feed her. I need to make sure that she swallows all of her food so I always make sure she drinks plenty of liquids when she eats. All of her food is pureed because she really can't chew her food. After her meal, she needs to stay propped up for about 15 minutes to make sure that she does not choke. At the end of her meal, she tried to say some words but it was all jibberish. It sounded like a toddler who is trying to speak. If my mother could speak she would tell me to take her home or to just let her die. I remember when my mom was still living at home and she had a caretaker while my sister went to work. Her caretaker had just put her in the shower because my mom had an accident (she could not make it to the bathroom on time). My mom was in the shower and the caretaker ran out of the restroom for a minute and for some reason my mother decided to step out of the shower and when she did, she slipped and fell and when she fell she landed on the floor right next to the bathroom door. Her caretaker went running when she heard my mother scream but could not get into the bathroom because my mom was blocking the bathroom door. The caretaker called 911 and the fire department had to remove the door in order to get to my mother. As a result, my mother broke her arm. This fall was so devastating for her. She was in alot of pain and the only pain medicine that she could take was tylenol with codeine which did not even seem to have any effect. My mother could not take any other type of pain medication because her system could not handle it. She would hallucinate with stronger pain medication and it became dangerous for her. When she came to my house on the weekend after her fall, all she kept saying was that she wanted to die. She kept crying because of the pain and just kept saying that she wanted to die. I'll never forget because that was Mother's Day weekend. On Mother's Day all she did was lie down on the coach. My husband's family was over and it was so difficult for me because I just felt like being alone with my mom and crying. She was in so much pain and I just wanted to take the pain away for her and I was angry because I couldn't do that. There are so many painful and frustrating memories of my mom when she was still at home. But, there are also so many wonderful funny memories of my mom too. I know that I need to talk about those more and I will. For now, this is good for me to be able to write about my feelings. This disease really scares me because it is like no other. The brain controls everything and when the brain starts to shut down, so does everything else...slowly. The person who has the disease doesn't realize it. They become frustrated at first because they can't remember things as good as they could but it's not the things that they did 10 years ago that they have difficulty remembering, it's the the things that they did and said a few days ago or a few hours ago. One may think that they are ok because they can recall the names of their family members or who they were friends with in high school or many other things or maybe they can still function well on some levels, but then can no longer balance their checkbook like before or are having difficulty adding numbers together or trying to perform regular routine things that they do on a daily basis. This disease is like the snake who slithers very slowly and silently and takes its time to snatch its prey in its jaws. Once it gets a hold of you, it's only a matter of time. But death is not fast and you do not die quickly. Death is slow and lingers for several years with each year bringing more devastation and frustration to its victims. It's the death of your brain and the death of your dignity. If my mother could speak...she would cry out and say please don't make me live this way. I am her voice because she can no longer speak. I am not the only one.