Perpetually Forgotten

Perhaps there should be a online club where you can send someone a card that signs up because no one else in their life can remember to do it.  Would we forget as well?? and then disappoint them again? It sounded like a good idea in my head, but then there might be a reason that they are forgotten. They are not nice people, they don't remember anyone else, they smell funny, who knows what makes people do the things they do...
My birthday was not a disappointment except that only 2 online friends remembered and not a soul that lives in my city or is considered a non family member remembered.  My daughter got a card for her nana to give to me and this year mother remembered to sign it love mom,, not love your daughter as she did the year before.  She also said she was NOT paying to take me out to dinner, since she had already given me a gift of clothes a few weeks before.  We had a nice dinner, except she wasn't happy with the choice, well or the seats, they were wooden and she has no fat on her bottom.. Well or the lighting she couldn't see the menu but otherwise, well okay she didn't like the food or the atmosphere, and why are the girls wearing robes? Well its a Japanese Restaurant.  "I've had chinese but im not sure about Japanese" .. been many times to different japanese restaurants. All in All it was uhmmm an okay birthday. Perhaps some day I will meet a man that loves birthdays and indulges me on mine. Would be nice to be remembered on the day that you were born...
Back to that online club, if we just got two people to surprise.. think how much nicer their day would be ...

Birthdays

On the eve of my 51st Birthday, I realize that they just aren't special anymore. My ex makes the biggest deal out of delving out money to my daughter so she can buy me a small gift. Should I take money from his child support and give it to her to buy one for me? Should I take her shopping also? My mother, bless herself, always made a big deal out of my birthday. She told it was the ONLY day of the year that was entirely yours, and you earned a good time. She told me Happy Birthday on the phone today while I was at work, I said it's tomorrow Mother, she said take it while you can get it.... lol .. I had planned to do something that I really enjoy tomorrow, but my mother's son is appearing at her house, which happens to be my house. She is worried she will have to talk to " those people" without me. With her dementia, she rarely initiates or carries through with conversations with other people around. She simple sits and smiles as if she is already visiting dementia land without us, which is simply not the case.
Happy Birthday to me, I'm thinking I will get a cocktail somewhere during the day to appease my selfish thinking that it should still be a special day. Cheers!

A New Day

The queen as I call my mother is not well. She is taking treatments to prevent her bladder cancer from reoccuring. She is having the drug BCG injected directly into her bladder once a week for 6 weeks. The drug BCG is what the innoculation for tuberculosis is made from. Her doctor reassured us that in 20 years, he has had 5 people with side effects from this treatment. Make that 6. She is lethargic, has joint aches, muscle soreness.  She can't even make her breakfast for 4 hours after she gets up in the morning. So, then she doesn't eat near the amount of food she should during the day.  She is very active and hates to be restricted to a chair....The sad thing is that with her dementia, she doesn't remember why she feels this way, or what caused it in the first place. 
 On the bright side, when she does feel like getting up, I now have a new car to take her to her appointments. Thanks to her generosity, I have used some of my inheritance to get a new car.  A shiny blue honda civic.

2,953,400 Minutes

6 years in November - minus 1 week at her son's house. Minus 6 weeks hospital time, minus 8 weeks rehab, and  minus 4 weeks of rehab before. Let's add that up.. 312 weeks total minus 19 weeks equals 293 weeks.  2051 days, 49, 224 hours, but that is not accurate as most of the weeks of the hospital stay we were together 16 of each 24 hour day.  Okay that means, 2,953,400 minutes we have been together, give or take a few.
when do you start trusting someone that what they say is the truth?  My mother is graciously helping me buy a new car, but she had to call my brother while I was gone getting her amended tax papers, to ask if she really had the money I said she had.  I was then told to call my brother, who apparently thinks I need his permission to do anything concerning our mother. See his time spent in 6 years above ...
Dementia invites  paranoia, but I've been waiting for trust for my whole life. Maybe in the next one!

Join the Debate Team...

PMS strikes the young with the amazing ability to keep talking without ceasing for hours on end, enraging not only the people in the household but I'm sure the weeds in the yard from noxious talk.  The 14 1/2 year old cannot quit arguing, commenting or making a viscious attack to everything in her pathway, including her grandmother. Her grandmother does her chores for her, her grandmother " forgets " they are someone else's chores for money.  PMS and dementia are not kissing cousins, they are more like rival stepsisters in Cinderella. Both wanting their equal time to vent and be dealt with.  When I was younger we weren't allowed to talk back, argue or comment without ceasing. You "just knew" that it would end in you getting in massive trouble.  While I don't want my daughter afraid of speaking her mind, waiting for her to " temper" her thoughts might just drive me to sewing her mouth shut until it happens.

Apparently it just broke....

It's Monday, August 31, 2009 ... Walked into my house, exhausted and the first thing I hear is "NANA broke the ceiling fan." She pulled the string out that turns off the lights. My teen is holding the long chain in her hands. Are the lights off? Well of course not, have they unscrewed the bulbs? Well of course not.. Nana didn't mean to break the fan, she hasn't got alot of feeling in her fingers, she has Reynauds Syndrome, her fingertips are mostly numb. Her hands turn blue when cold, red like a lobster when hot and if you squeeze them they get white. She pushes the buttons on the oven so hard they almost refuse to participate..

Tomorrow is another day, and if you know how to get a chain back in the light fixture without purchasing a new one, let me know.