How do I Begin

I know a lot of you are living with someone dear to you who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease so I hope that some of my experience, even the mistakes I have made will help you. Where do I begin? Let me back up six months ago when I first came up to spend what I thought was just going to be a weekend. I arrived just before Halloween thinking I would stay for three days. Things seemed fair when I got here. My Dad wasn't feeling that well but we all knew he was getting weaker as time went on. What we didn't realize was that my Dad had a serious blood infection (sepsis). He was taken to the hospital the next morning and passed away suddenly five days later. 

My Mother had already been silently battling her disease for over two years but was still able to communicate with me somewhat.  The first three months went along pretty well all considering. After that things went downhill very fast. After Dad's death she was slipping in and out of reality a lot more often and she felt that She was losing more and more of the control she had managed to hang on to. Not understanding what happens in the human mind when a person suffers from Alzheimer's disease I was more a hindrance than a help.

When the mind is in the different stages of Alhziemer desease they move more and more away from the present.  A person with the desease has a different concept of past, present, and future. They become one (they have a much different concept of time than we do). Their mind becomes more in tune to the other world.  What I am saying is that they become more spiritual to the point of even being paranormal. They have been able to tap into the resource of their inner senses.  Even though they are losing more of there own reality and control each day.

I mistook the changes in my Mom's personality. When she would slip out of reality and slip into a alter ego (as I like to refer to them) I wouldn't always get along with her in this state because I didn't understand. She could become quite mean and say awful and hurtful things to me. Because I thought she meant all of these things she said I would lash back at her. All that did was cause a yelling match between the two of us. She was learning to hate me and I was learning to hate her. You have to remember that I was resentful that this decease had taken my Mom as I knew her away from me. We were always like sisters. I didn't realize just how sick she was. I didn't want to face the fact that I had a new Mom and I better start loving her as much as the old Mom or I wasn't going to have Mom at all. As my Sister so well put it put it "stop making everything about you" so in fact I was the one being selfish. I hadn't learned patience and reassurance yet. To be continued........