Memory Care for Mom

Saturday August 5, 2006

Dear friends and family,

I guess I should start this post off with an apology. If you are interested in hearing about Midgie, I have been negligent in seeing her as much as usual and/or writing about my visit when I do. Why?

Several times a year, my part-time job becomes virtually a full time one. Food shows, promotions, meetings become too, too frequent to my liking. I hope this flurry over the last week to 10 days are enough and I can get back into my reqular routine. I had not seen mom since Monday and the Thursday pm visit had some revelations I might now share with you.

I got there about 2:45pm and mom was in the dining room/parlor and they were playing, or Austine, the activities director, was leading them in words beginning with the letter C. I thought of Sesame Street and how my two boyes would do this when they were children at 615 Pinedale Dr. SW in Bessemer. Mom was listening and trying to play so I sat beside her and became her 'assistant' of sorts.

Cryovac, cynical, comical, costume, culture, California (not Calif, they had that word), conditioning, can't cha,(disputed), cubed, constantine, carolyn, and on and on it went. We finished with the group coming up with over 150 words beginning with C. I contributed when they boged down and the 12 to 15 attending could not come up with another word.

Several left and we began a bingo game, yeah. Mom can do numbers better than words and letters. She was comfortable doing this and I gave her at first just a few poker chips to cover her board. I noticed she had these now neatly stacked in counts of 10. I gave her then a whole ziplock bag of chips and she sorted these by color and soon these were in nice neat stacks of 10 also. I listened for the numbers and covered her's, mine and the lady beside me, covering all 3 boards while mom sorted, stacked and counted. I am going to find some cards and poker chips so she can have some for her room to occupy some time when she wants to do this. Humm!

Kay(director at Ashton Gables)and I had a meeting about mother as I had called her that morning about how mom was doing before I got there. She had the new RN Carmen Payne to do a mini-mental test on mom to see how she fares in staying in the unit she is in. Mom scored only a 10 whereas she scored a 15 when she got there in December 2005. Kay wants to move mom to the memory care unit where the ratio of caregivers is a little higher and they can give her more direct help with eating, dressing and the like. But I argued...

I told Kay how mom did today, understanding Bingo, conversing, sorting cards and chips by color and count indicating more mental capabilites than a single test might show. I told her about mom going with Austine to deliver the mail Monday and walking all over and through the complete facility to do this. She did not know about that. I told her that I would like her and her staff to do something!!

Mom's room is 137, across from Austine's office and next to the door to the memory lane unit. "Why not, rather than mom moving from where she is happy and familar, just take her at time to activities during the day in the memory lane unit and she how she fares?"
Kay smiled and said "Great, that will work great and let your mom stay where she is!" She said "That is perfect, why did I not think of that!"

Jack came later that afternoon and I was in the back checking now on the head nurse and mom's supply of Boost. I found out from Kay that Leslie Venable is stepping down as head nurse, so I met with Carmen Payne, her replacement in training. I was impressed with Carmen and we had a nice talk and visit about mom and exchanging contact cell phone numbers. I told Leslie I was going to miss her so much as she truly took a personal interest in mom's needs.

I went back to the memory unit where they keep the Boost supply and met the 3-11 LPN and it was a nurse that I like but had been away awhile and is now back. Mom's supply of Boost is OK for now but will get a case this next week. I got back to mom's room and she and Jack were visiting. It was soon close to 5:00pm and dinner so we got mom a fresh apron and cloth napkin and on her new red roller walker and away we go.

The food was awful! Bowl of chili and cornbread and a tossed salad and dessert. The only thing mom was interested in was the milk and dessert! Jack and I both were just this side of furious. They should know this is not the fare for 70,80, and 90 plus year old folks. I told Jack I would go to Piccadilly and get mom a vegetable plate and would be back in 20 minutes.

Mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, black eyed peas, and carrot souffle that is just great. All these I knew would be to mom's liking. When I got back, they had brought mom soup and crackers so she ate only a couple of tablespoons of the meal I brought. I got a black marking pen and gave this box and sack to the cook for mom's meals tomorrow. The cook said she would now be counscious of mothers needs and would watch to substitute something else soft for her if needed.

Jack left and I got a large piece of brown paper and the black marking pen again and left my thoughts on this and left it in the head nurses office about 6:00pm Thursday night. I hope to hear from AG about the dietian's future meal plans for mom. Oh course as always....News at 11:00! Son Jeff