Can you guess where I’ll be going?

Here’s some hints:

1) Leaving Cow Hampshire on Friday February 2nd

2) Going far far away. To where it’s warm. But staying in the states.

3) Coming back Monday February 4th, sometime. (After an evening of sobering up I am sure)

4) The place will be mobbed with A LOT of people. I mean A LOT. And it will be on national TV. Perhaps I will end up on TV. (I hope the hell not)

So where will I be Sunday February 3rd????

Today we did something totally different.

In my work with people who have dementia, I always noticed some common things among them all. They go back through time, through their lives and often end up in their early teen years, where they stay for awhile. Most people with dementia reach a point where they no longer care about their personal appearance; many take on traits that shock their families. For example, an always modest woman will frequently become what we call a “stripper”- she loses all modesty and prefers to be naked ALL the time and could care less who is around. A man who spent his life in shorts will often become a man who over dresses and hides as much skin as he can. It’s strange phenomena and its common.

Marion has been doing so much better. She amazes me with her abilities she has retained in spite of her dx with Alzheimer’s Disease. She’s was dx three years ago and her family believes she’s been demented for about 6 or 7 years altogether. I suspect this to be true. She is 87 years old. She’s been through a lot in the past year. It’s rare to see people with dementia improve without medication.

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We finally got to *do* Christmas at my house this morning. I worked all weekend, and Christmas eve until about 7pm…when I left work with a nasty ass cold, a fever and chills. I got home and literally passed out; only to wake up Christmas morning to return to work for another 16 hour shift.

Yesterday I had to take Marion to some MD appointments; and then to visit my brother and his (selfish) wife (Marion’s real daughter). Between all this, we had to eat, rest, take walks, pick up prescriptions at the pharmacy…there was no time to celebrate anything.

I like to read…a lot. I have thousands of books. SO many books I’m running out of room for them all. I’ve complained about it all too lately; my daughters have unloaded several dozen boxes of my books for me at their colleges and other places…which I HATED to give away but had little choice. UNTIL NOW.

They pooled their cash and bought my not one, not two, but THREE of these:

The Kindle.

AND, the girls also managed to purchase MANY books for one unit- it has 48 books uploaded so far- and they’re all books I had given away in the past four years. Plus, I have subscribed to all my favorite blogs, and posts are automatically uploaded to the Kindle at preset times. It’s pretty cool, this little reader.

My kids got me three of them because they KNOW how many books I read- when I set my mind to it, I’ll go through a dozen books a week. One can organize their Kindle Books into folders and subjects. I have to play around some more, but so far I really like this toy.

From Amazon’s site:

Product Overview

* Revolutionary electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper.
* Simple to use: no computer, no cables, no syncing.
* Wireless connectivity enables you to shop the Kindle Store directly from your Kindle—whether you’re in the back of a taxi, at the airport, or in bed.
* Buy a book and it is auto-delivered wirelessly in less than one minute.
* More than 90,000 books available, including more than 95 of 112 current New York Times® Best Sellers.
* New York Times® Best Sellers and all New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise.
* Free book samples. Download and read first chapters for free before you decide to buy.
* Top U.S. newspapers including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post; top magazines including TIME, Atlantic Monthly, and Forbes—all auto-delivered wirelessly.
* Top international newspapers from France, Germany, and Ireland; Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine, and The Irish Times—all auto-delivered wirelessly.
* Slashdot, TechCrunch, ESPN’s Bill Simmons, The Onion, Michelle Malkin, and The Huffington Post—all updated wirelessly throughout the day.
* Lighter and thinner than a typical paperback; weighs only 10.3 ounces.
* Holds over 200 titles.

It is light, and very portable. I’ll write a more in depth review on it in another two weeks, after I’ve had the chance to really use it and test it’s features. Right now I am pretty impressed though! Each unit holds over 200 books?? I can see it now: My collections of Kindles on the shelves vs. real books. One Kindle for all my Titanic/Ocean Liner books; another with all my Nursing books; and another ten or so for all my OTHER collections of reads. I see lots of potential…

It started out innocently enough.

A friend of our family invited my daughters, who were very young at the time, over to her place to help bake Christmas cookies for the local homeless shelter. Helping out with charities was always something we did every holiday- we took time off from our own celebrating to help others less fortunate. Each year a member of my group of friends would take the lead for this and invite all the youngins’ over to help.

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How much neglect can the human spirit endure before it’s too late to save it?

A lot.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Toddlers rescued from orphanages and placed in good foster homes score dramatically higher on IQ tests years later than children who were left behind, concludes a one-of-a-kind project in Romania that has profound implications for child welfare around the globe.

The boost meant the difference between borderline retardation and average intelligence for some youngsters.

Most important, children removed from orphanages before age 2 had the biggest improvement - key new evidence of a sensitive period for brain development, according to the U.S. team that conducted the research.

This is about very young children and babies. But the same can be said for older adults as well. I know of no studies that speak to it, but I know from personal and professional experience that very old, frail and even demented people can thrive when given some attention.

Several months ago my brother and his wife placed her mother in a local nursing home. Marion has Alzheimer’s disease. She was DX with this three years ago and currently she is in the mid stages of this dreaded disease. Marion still recognizes herself, and she is capable of doing a lot of her own things. The problems she faces surround short term forgetfulness which leads to unsafe behavior and activity. Marion is able to swallow her medications, but she forgets when to take them, or she forgets that she already took them…She is able to boil an egg, but forgets to turn the stove off…she also forgets what time period she is in- she constantly seeks her little children who never come home…this causes her to panic and get very upset.

For many reasons my brother and his wife could not take Marion into their home. I’m not impressed with the reasons and excuses, and it’s caused some discontent between us all. We’re grown ups though and can get over this. They chose to place Marion in a nursing home, a good one, near their home town…visits were only minutes away. He did most of the work on my house last September, and part of a deal we made was for me to oversee Marion’s care at the nursing home. It’s been a rough ride.

At first Marion had to adjust to life in a place where her personal habits were no longer important. Her identity and soul got lost among the many needs of other residents (who also faced the same problems and issues). While she was able to adapt to the physical surroundings, she never quite fit in with the overall environment of the nursing home. She wandered a lot, looking for her lost children…she became more and more confused as different staff worked with her day in and day out. Mind you, I was there every day except weekends. I went to visit her at different meals- to spend time with her and to assess her progress or decline as it turned out to be.

When I was there, she never had accidental voids…and up until the last few weeks she was feeding herself. The staff were great but extremely overworked and burdened. The aides loved it when I came by because I would help them. The nurses were grateful to have an extra set of eyes in the dining rooms at mealtimes. Of course management wasn’t overly impressed with ME, simply because I held them to account when things weren’t right. Short staffing, cold food and missing supplies irked me to no end and the DON/Administrator heard about it.

I assisted Marion with her meals and became fond of some of the other residents, who gravitated to our table.

It became a fun time. Instead of just sitting there talking about the weather, we would use these moments for an activity. Using my prior experiences from working with people with dementia, I got some books that are designed to open up discussions- as silly as it sounds, there are dozens of books written for this purpose…trivia from the old days; little stories about life in the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s and so on…Marion was a homemaker, so some of these discussions were right up her alley. One of our table mates, Thomas, was a Judge. He really loved our discussions that came from stories in books called You Be The Judge. Another thing we did was cook the meals; up until late October we grilled burgers and hot dogs and steaks outside on the patio…Marion and her new “friends” made the salads and desserts. It wasn’t a big deal to spend a few hours each day at the nursing home. In exchange for this I was able to make the lives of a few people a little better, even if they would soon forget. For those hours, these people had rediscovered their spirit and sense of being. They thrived.

The normal daily doings of nursing homes don’t allow for such time from the staff. They have tasks to perform; they have assignments with 10 or 12 residents; they are busting their asses trying to get it all done. Nursing homes have activity professionals whose job is to entertain the residents. More than that, they must write individual activity plans for each resident. Often it is one person responsible for ALL of this. How can one person spend quality time with so many? They can’t…so most activities are delivered to a large group at the same time.

I can’t count the times I have witnessed these large groups in action- where half the residents are slumped over in their wheelchairs, the other half is participating in the Sing-A-Long. Some residents recall the words to the song and others don’t…or, the exercise groups, where again some can do and others cannot. In my mind, nothing is more humiliating than having to sit through and watch others do things you can no longer do; no wonder so many shut down and fall asleep…they can’t get involved- the activity is too far advanced for most with dementia. Large groups draw attention to those who can do, and those who cannot do. But it’s the way of it.

So it went for four months…my almost daily visits turned into fun times for most, and all was as well as can be expected. Until three weeks ago. The nursing home was short staffed; one of the nurses decided to group all the residents in one room, to supervise them all. Marion was placed into a recliner, to prevent her from wandering. This was a restraint and they knew that. She tried to get up and her legs got caught in the reclining apparatus, she fell and broke her hip. So much for good supervision.

From this time on it’s been downhill. Marion had to be bed bound…she could be out of her bed, but that meant someone would have to stay with her since she forgets she shouldn’t walk…it also meant another big risk for another fall. The nurses medicated Marion to the point she was totally out of it, as they say. Under some guise of pain control, they managed to keep her sedated 24 hours a day. She stopped eating. And drinking. She became incontinent. She grew weak and couldn’t move herself around in her bed. What happens to a person who is stuck in a bed, for weeks at a time, with poor nutrition and even worse nursing care? The lack of repositioning and turning led to a bed sore which quickly became infected. That infection spread to her blood…and Marion was suddenly dying.

It happened to fast. As it always does. Everyone gave up hope. No one could see how the environment was the killer here, not the infection. My brother was the last person who saw this for what is was: An institutionally induced series of events that was leading to the death of a woman, who was no where near ready for that. In her normal stage, demented and slightly frail, she could be expected to live another two to three years if not more. But, because of unintentional neglect, she faced a painful and unnecessary death.

What to do? Plead with my brother about taking Marion out of the nursing home and into his home. Nope, he wouldn’t do it. His wife wouldn’t have any part of it…her reasons? She didn’t have the time and patience to care for her own Mother who has Alzheimer’s disease…my SIL didn’t want to see her home wrecked by the intrusion of a human being who might urinate on the plush wall to wall carpeting they just had installed; she might defecate all over the house; she might do this, do that…

Fuck. Babies do that but it’s okay…they outgrow it. Fiction tells us old people face this fate.

Incontinence is NOT a normal thing for elderly people…it is normal for elderly people who are institutionalized however. When you know someone’s routines, you can prevent this from ever being an issue. But it was more than this. Bringing in an old lady into her home was just too inconvenient for my SIL, who lives the good life in a fancy house my brother worked hard to provide for her. The easy solution was the nursing home, even when its cost might be her mothers’ untimely death.

I couldn’t live with it. Knowing Marion was dying, and knowing it wasn’t right, I took my brother aside and told him to let her come stay with me for a few months. To see if she could heal, and get back to where she was prior to her fall. Knowing this would be a sacrifice on my part, he agreed to it. So the other day he removed her from the nursing home, packed her stuff and brought her to my place…it was an interesting ride for them. She was able to tolerate sitting up, in spite of her hip. THAT told me she was definately not on her death bed.

Marion’s been with me for two days now. So far, so good. We have a nice reclining wheelchair for her to use, and she loves an old recliner I have. She’s feeding herself once again; she hasn’t had any episodes of incontinence. She’s been outside in the snow selecting pine branches for wreaths; and tied ribbons for them. Tuesday she was read her last rights. This morning she’s asking for fried eggs and bacon at the local diner- I brought her downtown for breakfast.

Like the little babies in the orphanages, Marion is coming back to life, from the brink. Some people told me to leave well enough alone. That Marion’s time had indeed come. That God was calling her. I don’t do religion, but God did yell at me many times during this past week. He told me to keep advocating for this woman, who had been abandoned by just about everyone. I lost endless hours of sleep and felt great pain knowing another human being was being systematically put to death by the very people who are supposed to keep her alive and care for her.

Time will tell. She could die tomorrow. Or next week…or in two to three yrs…or in ten yrs…no matter what though, she’s alive and thriving right now. It never ceases to amaze me what a little love and attention will do for the human spirit; even the most frail and demented or brain damaged.

Go back through your life…go back to your earliest memories, good and/or bad. Most likely, these memories are full of growing up at home, with your parents and siblings. For most of us, our parents were the center of our lives for upwards of 18 years and for many of us, more than that.

Our parents made many sacrifices on our behalf. Our fathers worked endless hours and some traveled to far off places as part of a career; our mothers may have worked but it seems they were always there for us. We derived a huge sense of comfort from our Mom and from that warm and welcome place we called HOME. Maybe you lived in a house and had a back yard with dogs and lawn chairs and a pool. Perhaps you grew up in a city, living in an apartment with few “amenities” as so many like to call those unneeded perks. Either way, home was where most of us wanted and needed to be. Our families were the center of our universe.

Now try to imagine your parents shipping you off to a facility of sorts, a year round boarding school or whatever. The reason for this was made perfectly clear: You were a burden to your parents and their lifestyle. You were not important enough, and respected enough to have the privilege to stay at HOME. You were sent off not to get a good education (although that might be listed as a benefit). The day to day tasks of raising YOU were just too much of an inconvenience for your folks.

Since when did responsibility become a burden you ask?

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Ahh, the big dinner is upon most folks right about now. (This is a pre published post).

How do you all feel after eating?

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When I was a little girl I remember watching my Mom cook. She always used those old black cast iron pots and pans and skillets. My Grandmah used them as well. I grew up assuming there were no other options and that I would use these heavy clanky pans myself.

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MIA since Thursday afternoon, I’ve been.

And for what? I went hiking. Not just any old hike though…no…a bunch of friends, my daughters and their BF’s embarked the Presidential Traverse up in the White Mountains. An unguided tour…It was freakin awesome.

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I love the rain.

Ever since I was a little kid, I go outside when it’s raining. The heavier, the better. I can still smell the rain too- from those days when I was little and would play for hours at a time…either in the mud pit or out in the woods. The forest- during a rain storm smells different. Mossy. Grassy. Woodsy. Something like it. The fun things to do in the woods included peeling the moss off of rocks and boulders (and putting the green stuff into my pockets to bring home to Mom…); picking up old leaves to see what kinds of bugs lived under them (and putting those into my pockets too, for Mom…) taking the bark off of trees was a lot easier too when they were wet. I remember the birch trees- white peeling sheets that rolled off with ease and little effort. Making forest “stew” out of chunks of wet wood and funky rocks- mixing them with dirt and mud and leaves and twigs. Yummy. If I had a bowl or other container I would make a batch up and attempt to bring it home.

Down the road from the house was a big field with lots of tall dirt pits- that turned into mudslides every time it rained. My favorite place to play during these times. My parents forbade me from doing that- going up those mound of mud- because I might fall into them and be lost forever (so they told me…) but I always snuck up anyway. And I never got smooshed down into the mud either. But I did get dirty as heck- I would slide down the sides of that thing over and over again. It was cold and slimy and wet and I had a great time. All sorts of little creatures lived there too- frogs and toads and water bugs and other insects. They were my friends when no one else was allowed to come out and play. I was a tomboy and then some…getting dirty didn’t bother me in the least. My sneakers and clothes literally turned black everytime it rained.

It was always great fun to walk the trail around the pond too when it was raining. Big maple and oak trees were along the shore of the pond, with huge trunks that hung out over the water. Being wet made for a more fun time swinging on them and jumping into the water…always a dangerous thing for me cause I didn’t know how to swim yet. I did that in an effort to clean up a little before going home for lunch.

My poor mother. No wonder she always had five pairs of sneakers for me and many sets of clothes. No matter how filthy I was, she always welcomed me back home. But I did have to strip down to nakedness and she did spray me off with the yard hose first…she would clean out my fingernails, then she’d wrap me up in a towel and dry me off, bring me in for soup and a sandwich and milk. She would re-braid my hair as I ate and go on and on about what a messy girl I was…then I would get dressed again and run outside to do it all over again. Everytime it rained. Thunder never stopped me. Lightening never stopped me.

At night the lightening used to scare me though. It would wake me up and I would go to my parents bed and snuggle up with them- my Dad always woke up and told me not to worry. It’s weird how it looks so different during the day- lightening- then night.

The ocean is another place I love to be when it rains and storms. The waves are full of anger and strength; the greenish-blue water foams and froths and stirs with incredible force. Crashing, thunderous noises arise with every lightening bolt; it will blind you if you watch it. The lightening seems to come down from the sky and seers the water- which lights up like a million candles.
Huge piles of seaweed make their way to shores, eventually to stuck in some place where there’s not enough water to maintain their life. They dance and whither and move about in strange ways.

It’s much louder at the beach too- these storms. I suppose that’s because there is nothing to buffer the sounds of a violent ocean. The sea gulls don’t seem to fear these storms either as you can always watch them- they dive down into the water looking for and finding fish…and they fly to the beaches and devour their catch. They sing strange songs too during a storm- and one can always hear them over the thunder.

The scent of the ocean is stronger during the rain as well. The salty air can be felt, almost touched. The odor lasts for hours after the rains end.

Rain.
It’s relaxing and calming. It’s been raining most the week up here…and a little while ago it thundered and I just had to go out to play again. I got down into the mud and looked for frogs and toads and bugs and all that- my dog looked with me. I got all dirty and had to shower off when I came in…I hope I never lose my love for the rain.