4.
Before Mom went to the upstairs section, it was easy for my three girls to visit with her. She could still have a relatively logical conversation with them, but once she moved upstairs, the pain and hurt was written all over their faces. At least once a month I would take her great-grandchildren to visit her, but it caused havoc with the other residents. They would zone in on the kids – who were only a few months old at the time too – and it would unsettle them terribly. The over-excited grannies wanted to touch the babies' toes and faces and squish them; bent right over the kids, their faces would almost touch the babies'. I felt sorry for both parties involved, the babies and the grannies.
As I walked through the entrance and before I got to the elevator one day a nurse stopped me and told me the residents were all in the common lounge downstairs. I made a right turn and went to see what was going on there. A church group had come to sing to the residents, encouraging them to sing along. I placed myself against the wall behind everyone and watched and listened. The sweetest sound I had heard was echoing off the walls. The old people sang so loudly and every word that escaped their lips they sang with joy in their hearts. They praised God through their singing. Afterwards, my mom was beaming.
‘What a lovely time that was. We sang so much and all the old favourites too. I can’t remember when last I sang so much.’
I just hugged her. For this brief moment, her mind was home and in the present. The happy moment did not last very long, though.
After a few weeks, I arrived to visit her at the normal lunch hour and found Mom lying in bed very drowsy. I sat on the bed once I had woken her up. She mumbled about how tired she was and just wanted to go back to sleep. A nurse entered the room and had to explain to me how the previous evening Mom had been very disorientated and had woken up most of the residents looking for clothing they had supposedly stolen. When they tried to get Mom back into bed, she had become violent and screamed and shouted and had thrown things at everyone and all over the place. I couldn’t believe it. What had triggered her brain to make her go so crazy? I remained with her on the bed and listened to her constant mumbling; she was clearly exhausted. The nurse was concerned that if this behaviour carried on, they would have to move her to the next section. That was what I feared most.
After another week of very much the same behaviour, she got moved to the Flamingo section. I was distraught. I had known one day she would land up there, but I didn't think it would happen so soon. It hadn't even been a year since she had first moved to the home and in such a short period she had already deteriorated so badly. Through no fault of anyone or anything of course, other than the awful, dreaded disease called Alzheimer’s.
If you have seen the movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” you will have an understanding of what it was like in Flamingo. Some residents had resided there for a very long time, years in fact. They got to a point in their lives where they lived in a limbo state. They had no idea of where they were or what they were doing really but simply existed on a day-to-day basis. But let me also add that they were not all this way. There were many residents with whom I loved to converse. They told me wonderful stories (I could not tell how true they were), but they were certainly entertaining, and I wondered why they were there in that final section of the home. It was for the same reason Mom was there. They caused chaos in the evenings and the wandering aspect of Alzheimer’s meant they could be a danger to themselves or the other residents.
In case you are not familiar with this term “The wandering” – it is a term I use for the way Alzheimer's patients wander around aimlessly. You will often find after a meal they will walk around not knowing what they are doing or where or why they are doing it. As the disease progresses, it becomes a natural thing for them to do all day long. It becomes tiring watching them walk endlessly.
Mom got given a room with three other residents in the same state that she was in, but boy, did she complain about the snoring that went on in that room! She could even tell you how each one snored, who snored the loudest and the time that they woke her up (well according to her imaginary clock at any rate).
Somewhere in the midst of all her tangled memories, she knew she was in that section and that she was not going to move again. She was very unhappy the first few weeks, and I tried again to take her out to Chatters as often as I could. Again after a few attempts I stopped.
Mom’s walking gradually got slower and slower, and her sense of balance was failing her too. She would trip or fall over the slightest bump. I would still take her down to the garden on days when the weather was pleasant. She seemed to cope with this but even then she would wonder where we were and would begin to get agitated after a while thinking that she had to get back to the office.
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I would just like to take the time here to mention the staff at Flamingo. If ever you have met the kindest, most caring, warm-hearted, helpful and loving people then you have met the staff at Flamingo. It goes without saying that their job is daunting and very emotionally and mentally exhausting, and yet they have a sense of humour and an ever-ready smile waiting to make your day a little more pleasant. They treated the residents with tender-hearted kindness and were always very informative whenever I enquired about any situation. They carried the minds of the residents that could no longer carry them alone and did so with the utmost love. I am and always will be forever grateful to them for being “moms” to my mom.