How quickly things change

I really need to start blogging again, especially with how things are going with mom. It is important for me to share my thoughts and feelings. A couple of months ago mom had an appointment at UCONN health center to see Dr. Greenspan to see how things were going with her memory. I asked what she thought it was. She said she did think mom was starting with Alzheimers. Though I knew this was probably the case, it was difficult to hear. It is hard to not have the mom I know here with me. It makes me a little sad and lonely sometimes. It is a difficult thing to deal with answering the same questions over and over and over again without feeling a little crazy. This has been an interesting week. I set up the Christmas decorations and she watched and enjoyed, but I have had to move the lighters and matches to my room. I came home Saturday night from a party to find lots of candles lit on the mantle. The problem was that some of the candles were just on the mantle and not in a candle holder. She lit some that were just on the mantle. The wax was all over the mantle and one of the candles had burned all the way down to the silver piece right against the mantle. I am so thankful I got home when I did. That's one of my struggles. I am afraid to leave her alone for too long. After I told her not to light the candles on the mantle, I come home the next day to find the taper candles on the table lit and the candles in the sconces. The taper candles made me nervous because we have never lit those and they were out in the open where anything could have happened. Thankfully it was ok. I told mom to just use the battery operated tealights that I have. As I was turning them on and off the other night, I noticed that one had a black tip, which means she also tried to light that. So therefore, my room gets more junk added to it, as I confiscated the lighters and matches from as many places as I could find them and hid them in here away from her. It's hard because no one is going through this same thing right now, so it's hard to talk about it because people don't understand. This blog is a bit sporadic and isn't exactly the way I would like to voice my thoughts as I have done in some of my earlier blogs, but I just need to start keeping track of things for myself and maybe for mom and for others that are helping us in this endeavor to keep mom home and healthy for as long as possible. Last year this time, there wasn't this much stress about these things. Things have changed so quickly and sometimes it is difficult to keep my poise. Sometimes mom acts like some of the kids I deal with all day long. Some people just quickly throw out the thought that now I know what it's like to have kids. I don't really like that thought, because this is so different from that. Not in all ways, but in many. You can discipline a child, I can't discipline my mom. The goal is to see a child's behavior improve, but in my case the goal is to try to keep her as stable as possible, but things don't improve, they are getting worse. I have to repeat things so much, I'm learning to deal with that, though some days because I have a class that seems to need that same treatment, it kind of wears me down. With children you could hide matches and things from them, but it's hard to hide them from mom and she wonders why they are not there. She often asks why she can't do some of the things I ask her not to do. She doesn't understand! It's hard to explain and hard to deal with. Things have been a little overwhelming, I know I need to just trust the Lord, it's easy to say, but it's another matter to put feet to those prayers. I just continue to ask God for help and guidance. I need you, Lord. Please help me to rest, nest, and be blessed in You and You alone. Things are too hard without you! Help me. Strengthen me! Guide me! I need you!