Weird Things in an Alzheimers Life

Hoping to be able to give me a break, my sister offered to take mom home with her for a week.  The first few days didn't seem bad - no panic phone calls, nothing that would have worried me. We called to check and everything seemed fine. I was enjoying the little break and got busy cleaning mom's apartment and taking away things I knew she'd never use. And that she'd never notice were missing. That's another thing. She wouldn't let you throw anything away, even if it was broken or torn. So without her there, I could get some of that dealt with.

On the fourth day I got a call that set my alarm bells ringing. My sister called to say she'd taken away mom's lighter and her smokes. I could understand not leaving a person in mom's situation alone with something like that; what I couldn't understand was why she had to do it if she was with mom, and if she wasn't, then why was mom alone? She shouldn't be alone - wasn't capable by then of staying alone. My impression was that she'd taken the week off work, but she hadn't. She had been going to work every day, and mom was alone during the day.

I'm not sure whether she just didn't want to face the fact that mom couldn't be left alone anymore, or that she really didn't understand that mom simply couldn't be alone. People in mom's condition aren't always like that of course - there are times when they seem perfectly normal, but the further into the disease you get, the less the normal times appear. Mom had moments, maybe an hour at a time, where strangers could chat with her, and never know there was anything wrong. Responses would seem normal,  and so would her behaviour.

Well, mom being mom wasn't  very happy without her "smokes". The one thing she hadn't forgotten was smoking. And she liked her smokes. The first few days, she didn't have any smokes, but she still had her lighter. On the third day, she'd set fire to a cork coaster in the house. My sister thinks she was trying to smoke it. Personally, I think she did it on purpose, to make a statement I guess. Although she could have burned the entire house down with herself in it (and that wasn't funny), when I hung up the phone I laughed until tears streamed down my face, picturing mom with a triumphant smile on her face as the coaster flamed and the burning cork stunk up the entire house.

There were many times when I'd see the spark of knowledge and awareness in her eyes and face, and realize she was having a "normal" moment. It's hard not to tell yourself that it will last. Very hard. In some ways, it was good that it didn't last for long periods of time - good for her, I mean. During those moments when she was aware, she knew  what was happening to her, and she was horrified. As anyone would be.

Sometimes I wondered if I wished for her to be normal because I wanted her to have her life back, or if it was just because I didn't want to have to do it anymore. Any of it.