Where you focus is what you will find

Why is it I try to assess what Mom remembers and what she has forgotten every time I talk with her?  Is it because like every other family I've ever talked with, I'm hoping to find evidence that I'm wrong?  That all that is going on is normal aging?  This week, our family pets have seemed to be compiled into one.  Lest you think we were a family of animal hoarders and there were too many to remember, in my 50 years, there were 5 cats including the 2 current ones and 2 inherited from me, and 4 dogs, 2 of which lived for 20 years.  My brother noticed the same thing several weeks ago.  One of the cats they inherited from me when I had my first child became our childhood pet during the conversation with my brother.  Or it is that she is not able to remember their names?  She is having trouble with words, the aphasia they talk about with dementia.  She will use descriptions instead of the noun, I think because she can't find the word.  But why do I obsess about what is lost?  No matter if I figure out why, I will still not be able to change what is happening.

I find myself as the daughter, reminding myself to follow the advice of myself the professional.  If I focus on the negative, what she has lost, it won't change the disease.  I know deep down it is dementia.  And like every other family, I desperately hope I'm  wrong.  But if I focus on the negative, I will lose the positive.  And there is the whole reason for this blog in the first place.  No matter what I know after 30 years of professional experience in long term care and working with people with dementia, when it hits home and becomes personal, I am the same as every other family dealing with this illness.  Now I just need to remind myself to focus on the positive.  Focus on what is still there.  Write down what I want to remember for the future, for my kids future.  What you focus on it what you will find.  Let me focus on the positive.

Frustration with "Professional" resources

This fall I decided to change the meeting time of the support group to the evening so that people like me, working children, could attend.  Then I set out to find speakers to talk about local resources.  How disappointing to find that the Area Agency on Aging, local home health providers, pretty much any of the "professional" resources are unwilling to come speak at an evening meeting that is held after business hours.  How inconvenient that there may be people like me out there who work during the day and can't attend a meeting during business hours.  I find it hard to believe that in this day of the service economy, businesses that provide a service are unwilling to go outside the box.

I guess what that means for me and the Caregiver Support group is that it is all the more important for me to know about resources to pass on to others.  On the other hand, it reminds me in my role as an assisted living administrator that I need to be sure families have access to me and any other resources in caring for their loved ones during "off" hours as well as business hours.  As I tell other people, sometimes you learn from examples of what not to do as much as those that you want to emulate.