This is a journal of events that my mother has been going through since 1989 and leading to her eventual stay in a nursing home. In order to keep each part of the journal I have been keeping over the last half year brief, I will post this journal in parts, as I entered them. All of these postings can be found in the folder in the sidebar called Hannah's Journey.
----07/28/2008 - It has been quite a while since I added anything more to this journal as there is really no large change in my mother's condition. She continues to live at a nursing home that is subsidized by the government. One amazing fact is that Medicaid is supposed to take over her retirement and social security money as help toward her care. Since she has been in this permanent facility, that paperwork has yet to go through. I continue to save her income as i know they will eventually want it from May of 2008 and I continue to pay her medical insurance that she has always had. I can't imagine what takes so long for these things. I will make more inquires this week as I am sure it is hung up somewhere along the way. It is not a huge deal as her income is being saved but I would just like to have it cleared up so that there is no mistaken time lag of who pays for what.
Hannah's condition continues to physically good but her mind has it's good and bad days. So far, she does recognize her family members, but not really anyone else and it even takes her a few moments to remember our names. For a period of about one month, they tried a new medication for Alzheimer's and it made her very angry, especially to the people caring for her. On a couple of occasions, my mother spoke language that we did not even know she knew and she frightened some of the family to not go back and see her again. I spoke to her doctor and the nurses did as well and they discontinued her on that med and she greatly improved, as far as her personality. Now she is almost herself and the family is visiting regularly again.
It is a VERY hard thing for all of us to do to go and visit her. We just MAKE ourselves go because we know we need to but the place is so very depressing! It's not the facility, as they keep it clean and the patients seem well cared for, but it is seeing and knowing that there are just hundreds of thousands of elderly people all over the country that are just sitting and staring and seemingly waiting to die..... it leave me speechless to even comment on what is occurring now and what hopes or hopelessness we all face in our futures. If we end up being physically in great shape, will our minds be there to enable us to have productive and happy lives.... or will be fail in physical health and not reach the age we all want to???
Here is hope that medical research will keep our minds in good health while we struggle to keep our bodies in good shape.
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