Splitting Hairs

One thing I seem to be unable to get used to is that my Mother can no longer style her own hair. It is always neatly combed and put in a nice bun, but it makes her look like a different person when it is pulled back so tightly.

This was one of the last times she did her own hair. It was at her 80th birthday celebration. I know it probably doesn't seem like a big difference, but it's the way she did her hair for more than 40 years. Hey maybe that's why she thinks she is her sister in recent photos! Told you it was all about figuring out the little mysteries.

In the Frame

As I mentioned the other day, we're trying out a digital photo frame for Mom. The jury is still out on it's success as I found it neatly put away in her dresser. It's hard to know if was put away because it was casting shadows at night, or if it was turned off and blank, and therefore a pictureless frame taking up space. I saw some other scary things in her top dresser drawer, like Cheesies of an unknown vintage probably placed there "For Dad because he's not home yet and missed supper."

I certainly do not blame housekeeping for the things I saw in Mom's dresser. Mom can be very short with the staff sometimes if she feels they are invading her space so it's up to family to sort things like this out because we can get away with it. And really a small wardrobe, a dresser and a bed are the only personal space she has. If it were not for potential vermin, I'd say let her keep all the Cheeto's she wants.

Getting Mom dressed everyday is probably an uphill battle. She's gained weight over the past few years and so no longer fits into any of the clothes that she recognizes as her own. We try to buy clothes for her that she would like, but as she previously made almost all of her clothes, we just can't find things that she wants to wear. They are not familiar and therefore do not belong to her. She may not know what happened five minutes ago but she knows that she hates that colour and would never have bought material like that.

Anyway, as my niece and nephew and I visited with Mom last night, we showed her a slide show of family pictures in the digital picture frame. I made a conscious effort not to quiz Mom about who was who - it wasn't a test. But she herself often spoke out the name of the person in the picture and quizzed my niece. So the mystery continues. Mom enjoys the picture frame while we are with her. She does not seem to question the technology. If we can figure out a way to turn the frame off at night so it doesn't cast shadows maybe it will be a success.

Oh, and remember several posts ago I mentioned that I was going to ask Mom who the woman in the death bed scene postcard was? Last night I had the picture with me and totally forgot to ask her. But I'm sure that doesn't mean anything.

Easter

Well, once again, Mom proved herself able to overcome her illness and we were able to have her with us at our Easter family gathering. She seems to be fine physically. I think I was hoping for the same miracle we had at Christmas last year where for two days in a row Mom was bright eyed and happy, enjoying herself immensely at our family gatherings. Easter wasn't quite that because after an hour or two she just really wanted to go home. We understand that it's part of her disease, and in fact has a name - sun downers. Where the person feels anxious and it usually occurs in late afternoon. But it's still tough, because you want her to feel happy and part of the family, when what she really wanted was to find her shoes and go home.

She did have a wonderful conversation with my niece who is teaching in Poland right now and was able to joke and converse brilliantly - better than I could with all the noise and hub bub in the background. In the end she got my niece's name wrong as she passed the phone on, but while that is tough, having your name forgotten, once again at least she's still calling us by family names. She may be confusing who we are, but not that we are someone she loves. That she still has most of the time.

I'm excited to try a new tool in helping Mom. We now have a digital photo frame for her that shows a slide show of family pictures. Tomorrow I'm going to see how that's going and show her some new slide shows I've made. So far she's accepted the technological things we've tried, like her personal DVD player, although when it's not playing she doesn't know what it is and wishes it wasn't there. As soon as you turn it on for her she very much enjoys the home movies and doesn't seem to bothered that now a days you can hold a t.v. on your lap. So here's hoping the changing photo frame will be accepted and enjoyed.