This is a story about my Mom.
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| Young Ruth, before crutch |
Mom never liked going by her
first name. We kids were careful to instruct people to call her Ruth, her
middle name, and not Mattie. It was kind of a southern thing, anyway, to go by
middle names.
My Mom and I had fun together. I will never forget her taking me to
Interlochen to apply for a job and ending up driving on the sidewalks. They
looked like roads! When we got caught in
major thunderstorms in the car, it was always at Chum’s Corners in Traverse
City.
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| Mom's first and only snowmobile ride. |
It was so much fun to hear her
and her sister Charlene when they got together for overnight visits. They were
like teenaged girls, talking and laughing all night, telling naughty jokes and
just being so silly.
I remember Mom talking to herself
under her breath while doing laundry. It must have been a way to deal with
things. Sometimes she sounded like a tea kettle, hissing away! I am told that
she had a difficult time with menopause. I know that her hip caused her lots of
pain, especially during wet and cold weather.
Then, slowly, she started
changing.
Life stops making
sense when a person has Lewy Body Dementia.
It gets mistakenly
diagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease, or Parkinson’s, or even a psychiatric
disorder. It looks like these diseases in some ways: the person is unable to
care for themselves, they are forgetful. They are old. They don’t move well,
motor skills are diminishing.
Treating DLB with drugs that work well with
Alzheimer’s, particularly sedatives like Ativan, can cause horrible problems. My
Mom had become reclusive and depressed. When my sister went to Mom’s doctor, he
gave her Ativan for Mom to try. The drug triggered a psychotic response from
Mom. In spite of being dependent on a crutch to walk, Mom kicked my sister in
the stomach hard, twice.
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| Family photo with Mom, Dad, me (Lin), Pat, Doug, and Sandy |
It was terrifying
to know that there were physical altercations going on at Mom’s house. It was
no longer a refuge or home. It finally got so bad that my brother took Mom to
his house. It wasn’t long before the issues Mom had become too much for him to
care for.
Mom had auditory hallucinations: Music was in the
walls of the house, and it wouldn’t stop. Someone kept telling her bad news:
The house had burned down, my sister and her son were in trouble, all we
married kids were getting divorces. It never let up. One day, when I was visiting her and playing
cards with her, she looked at me and got a really ugly angry look, and growled
“who are you?” I told her it was me, and she argued and got angrier. I laughed
nervously, and she suddenly knew me again.
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| Calm and happy Mom |
At the nursing home,
Mom was taken off many medicines and had one pill, Aricept, which worked well
with her especially for the sundowner syndrome, the hour when most dementia
patients get restless and angry that they are not in their own homes. She
became more social and enjoyed taking care of a niece who has a disease of the
myelin sheaths that incapacitated her. She had always wanted to be a nurse. She
was a wanderer, though, and that is what led to the fall that eventually ended
her life. She was 82.
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| She didn't like this picture. I love it. |
Some things that
seem typical to DLB: Auditory and/or
visual hallucinations, Periods of fluctuations in attention; Illogical
thinking. Sleep disturbances. One article states: “They often develop
visuaspatial problems and find it hard to navigate or perceive distances, so
that they lose their way in familiar settings or misjudge distances and fall.”
If more families
were to know what to look for in their older family member, if Lewy Body
Dementia was more recognized, it could help to endure the changes they see in their
family member a little better. If the incorrect medicines or treatments are
given, the results can be horrific, the family can be divided by anger and
misunderstanding and fear. There is a little comfort in that it is rarely
genetically transferred. There is no cure, but there is at least a possibility
of understanding things a little better, and finding medication that gives the
elderly patient some peace from the voices.
It is encouraging
that there are breakthroughs being found in diagnosing and treating Alzheimer’s
disease and related dementias. It always seems to come late for some of us, but
please, God, let these breakthroughs be a gift for many others.
A short while
before Mom passed away, while she was at Munson for her fractured shoulder and
other issues that spang from the trauma, my sister and I were in her room when
the nurse came in to check her vitals and give medication. She asked Mom her
name, but Mom didn’t hear her. We repeated the question to her, and she said
clear as day, “ it’s Mattie Ruth.” Sandy and I about fell off our chairs. “What
is your name?” we asked again. “Mattie Ruth.”
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| Newlyweds in the basement house |
Perhaps she was years back, down in Arkansas with her
beloved Grandma and Grandpa Johnson. She was talking about babies, too. Perhaps
she was with her little sister, Shirley, or brother, Bernice (pronounced Bernis)
who both died so very young.
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| Howard, Nina, Charlene, Jim, Betz, and Ruth (Mom) moving up from Arkansas. |
