Mental Sticky Notes

You know, every day when I observe something new or odd or amusing, I make a mental note to include it in this blog. However, the day ends and I have not had or taken time to enter anything here. A week or more goes by and here I sit trying to gather up all of those mental sticky notes I've made to try to assemble them in some form. Then I realize that I have misplaced a few of them or they are underneath a lot of other mental sticky notes about a lot of other stuff, so I capture what I can.

More and more Mom is reminding of the stories I have heard about Grandma Ashely. Mom is sure that someone is taking things from her room and spends a great deal of time in there rearranging and relocating things - hiding stuff under her clothes in drawers. This week she told Janice that someone was taking her shoes. Last Sunday, Mom pulled out the drawers of her large jewelry chest one by one and we sat talking about all of her pieces - junk beads, plastic necklaces and a few pieces of better jewelry that I silently confiscated so that it did not end up in a Ziploc bag in the trash. (I have recovered a few of those already.) On another day, Mom got out a number of different silly hats and head wear and modeled them for Janice. Last night after church and IHOP, Mom sat at the kitchen table and went through all of her pendant necklaces - most with butterflies now - and arranged them to hand on her arm so that they would jingle together. Earlier in the week, she wore a pendant necklace that had a stone in the middle of it that was green emerald like on one side and a brown quartz look on the other. It was connected at the top and bottom of a gold circle so it could be turned and worn either way. I walked in on her in the kitchen with the scissors in one hand and the stone in the other - she had snipped the connection at both the top and the bottom of the stone in an effort to get the necklace off of her neck. I unclasped the necklace for her and tried to humor her about the new design. Mom didn't quite get it all but handed me the necklace saying "it's yours now" and walked away.

Yesterday, Mom just could not capture my name! When she thought about it, she came up with Joe's but I was "HEY"! We joked about it at dinner and she still could not remember. When I quizzed her about her name, Joe's name, how many daughters she had, their names, how many sons, how many sisters and brothers, etc.. I got "Joe" 3, Deena, none, I have no idea".

Mom is still sleeping on top of the covers and told Janice she was mad at me because I asked her about it. I try to solve mysteries and monitor behaviors, like why are there clothes in hamper that smell strong of urine, but I have not seen her wear them? Where is all of her underwear disappearing to? Did she use soap in the shower when I walked out of the room or just get the soap wet? Why did she go to a totally different cupboard on the other side of the kitchen and get one of the china bowls for her ice cream? Why is she drinking only a half cup of coffee at a time? Why does she pick at her skin/scabs and have to have band-aids everywhere? My family jokes about what I carry in my purse, but I have put band-aids on her in the middle of church, dabbed the TIDE pen on strawberry stains, trimmed her nails in the car before church, given her Tylenol with dinner out and used the wet wipes on her sticky hands and soiled clothing.

These are all of the mental sticky notes I could retrieve for now - which begs another question: Is this forgetfulness and scattered thinking an early sign of dementia? Gotta wonder!