Caregiving For Dementia

This week’s episode is about being caught between a rock and a hard place with some more decisions about mom. Deciding whether or not to up some of her medication, whether or not to take her to the doctors for the flu shot. I talk about upping a little bit of mama’s medication. There is a pill that Mama has that she can take 3 of these pills per day. If she takes 3 of these pills a day, all she wants to do is sleep. The whole purpose of this pill is for agitation. Now if I up this pill to the 3rd pill per day. All she wants to do is sleep. If she sleeps all day, that means I get no company I get no conversation. I don’t get anything except a zombie. Mama is to the point now where every time she moves she hurts. Now, Mama always did hurt, but she hurt because of a high calcium count, which acts a lot like arthritis. If you’ve had arthritis you know what I mean. So then the question becomes, do we put Mama through the pain of moving around for the flu shot or do we not worry about the flu shot and save Mama som

In this episode, I refer back to several different episodes of caregiving for dementia about changes. If you would like to hear those episodes that I refer to, I put the direct links for downloads in the show notes. And yet in this episode, I bring you yet another change in mom with her dementia in this episode, I discuss a lot about drinking, Mama is forgetting how to drink. And it’s a major turning point because when she forgets to drink altogether. We have lost any way of getting any nourishment to her at all. I also talk about my belief in the fact that I don’t believe the doctors really know where this dementia comes from. They just seem to chalk it up to be an old. The problem that I have with that thought is the fact that you have 85-year-olds that are acting like they’re in their 50s and 60s. And then you have people in their 60s and 50s with dementia like the 85-year-olds. So I don’t believe just being old has anything to do with dementia. Once again in this episode, though I know that mom is not tot

Caregiving for Dementia Mental illness Episode #56 There’s not a whole lot of show notes for this one. This entire episode has been on the most severe form of mental illness. You ask what the most severe form of mental illness? Well, the most severe form of mental illness is suicide. Family has not only been hit by mental illness, but it has also been hit by the most severe form of menta l illness. In this episode, I talk a good deal about suicide, my opinion on suicide, my opinion on life. Suicide is wrong. When you have a society that believes that you come from an ape, you have a society that has no accountability for anything, it does. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I’ll say that again, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Suicide doesn’t fix any problem that you may face in life. It’s not a fix for someone not going out with you, it’s not a fix for money problems, Suicide is not a fix. Death comes fast enough on its own you don’t need to rush it along. Even aft

Caregiving for Dementia A Scared Caregiver Episode # 55 O:55 The Opening 0:56 – 5:40 I’m talking here in this episode about waking up at 3 AM after falling asleep for about a half hour in finding Mama on the floor, because she’s rolling out of bed. I talk a bit about being scared because not only did she roll out of bed and onto the floor, but we found her lying in a pool of blood. You see, she broke her nose when she hit the floor and any time you break your Nose there is a little bit of blood. 5:40 - 6:30 Family wanting to call 911 and our discussion about whether or not we should call 911. 6:30 -7:10 Finding out where all the blood was found on Mama. 7:10 – 8:33 The family is fortunate enough to have a registered nurse in the family that you can call and talk to any time day or night. 8:34 – 9:50 Being panicked getting upset and upsetting the one that your caregiving for . 9:50 – 12:16 Mamas age having a whole lot to do with being worried that anything happens like her falling out of bed could be very fata

Mama, and the day Elvis died Episode # 54 In this episode of : Care Giving for Dementia I share some stories of the summer time as a kid. One of those stories is how I found out that Elvis Presley had died. I have a story of a ride on a car hood. The story of how Mama taught herself how to crochet. As well as some camping stories that we did when I was a kid. When I was a kid you have heroes, people you look up to, people you’d like to be. Well for me one of these people with Elvis Presley. Not only did I like his music but also like quite a few of these movies. I was a huge fan of Elvis ever since I can remember and still are today. In this episode, I tell who told me, where I was at, and what I was doing when I found out that Elvis had died. I have quite a few childhood memories, some good some bad. One of those good stories I tell in this episode is about a car ride my brother took on the hood of a car. When I was coming up, Mama always was making things. Whether it be sewing something together, painting a

1st off, let me assure everyone that Mama is still with us, so that is not the reason why I haven’t put a podcast out in about 5 weeks. We’ve had some devastating changes in mom this past month, but for the most part she’s holding her own. When your child, you don’t think that one day your parents will forget who you are. I don’t know about you but when we were kids. Every once in a while when we were talking to mom about something, she would end up calling the role, in other words, she name off a couple of us kids name instead of the one that she was actually talking to. I didn’t think anything about it, it was just something that happened every once in a while. Looking back on it now, though I wonder if that wasn’t the 1st actual signs of Mama having dementia. I’ve said before the podcast of Mama knew something was wrong, long before any rest of us did, including her doctors. This past month there’s been some devastating changes in mom. I called it devastating changes because there are now times that Mama f

In this episode of caregiving for dementia I talk a little bit about caregiver pressure. Caregiver pressures to pressure that you have as you care for someone with any kind of physical or mental disability. I talk about life pressure and the pressure that you have that you put on yourself as you care for someone else. The pressure builds and comes to where it just explodes and you jump on anybody and everybody that’s around. This was the case I found myself into with my son the other night I jumped all over him for something that he may or may not be able to control. I felt like he didn’t care, wasn’t doing anything to help the problem, was creating more pressure for me. When I leave the house for a few hours I get to feeling like I’m the one that needs to be there to take care of mom. I get the feeling that it’s my responsibility not someone else’s to take care of her. The longer I’m out the board the feeling gets that I’m the one that needs to be home so the pressure and the stress start to build. I don’t a

Losing Spunk Episode # 51 In this episode of Care Giving for Dementia, I talk a little bit about the time I got stuck in Atlanta, Georgia airport when I was 14/15 years old. The trouble I had trying to catch the plane from Atlanta, Georgia the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania just to come home for Christmas one year. And the fact that I would probably still be Atlanta, Georgia if my mother had not been is spunky as she was. You see, Mama was the type of person who just had this look, a look that told you, no matter who you were, that you were going to do, what Mama wanted you to do. I honestly believe that Mama could get the President United States to do what she wanted as well. She just had that look that meant she meant business, and you were not going to change her mind, no matter who you were. I also talk about the fact that this devastating disease called, dementia has taken the person that took on a big airline to get me home for Christmas has changed that person so much that she’s afraid of her own shadow at ti

  I open this episode, with a dedication to Debra Lilly the family member how has pass away this month. Things that you are doing don’t matter a whole lot when it comes to family emergencies. Family emergencies, You can’t plan for they come right out of the blue and what ever you’re working on, no matter what it is or how important it is. You have to set aside in order to take care of the family emergency. When you’re caring for someone It’s pretty much like having another child in the house. They need someone with them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. So when things happen that you need to believe the house, you have to find someone to stay with the one that your caring for. You can’t just pick them up and travel to take care of the emergency or anything else. So we find ourselves in the same situation as we did in episode number 34. Not being able to do things you know you should. I know with Mama with her dementia condition she doesn’t understand what’s going on around her. She’s having trou

Caregiving for dementia Episode # 49 A Dementia Roller Coaster Ride The 1st 11 minutes of this episode is about new equipment that I had to buy for the podcast. In this 1st 11 minutes I talk about a Sony digital recorder as well as the Logitech C920 webca

Care Giving for Dementia Episode # 48 Dementia Music     In this week’s episode of caregiving for dementia, I talk a little bit about the truck, bus, van thing that I’ve been talking a little bit about. The condition of the vehicle a little bit about the costs, but mainly versus putting a shed in the backyard in which is that I think I’m leaning more toward putting the shutout, then the vehicle due to costs. I started to call this episode Elvis Presley and dementia, because of the reaction that we have with Mama and Elvis’s music on an HBO special on Saturday night. The reaction re-received without was totally different than any other kind of music performer that we played before. We have tried playing different kinds of music for Mama, most of which seem to just agitate her. One of these types of music would’ve been our music, such as Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, and Journey. We have also tried though, Ben Crosby, Dean Martin, as well as net King Cole. And the only reaction we seem to be able to get that with anyth

In your teenage years, you don’t always see eye to eye with your parents about your friends. A lot of the time you end up in a big argument with your parents over your friends, because your parents can see things down the road that you can’t. These arguments are especially harsh, when argument is over a boyfriend, girlfriend relationship.             When it dawns on you that mom and dad knew what they were talking about, you are like wow, mom and dad did know what they were talking about. You realize mom and dad’s all this coming.             Years go by and you’re set in your lifestyle. You have your wife and kids. You even have a good career plan and your parents are getting older and a lot of the times, At this stage in life. Your parents can no longer stay by themselves. A lot of the times you don’t have the time for your parents that they need due to your job and family obligations. In this stage of the game you start looking for adult day care centers, nursing homes, and that kind of thing. These kin

Care Giving For Dementia Episode # 46 Personal Appearance When you were a child, you really didn’t care about how your parents looked. However, as you got older, you started day care about how you looked because you started noticing the girls. When I started noticing the opposite sex, I started caring about how I looked in other words I cared how my hair looked, and how my clothes looked. As I grew up, Mama always used to tell me after getting my haircut how good it looked how good I looked. With dementia, you’re not always sure whether or not the person is actually there. However, when you clean yourself up after all winter long looking like Grizzly Adams and you get a reaction from someone who has dementia, you can pretty much. Rest assured that you have not totally lost that person. I guess what I mean by that is, the boy and I cleaned up ourselves. After all winter long. I look like Grizzly Adams and the boys needed to shaving in a haircut as well. He was not quite as bad as I was, but all in all, we both

  Taking care of yourself episode number 45 of caregiving for dementia When your caregiving for someone who has dementia or any other mental disease. You get all wrapped up in taking care of them. That you forget about taking care of yourself. Will this week I was able to get out of the house for about 6 or 7 hours on Saturday to take care of myself recharge my batteries and just to enjoy time to myself. I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed putting it together's episode number 45 of caregiving for dementia.

The dementia wall is a wall that was built by the person who has dementia to help make that person feel safe. Much like the border wall will make the country safer. Dementia isolates the one who has it, so it’s almost like you’re reaching through, over, under, or around what I’m calling a dementia wall when you’re dealing with someone who has dementia. From time to time, it’s hard to get the one who has dementia to cooperate with you. When it’s time for their medication at times, they don’t want to take it. A lot of the times, it’s a pain to do the slightest thing with that person. And for some reason a lot of the times, it’s hard to get them started with a bath. This thing that I’m calling the dementia wall takes away the person’s personality. It’s almost like their a totally different person. Although at times, the personality of the person returns, for short time. When the person personality returns you can actually have a small conversation with that person.

This week’s episode of care giving for dementia is really not about dementia. However, I call it Dementia No Talk because of a couple different reasons. The 1st reason is because the more or the longer this dementia goes, the less talk, we get out of mom. The more jibber her speech becomes. But also because we’ve had a another school shooting here last week and now 17 people no longer have a voice to talk with. This episode is a lot to do with the shooting in schools my opinion on the shooting in schools how to solve it, how not to solve it. So I hope you enjoy this episode of care giving for dementia although it does not have a lot to do with dementia.

Dementia Who Are You? Episode # 42 In this week’s episode of care giving for dementia. I asked the question? Dementia who are you? It’s becoming more and more frequent that Mama asked the question who we are, whenever were talking to her. I also mention in this episode, when we were kids. Mama always used to call the role, and then she would say you know who I’m talking to, you know who I’m talking about. I also mention the fact that Mama seems to be a little bit more scared. And that’s the reason why she’s acting out so often. I also asked the question what’s going to happen to me or Stephanie when we get to be mom’s age. I question whether or not Michael will be there for us if we him. I also use a quote from Cliff Ravenscraft. I don’t need easy I just need worth it. You can find Cliff’s podcast, at https://www.cliffravenscraft.com. I asked you to please go to either www.babymountainradio.com or www.caregivingfordementia.com and leave me a comment. Let me know that you listen, and let me know if the podcast

In this week’s episode of caregiving for dementia. We discuss the good things If there are any, the bad things, and the ugly things about mom having dementia. Some of the good things that we talk about our not knowing whats going on in the world, not happening to fool with the tax man. Some of the bad things we talk about in this episode is the fact that mom not knowing who I am and not knowing who she is. The ugly thing in this episode that we talk about his mom becoming more clingy to me more than anyone else in the house. We hope you enjoy this episode of caregiving for dementia which we call The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

This week’s episode is about being bored even though you’re busy taking care of the one with mental disease. You do get bored even though there are things to do. You don’t always feel like doing them because you’re mentally tired, mentally stressed out, from taking care of the one that your taking care of. The times that you have to yourself is so few and far in between that you just don’t want to do anything. You get tired of doing the same things you always do to keep yourself out of boredom at times. When you’re not sleeping because you either can’t or don’t feel like sleeping your not always able to do a whole lot because the things that you do may or may not cause noise. So you get bored because the things that you normally do. You’re tired of doing, or they make too much noise to do at certain times of the day. You may also get bored because everybody in the house is sleeping at certain times. You don’t always feel like sleeping when everybody else in the house is. You don’t play with the dog because ev

This episode of Care Giving for Dementia is once again going to be a little different. I mentioned to you last week that I would have some things to look forward to in 2018. Some new changes to the podcast that I think will help in the production of the podcast.