The Splash Zone

Back in 1995, our friend Lisa was getting married in Los Angeles and my sister Noel was the Maid of Honor. So, my sister and her husband packed up their two kids and headed down to LA for a family vacation. I went with them for two reasons: one, Lisa is a friend of mine as well; and two, I do double duty as Sherpa, carrying all of the coats, purses, totes, and whatnot that accompany a young family of 4. It’s actually a pretty cool system: Hank watches over Katy, Noel watches over Lauren, and I carry things. 

There’s a lot of prep that goes in to such a big production of course, so I babysat with the girls (then aged 6 and 4) quite a bit. I love my nieces, however, so it was fine. The wedding was amazing, of course, with a beautiful bride and a loving groom. A night of dancing and celebration followed the ceremony, after which Noel, her family, and I set off to see the sights of the city.

We went to Disney Land, of course, as well as Knotts Berry Farm, The Wax Museum, and various other tourist sites - the most memorable of which was Sea World. Back then they still had the captive orcas, with their star attraction being Shamu. We arrived just moments before the Shamu Show started, so headed right over to the arena to get our seats.

I distinctly remember Noel suggesting that we sit in the Splash Zone, but that we shouldn’t tell the girls what that meant. She was always one for a good practical joke, and this seemed a harmless one. So, we found four good seats down in the front and claimed them before sending Hank off to buy some snacks for everyone. He came back moments later with hamburgers for everyone (mine was a chicken burger) and we all settled down to munch on them while watching the show.

We hadn’t gotten more than two or three bites before Shamu demonstrated exactly what they meant by the term Splash Zone. The amount of water she splashed on us was truly amazing. We were completely soaked in mere seconds! Like, totally drenched. I remember seeing both Kate and Lauren sitting looking like the entire ocean had just been dumped over their heads. They were still holding their hamburgers in their hands except that the bread had been completely dissolved so all they had in their hands was the beef patty with a limp piece of lettuce. Both of them were just stunned, sitting there trying to figure out what had just happened.

Noel took one look at them and just burst out laughing. She was laughing so hard, she could barely breath. Which of course means that I was laughing just as hard (she always has that effect on me). Both of us were trying to mop the girls up a bit, but kept laughing so hard we were almost crying. Hank was trying to rescue our gear and what not (our poor cameras!) and the two girls were still trying to wrap their little brains around the fact that they were completely soaked through.

Katy got so mad, as only Katy can do. She just kept saying “That was not funny.” for the rest of the entire day. “That. Was NOT. Funny.” Which of course just made Noel and I laugh all the harder.

Noel’s little practical joke ended up costing quite a bit of money, actually. They had to buy the girls a complete set of sweatpants because they were shivering from all the water that had been dumped on them!

Totally worth it.

The Cabin By The Creek

There were numerous reasons NOT to go on our monthly Weekend Get-Away.

1. The weather: the weather has been all over the map lately. We’ve had a blizzard with white-out conditions. We’ve had avalanches up in the pass. We’ve had so much rain the town flooded. We’ve had winds gusting over 100 mph causing power outages across the valley. We’ve had icy roads that resemble ice rinks, causing multiple car pileups. All of this within a one-week period.
2. Timing: we are in the process of trying to transition Mother into the assisted living home here in town. She asked to go, but now that she’s moved in, she is not adjusting well at all. We try to have at least one family member go visit her each day, sometimes two or three go and sometimes they go more than once a day. Our hope is that eventually she will settle down, but honestly, I don’t really see that happening.
3. My Health: all this stress has, of course, caused a massive migraine. I barely sleep at night, and throughout the day am just exhausted. I’m taking my meds, but they are not helping. He tries to help but at this point that just makes things worse. On top of that, I feel guilty for having “gotten rid of” my mother, even though I know she asked to be moved.
4. His Health: on top of dealing with my mother he has to deal with his own family issues. His mother is facing terminal cancer, and his father has a mystery malady they are trying to track down. Both issues require his assistance, and both are equally distressing. And of course, there’s his own personal health issues that he has put on the back burner. Those will need to be addressed at some time, and soon!
5. Necessity: in reality, the need for a weekend get-away has basically been negated. The biggest reason we went on all these mini vacations was to get away from the stress of dealing with dementia and to spend time with just the two of us so that we could recharge and handle things back at home better. Now that mom has moved out, our home is so much calmer and is becoming more and more peaceful every day.
6. Transportation: the fuel injection system in his truck conked out on him over a month ago. He had to send the part out to the manufacturer for them to repair it, and we are now waiting on them to send it back so that he can reinstall it. My brother has very generously loaned us the use of his spare truck, for which we are ever so grateful – but there is just a certain bond between a man and his truck that simply cannot be replaced. He knows his truck almost intimately; knows how it handles and what it can do. He does not have that with my brother’s truck, so the drive up and over the pass was a bit more nerve wracking than usual.

There was really only one reason TO go on our monthly Weekend Get-Away.

1. Emotions: We just really wanted to go.

So, Friday morning found us packed and on the road, heading 178 miles South to the little town of Stirling. The cabin we rented was right on the Moose Creek and was just a lovely place. It was clearly built by hand, with odd little corners and uneven flooring – but I could totally see myself growing up in a cabin like that, and Bryan was literally salivating over the creek just outside the back door.

I set up my table for my crafting while he headed off to do some bunny hunting out in the wilderness. I had my movies and snacks nearby while he was well supplied with a thermos of coffee and some moose sausage & cheese to nibble on. All in all, it was a good weekend – and now we have a place to come back to when the reds are running!

Reclaiming Our Home

Now that Mother has moved out, Bryan and I have started to rearrange thigs a bit to make this house our home. 

Just to be clear, we are NOT throwing anything of Mother’s away – we are simply moving it all into her rooms, to be delt with at a later date when she is in her permanent place at the Home. We’ll either move her stuff over to her or sell it at a Garage Sale (the proceeds of which will go into her bank account).

The very first thing we did was to take down the curtain. Mother had placed a curtain across the opening to our “suite” in order to block the “cold breeze” from chilling her as she sat at the dining room table. What this actually did was block all the heat from getting to our side of the house. Not a horrible thing exactly, but I hated that curtain as it was constantly getting me tangled up as I tried to carry things back and forth.

The second thing we did was to turn down the thermostats and let the fire in the wood stove die. She had the house hovering around 80 degrees most of the time, and Bryan & I just died on a daily basis. I have more shorts & tank tops than sweaters now! Since we no longer need to worry about keeping her warm, the house is at a much more comfortable 67 degrees. The cats are not impressed, by the way. They spend their days hugging their heating pad in the bedroom.

This weekend we have begun the process of rearranging the kitchen, making it easier to work in. The pantry still needs attention, but the kitchen is looking good! I had to apply a generous amount of elbow grease to the windowsill: it was in desperate need of the Murphey’s Oil soap. But I think it cleaned up nicely!

We also hung a few pictures up to fill the holes where Mother’s pictures used to be. I finally got my polar bears out, as well as a few other odds & ends.

Next on our list is the bunk room. Bryan is going to turn that room into his office, giving me the space he’s currently occupying to use as a quiet sitting area. I imagine the whole switcharoo will take us a couple months before we can say it’s officially done.

Mother's Transition Into The Pioneer Home

So, Mother’s transition into the Pioneer Home has been a rough one. We expected that, so weren’t completely taken by surprise.

The first room they put her into was a shared room. We knew ahead of time that she would have a roommate, and tried to make sure that Mother understood what that meant. But I guess the reality of it was not what Mother thought it would be: she was not happy. We made it as homey and comfortable as possible for her, but in the end it just did not work. To tell you the truth, her roommate asked to have her removed! Mother has no boundaries, and was being a bit too “helpy”

So she is now in what used to be an office. It’s a bit smaller than the space she had before, it has no closet, and the bathroom is a public one directly across the hall from her. But, and most importantly, she loves it. We again have made it as homey and comfortable as possible (she has her pictures hung - just didn't get a picture of it) and she constantly fusses with things: rearranging and moving things around.

This is still a temporary spot: once the reconstruction work is complete, she will be moved in to an actual single room (with a closet & bathroom all of her own). She will have a bit more space then, and might decide that she wants more of her stuff with her.

The home has a very busy social calendar, with at least two or three events each day. Mother can attend or not, as she chooses. So far, she’s gone to the Gospel Singalong, the Ice Cream Social, and to the Coffee & Donuts thing. She says she enjoys herself, and is making friends. Honestly it’s kind of hard to know if that’s true or not as she does tend to live in her own alternate reality. But at least she is not roaming the halls anymore calling for us to come take her home.

Between the four of us kids, and all the grandchildren & friends of hers, we try to have at least one person check up on her each day. Her mail still comes to me (we opted to not have her mailing address changed, at least for the first few months), so I go over almost every day to hand deliver it to her.

A Christmas Miracle

Each year for Christmas, Bryan goes out to Bells Nursery in Anchorage to get us a Christmas Tree. This year’s tree was a nice 6’ tree that fit just perfectly into the corner of our living room. It did have a slight tilt to it, but we decided that just added character to it. We put it up a couple weeks before The Day and took it down on New Year’s Day – so in all it was up and decorated for a good three weeks.

As we were taking it down, something fell out of it onto the floor: a SNAIL !!!

We assumed it was dead, so threw it into the trash bin and continued with our task of putting all the decorations away for the year. I did, however, send a text to my sister – because she loves snails and has had several of them as pets. She told me that it was most likely still alive and convinced me to rescue it for her.

So, I channeled my mother (who routinely digs through the garbage looking for god knows what) and dove into our trash can. I did eventually manage to find the little guy – and delivered it to Noel in hopes that she was right.

And guess what = she WAS right! It IS alive and doing quite well now, happily rehomed in a small terrarium at my sister’s house. We have decided to name her Belle, in honor of the nursery we got her from.

Funny Things She Says

Mother’s dementia has taken not only her memories but also some of her words from her. To compensate for not knowing the names of things anymore, she comes up with some pretty inventive alternates! Here are a few of them:

• She wanted to make toast so asked if “the tanning machine for food” was working (the toaster)
• The Senior Center was handing out “Crunch Sticks” the other day (granola bars)
• My sister made her some “Sauce Water” for her lunches (broth)
• Bryan cooked some “fish cookies” for dinner the other day (salmon patties)
• The city was out “dirtying the roads” after the snowstorm (sanding the roads)

Update on Mother

I think it’s time for an update on Mother. Her mental health has deteriorated quite rapidly following that bump on the head that she had a while ago. I was warned this might happed by my Uncle, who had just gone through that same scenario with my Aunt. That warning prepared me a little bit, but it’s still very upsetting to witness first-hand. 

Her grasp of time is mostly gone. She is very confused about the darkness and does not believe us when we tell her it’s going to get light again in a couple hours. For her, a couple minutes are like days, so the concept of “hours” is almost unfathomable. Her sleep pattern is so erratic, she’s up for hours in the middle of the night. By the time Bryan get’s up at 4:00 she’s already awake and thinking the world is coming to an end.

We got her this cool clock the other day, in hopes that it will help. We have been pointing at it every time she asks what day or what time it is, and she is learning to look at it herself. The clock came from a non-profit organization in Anchorage that provides technology for assisted living conditions. They also gave us alarms for the front door and the garage door, so we get notified whenever she opens the door. This happens at least once or twice a week, usually around 2:00 in the morning. These items are on loan: She can use them for as long as she needs to, and then we will return them so they can be rehomed to the next person who needs them.

Her dreams are also quite strong. Often times, she’ll wake up (sort of) thinking there is a cat upstairs that needs rescued, or that somebody had called out for her to find them a flashlight. The other day, she got in her car and went to visit “the Bargers”. She told us they live right across the street from the high school. For those of you who don’t know: Barger is her maiden name, and we live right across the street from the high school. So, effectively, she was going to go visit herself. We tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t have it. So instead, Bryan hopped into my car and followed her around until she finally wound her way back to the house. Once we got her settled back down and everyone calm again, he told me that her driving was very erratic, she had not stopped at any stop sign or stop light, and her speed was anything from 5 mph to 75 mph.

After consulting with family members, it was decided that she is no longer allowed to drive at all. We disabled her vehicle and had her license revoked. She is not happy, to say the least. She was so mad at Bryan when he explained what the certified letter from the DMV meant (we did it legally, so she really does not have a license anymore) she actually threatened to shoot him. I am very upset about that, to tell you the truth. That is just NOT acceptable. We had taken her guns away from her years ago, but still = not cool.

In the midst of all this drama, we actually had started the process to get her into the Pioneer Home. As you might recall, this is our second attempt – so this time we’re going about it a little differently. We are telling her rather than asking her. She needs to get in there so she can get the care she needs. Thankfully she is excited about it and wants to go. At least she wants to go during her more lucid moments. In her not-so-lucid moments, she’s all over the map. She told Bryan this morning that she has to move because they took her license away from her.

There is a lot of paperwork involved. Kelly and I have been slogging our way though it together, with help from Bryan and the rest of the family. Lots of doctor appointments and visits to the lawyer looking for her will. It’s all very overwhelming at times.

But – we finally got through it all and turned in the stack of paperwork, and we now have an actual date for her move! She will become a resident of The Pioneer Home on Thursday, January 9^th!!!

She will be placed in a shared room on a temporary basis but will be moved into a single room once some reconstruction work is complete. That could be as much as four months from now, but at least she will be in the home and taken care of by people who know what they are doing. I have asked if we can go look at her space on Monday so that we have a better idea of what she can bring with her – but I have not yet heard back from them.

These are all very big, life-changing events that are scary and difficult to comprehend in the best of times. Mother is doing the best she can to deal with all the emotions that come bubbling up. If you have any prayers to spare, you might send them to us!