Tough Conversations

It’s a beautiful morning, warm and breezy but not hot. Yet. 

Alene was up at 7:30 and seemed quite refreshed and alert.  She’s still limping quite a bit and favoring her left knee. I forgot to mention in earlier posts that she fell about an hour after I arrived on Sunday. She fell on her knee and it’s been swollen and sore since then. She says it’s getting better but the limp is still pretty prominent. 

I attempted to have a conversation with her about what she thinks Abbey should do when she can’t care for her anymore. We talked about her dementia and how she’s declining. She didn’t disagree. She wants Abbey to shoot her. I said you know she won’t do that; she said I know, I’m going to shoot myself. She says she still has a gun and she does have a pistol, but the firing pin has been removed (she doesn’t know that though).

I asked her to pretend she didn’t have a gun. At what point should she go into a facility. She said she never wants to go but she doesn’t want to be a burden on Abbey. She said “ I can take care of myself and I still do so many things for everyone around the house”. I asked “like what?”.  She said she does all of the laundry and ironing. “Nothing would get ironed if I didn’t do it”. I said she was probably right. However, Alene irons practically EVERYTHING and always has. I’m pretty sure the rest of the household wouldn’t be ironing. I haven’t ironed anything in years! 

She also said she cleans things her way (like windows and blinds) and all she’s trying to do is make it easier on Abbey, who’s a school teacher in Douglas County. She said she doesn’t always feel appreciated for what she does. I know she does try, but the dirty dishes go back in the cupboard much of the time, the stove gets left on and the family spends literally hours looking for lost items last in Alene’s possession. 

She did tell me that going into “a home” would completely deplete her savings. She knows this because she spent a month or two last fall looking into places and making calls. I’ll check with Abbey but I don’t believe this to be true.  I don’t think she’s capable of focusing long enough on a project like that.  She loses focus so very quickly even doing the most mundane and repetitive tasks.

She will likely need to go into a facility at some point, but she won’t go without a fight.

We stopped the talk because she was getting very frustrated with me - and the topic.