Sunday was the nine-month anniversary of my move back to NJ to look over my grandmom.
Here are some statistics:
5377 hours spent with my grandmom
256 days that either my mom or I have watched over her
140 miles I moved from my old home in Maryland
30 weight, in pounds, that I expected to gain. Fortunately, I am somehow in better shape now than when I started.
22 movies I’ve watched to pass the time (I just finished Goodbye, Lenin! It was good-3 stars out of 5).
19 blog posts about my grandmom
9 months since I last worked
7 medications she’s currently taking
6 overnight trips 
5 on a good day, my grandmom’s stage of Alzheimer’s. (Although 6 might be more like it.)
4 hospitalizations
3 falls
2 calls to 9-1-1
1 time when I lost my cool and yelled angrily at her.
I haven’t really given an update on my grandmom in a while, mostly because of the most recent hospitalization.
See, one pattern I have noticed is that, after coming home for the hospital, my grandmom’s mind and body both weaken for about four weeks. That’s long enough for you to think “ok, she has completely lost it.” But then you look at the trend and realize she’ll likely bounce back. So, I held off blogging about her for a while.
July 18 was my grandmom’s most recent release from the hospital.
This time around, I really did think that the end was near. No, not the end of her life, but the end of the time when me being here was a workable option to a difficult situation.
Nana: “When do I have to get up?”
Gary: “You can get up whenever you want.”
Nana: “I don’t understand.”
That conversation, and others, repeated about 25 times per morning for about 3 weeks, made me wonder if it was time to consider other options, like a nursing home. Especially when she could barely walk for about 2 weeks.
My mom was sure that she was just deteriorating too quickly after that hospital visit.
But you have to look at the trends. And, I remembered, she was just like this when she came home from the hospital before.
Sure enough, a month after she’s been home, she is now back to the same base-line physical and mental state that she has established over the nine months that I’ve been here.
So, it continues…
Filed under: alzheimers, Life, Movies, Nana
