Emotional Rescue

Therapy dogs. They provide support for cancer patients. Disabled individuals. And certainly those with dementia.

Each week, I bring Max, my eight-month-old rescue lab, to visit my mother. She and the residents at her new memory care home love this puppy. He’s just like them. He rambles the halls with restless energy. His attention span is as short as the commercials that play on the activity room’s TV. He lives in the moment like his new friends. Calendars and clocks are meaningless.

He’s the perfect remedy for dementia, bringing joy to those who are often lonely and discontent.

And now, Mom’s caregiving team has a four-legged addition.

The side effect of this prescription is as healing as its benefits: emotional support for the caregiver. Max delights the staff at the care home, too. And he helps me stay positive.

Stranger Things

My mother was once a social butterfly: artist, writer, a celebrity in her community. Her days were filled with book signings and art exhibits. Then Alzheimer’s, the uninvited guest, snuck in through her mind’s door. Suddenly, she didn’t want to socialize, attend church, go to lunch. Acting as if she were her old self summoned every drop of strength, replacing courage with doubt.

She was a stranger in her own life.

It got worse when she moved to the city where I’ve lived for twenty-five years. This world is filled with stranger things: the care home’s multiethnic staff. Cacti gardens. Javelina.

Like the gradual metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly, her old self is emerging. She’s found a group of ladies to lunch and take walks with. She’s more confident. Engaged.

The actress fades away. Strangers become friends. Today, we’re okay.

Learn more about the vital role of socializing in dementia

 

Back Off

“We suggest you back off for two weeks,” the Memory Care Director advised, when I dropped my mom at her new apartment. “She needs time to settle into her new routine.”

It’s been a week since I’ve seen her. I get daily updates. Meet with the staff frequently. Their reassurance that she’s doing well and has new friends helps.

But I waver between freedom and fear. It’s the closest I’ve been to regaining my life, the furthest from the mother-daughter bond that encircles us like the flourishing vines of bougainvillea in my backyard.

“She keeps talking about the bank owning the house,” said yesterday’s text from the Memory Care director. “I told her not to worry. She thinks that since I’m the attorney, I’ll make sure everything is taken care of.”

I may be distant, but the worries aren’t.