As Mom would say... 'Fuck it!'

You heard me. Or should I say, you should hear her when she's mad! For a woman who use to wash our mouths out with soap for saying the 'd' word, your mother can now throw out the 'f' word and the 'b' word, with abandon. Ask Leland and Paul for examples.

I understand that Friday started out great. But I arrived at 1:30-ish and Mom was fuming mad at Quinn (Mrs. Lawrence brought up the missing photo again, apparently.) She was so mad she sent Mrs. L. away without having lunch. I settled her down, fed her, and got her back to 'good day' status. Then the missing money came up. She swore to me she wasn't moving until she found the money she had lost. Back to 'bad day' status. (I found her counting her coins, trying to come up with enough money to get her Rx filled.) I reminded her I some cash for her downstairs and got her to move on, and, thankfully, Mrs. Leonard arrived. Mom cheered and told Mrs. Leonard about BGT and our lunch Thursday. When Mrs. Leonard asked if she might move in a few weeks or a month, Mom said, ' Oh, sooner.'

There was one more 'bad day' period when the missing photo came up again. (Sorry Quinn.) But the good news is both sore points are now solved. I called Danny and had him bring more cash and a bank envelope. I had a AAA trash bag (similar to the one she'd put the cash in) in my car, so we staged an opportunity for her to find the missing money. The bad news is that it Leland who ended up being the hero of the day. She 'found' the missing money (because I told her where to find it) and she happened upon the missing photo (in the cigar box).

Don't worry about me, I'll just be the unsung hero who kept her calm and nourished, kept her from writing Quinn out of her life, and coming up with the brilliant plan to find the money and go through with the big move. (Gosh my arm hurts from patting myself on the back.)

Have I mentioned that I'm reading a great book on the subject of AD. It's called Learning to Speak Alzheimer's by Joanne Koenig Coste. I've been bringing home lots of library books on the subject. This is the best one I've found. Wrather than going on and on about how the brain is affected by alzheimer's (yawn) and how many more people are diagnosed every year (scary, but yawning anyway), this book gets right to the point about how to see the world through the mind of an alzheimer patient and how to deal with it. Some of the central points of this 'Habilitation' approach would be very helpful for us all to practice:

• Don't try to reason with a person who has lost the ability to reason.
• Follow the patient's logic... enter their sense of reality, or time, or place, and find the joy there (which should be easier now that $ and photo are accounted for).
• Physically remove distracting frustrations (like keys, calendars, remote controls...)
• Don't hesitate to use white lies to keep things manageable. (The only problem here might be that we all need to be on the same page about said white lies. Mom's still with it enough to catch discrepancies.)

It is just a good book for letting you know what to expect and how to deal with it in such a way that Mom will be at ease and have the greatest sense of confidence and dignity for as long as possible. But that's all just my humble opinion, and I'm only the family artist/lunatic, so what do I know.

It's three a.m. I forgot to take my 'put me to sleep' pill that I'm supposed to take at dinner time. Now I'll be sleeping while I'm driving all over tomorrow. Stuart, I'll be trying to call you tomorrow about a bunch of mail that arrived, to see if you want it sent. Paul also wants to know about getting Mom's car registered and titled in his name.

Good night.