Click here to read all the posts in this series.
My mother is 91 years old, almost completely blind from macular degeneration, suffers from significant hearing loss and during the year 2012, was diagnosed with dementia. She is still very social, has retained much of her fine sense of humor and tries her best to reach out to others. She is often totally confused, especially about time and space – what day is it, how long ago did that happen, where are my family members? In January of 2013, we will move her from her retirement community in LaVerne CA (140 miles south of here) where she has been a member of the Hillcrest Retirement Community for the past 10 years, the last of those years in an assisted living apartment. The nurses who care for her there have recommended that she be moved to a unit with more restrictions, and together, she and I decided to move her up here to Santa Barbara. This is a big deal for anyone, but especially for someone as frail as she. I have tried to tell small stories about how hard this particular life journey is, both for the person suffering the mental decline and for those who care about them. You can find those posts by clicking on the link above.
