Losing My Mom to Dementia

          I go to my mom’s twice a week to make sure she is eating lunch and learning that she doesn’t always have breakfast.  I didn’t know how we would introduce her to the idea of taking in a stranger (a companion who would help us watch her) but perhaps the idea may appeal to her if we introduce her as permanent company – so that mom won’t be so bored. 

          Corey is on vacation this week.  My niece leaves the house at six.  I am not certain of her husband’s hours – but do know that he’s not always there – which is understandable.  Ellen and Nate are a newlywed couple and shouldn’t even have to face this dementia challenge while starting out their life together.  But mom had invited them to stay.  And so even though mom has people living with her, she is still often left alone – and actually does get lonely.

          Four to six months ago she didn’t seem to have a problem with it.  Said she preferred it.  Liked being able to spread her wings without her children’s interference.  Now, for the most part, at least into my ears, she has admitted being bored.  To cure that boredom, she often goes shopping – which is fine if somebody drives her – but she is not always coherent enough to even remember where she’s going or how far it may be.

          This Tuesday I was late getting to her house – which wouldn’t have been that big of a deal if Corey had been home.  Actually – mom’s car was there when I arrived, and since she can’t drive it herself, she has allowed Nate to take it.  So he was there.  But he was in the basement.  She thought she was by herself. 

          I had called to tell her I’d be late.  And she waited for me.  I had some errands to run and took her with me.  She was really disoriented.  She hadn’t eaten.  We ate lunch at 12:30.  And we went for a drive.

          She had no idea where we were and kept on asking, “Now where are we going?”  I could have said Mars and she would have continued to ask me.

          She did enjoy the ride for the most part – but my car does seem to make dysfunctional noises – especially when going over a bump or pothole in the road.

          “What was that?” she asked me.

         

          “My car was in an accident a while back, and ever since it has made that noise.  Kind of sounds like I have a body in the trunk,” I joked.

          Great.  The one thing that she remembers.  Every time it made that noise she would ask, “Do you really have a body in the trunk?  Sounds like that body is still back there . . .”

          I had to stop off at the bank.  She had wandered off – Not only did she not know the area, I was afraid she wouldn’t remember how she got there that she was with me.

          After we returned to her house, she opened her mail.  There was an ad from Shopko (a variety store) and she decided that she must go to see what clothes were available. 

          Shopko is not far from her house – and she has walked there.  She has also come out of Shopko and left in a direction that does not lead her home. 

          I HATE leaving her alone.  And because of her comment about Shopko, I pointed to my own blouse and said, “I got this at Wal-Mart.  You have looked at the clothes at Shopko.  I’m pretty sure it will be the same selection as they had last week.  Why don’t I take you to the Wal-Mart near Jenna’s school, and we will just pick her up before I bring you home?”

          In the event that Nate returned while we were gone, I left a note that mom was with me.  She looked with interest at some things and disapproval at others.  She ended up with two blouses – which I don’t think she needs.  But at least I could watch her.

          Picked Jenna up and she was so excited to see her grandma.  And that made my mom feel good – for that moment.  I drove mom home.  She was exhausted and I figured she was too tired to leave the house again.

          On Thursday I arrived early.  She was at the house by herself.  She hadn’t eaten yet and so we had a fast food breakfast.  I should have taken her to a senior day care – she was dead set against the idea four to six months ago.  Perhaps she’d be more receptive to the idea now.

         There have been times when she's asked my two year old niece to go walking with her.  Oh, there's a scary combination.  We've learned to hide Anna's shoes so that we can say to mom that we can't find her shoes and she can't possibly take a walk without them.

          She said she wanted to go for a walk the other day..  I thought she meant around the neighborhood.  She decided that we would go to Sam’s Club.  The road is under construction.  I tried to discourage her from going – but she was determined.  I said the sidewalk was closed.  She said she was aware that the sidewalk was closed and that we could walk in the right lane of the road because “that is what it’s for”

          My eyes bulged as I tried to dissuade her, but struggled on nonetheless so that she wouldn’t be alone.  As we got closer to the store, she asked why we were going to Sam’s Club.  I told her that we were having a walk and that we should have just stayed in her neighborhood.

          “Well, let’s just look around while we are here.”

          As we approached the doors, she found amusement in watching two seniors pointing here and there and asking each other where they had parked.

          “They don’t even know where they parked,” she said.

          I found it ironic that she was seeing humor in a situation that has been part of her life even before the dementia.

          She said she didn’t need a cart.

         

          “That is good,” I said.  “Because whatever you get has to be carried home.”

          “Why?” she asked.  “We drove here.”

          “No.  We did not drive here.  We walked.  And I’m not even wearing decent shoes to walk in.”

          “We walked?”

          We’re not even in the front door yet. 

          At least she felt warn out again.  We both took naps.  I wasn’t happy about leaving her.  But I have to be home when Jenna returns.  And I need to start dinner for Roland. 

          We need to find a trustworthy companion.  Someone who is willing to watch out for her in exchange for room and board and meals.  And if she drives, she’ll have thirty or so restaurants to choose from.  Mom does enjoy going out for lunch. 

I Gave Birth to Anne of Green Gables

          I have given my daughter the nickname Anne Shirley. Jenna does not have red hair, but she does have an overactive imagination and is very theatrical.

          The first homework assignment she brought home for her English class was a list of simple sentences to be rewritten with added reasons.  For example:

The girl cried.  Rewritten: The girl cried because . . . .  Her average classmate may have written:  The girl cried because she was sad.  The girl cried because she couldn’t go outside.  The girl cried because her ice cream was gone.

          But leave it to my Jenna to go on and on with more words than just one sentence.  The girl cried because she couldn’t complete her surprise project because she had run out of red ink before she could finish the fairy-angel’s wings and so she would never be able to give her gift to her mom.

She really does talk that way.  When we remind her to clean up after herself, she is all over the place – “Oh, why do I always have to do everything?  I know you’re just gonna say ‘you have to clean up the front room because most of it is your stuff.’ But not all of it is. It’s not fair.” 

         

Actually I don’t know if the punctuation is accurate as she tends to rattle on without pausing.  A period (.) I guess would indicate a pause.  For the most part she is hard to understand – especially if she is producing tears.

I know where she gets it from.  My mom used to call me Sarah Bernhardt–  whoever that is (or was) and I was perhaps just as thrilled to be called Sarah Bernhardt as Jenna is at being called Anne Shirley.

The difference is that Sarah Bernhardt was an actual person, an actress.  Anne Shirley was invented by Lucy Maud Montgomery (though there was an Anne Shirley, an actress who portrayed Anne of Green Gables in 1934) 

The book has been dramatized on television and in the theatres since 1919 and the character has been played by various actresses including Mary Miles Minter, Toby Tarnow, and Megan Fellows (pictured at the beginning of this post) and has been enjoyed by readers for over a century.

The Amazing Ever-Hair-Style-Changing Hair Band

        Many of us have sat through primary programs that have had participants who would never make it to poster child for illustrating reverence.  Sometimes we laugh at the misfortunes; some roll their eyes and come up with all the answers for how to discipline.  Some parents take it with a grain of salt.  Some are mortified and embarrassed. 

I don’t remember Jenna being so ill mannered in our last ward, but she was making faces during the program last year. This year she displayed her fidgety fingers as she bit her nails (while waiting in line at the pulpit) and fussed over her hair band and seemed to create a different hairstyle with each adjustment. 

The hair band fell off her head as they stood up to perform one of the songs.  She did sing, but frantically looked all around to see where it had gone.  Jenna’s among the tallest girl – if not the tallest – which made it more obvious.

Still not as bad as my brother’s ward – which had a HUGE primary when Kimball and Ellen were four and six.  I don’t know whose brilliant idea it was to put the six four year olds on table tops.  Kimball was quite reverent, but the two next to him were kicking one another and pulling hair (as I recall) elbowing, fist fighting.  

That was my view.  Those three four year olds sitting on the same side as I was.  Most everybody who was on my side saw those two four year olds fighting and missed most of the program.  I actually think that was more irreverent than Jenna’s amazing hair-style-changing head band.

Four more years and Jenna will be in young women’s. Perhaps by then she will learn to keep still.

Working with Swire Coca-Cola

          When was first called to work at Swire, the company was located downtown.  I would take the bus to a stop two or three lights east of where I needed to be and walk the rest of the way.

I was working in the human resources area doing filing. It also became my job to help them pack up and move as they were leaving the downtown area and settling on a neutral location between Salt Lake and Provo and combining their employees into just one building instead of two.   I remember being with them after the move – I think until they were all settled in.  And then my position was through.

I returned to Swire for another assignment – handling and counting money that each of the drivers would bring in from the vending machines. The girl who trained me was really nice. 

It was an easy job – except for the one time when the power went out and we couldn’t even see our hands in front of our faces.  Though it was possible to count each bill, we didn’t know it’s value by touching it.

Brand new building.  Still hadn’t worked out all their bugs.

While working in the money room, Adia informed me of an indefinite position opening in another department.  I was interviewed by the team supervisor and started a new position after a couple of weeks in the money room.

I liked working there.  The work was consistent.  It wasn’t hard at all.  And I caught on quite quickly.  There was a phone on my desk in which I could call people, but it never rang.  I really liked that I didn’t have to answer it.

The department consisted of three primary positions.  One would batch papers (that was usually the job I did) by sorting them into groups of color and paper thickness so that the person scanning them could change the tracking device.  When a new machine was purchased (much later on down the road) the batches didn’t have to be sorted into color and paper weight anymore – just counted.  The new machine was so much easier to work (or so I assumed)

Aside from batching and scanning, there was keying.  Typing in the number to match the one on the document.  Fairly easy, but required accuracy.  It was my least favorite of the three jobs.  I suppose they all got boring.

Ever since DCFS I heard that more and more companies would be going to a paperless system.  It was more believable at Swire than I can ever imagine DCFS would ever (or will ever) be. 

I worked at Swire in 2002 when Coca-Cola products were the only cola products to be sold within the downtown or Olympic participating areas.  There were promotions.  There were incentive programs.  There were a lot of benefits that came with working at Swire.

After a few years with Adecco, I went on with Swire full time.  I worked there until a year before I had Jenna.  I would go back if I lived closer to Draper.  The commute and gas prices just don’t seem to work together right now.  Especially since I’m looking for just part time.

Working Temp Jobs

          I started my temp jobs with Kelly.  I don’t recall any jobs through Kelly that weren’t banquet involved.  What a letdown.  NOT the field I was looking for.  There was one assignment I’d been given to insert flyers and advertisements together. There was a large group of us who got the job done in less than two and a half hours.  We got paid for four.

1

          The only other temp agency I worked for was Adia – which later became Adecco.  The name changed when I was doing secretarial work for DCFS.

          Now there’s a trip.  Working for the state.  Department of Child and Family Services.  Felt more like Dysfunctional Communication for Society.  I really was not at all thrilled about how agents or clients were being treated.

          My “job” was to assist a secretary who evidently had a huge work load.  She was great at training me – but would often send me to other departments as her work load was not as horrific as Adia was led to believe.  I had been told I’d be working for two months?  I can’t remember.  They never told me to stop coming.  And I could actually walk to the location.  I was there for a little over a year.

          Mostly I did filing and copied case loads for adoptions – which is NOT the department I was hired for.  But it was a paycheck.  I was great at my job.  I became a lot more familiar with the copy machine than I would have liked people to know.  I became known as the “copy queen”.

          At first I copied everything exactly how I found it, being certain to return everything back exactly how I found it.  As I got more familiar with what the case loads contained, and all the duplicate copies, and all the fax covers – I must say that I did a complete turnaround on my case copies and was able to “clean up” in the original file.

          One day I was told that they really couldn’t afford to keep me on anymore.  And that was to be expected really – Hey I had already worked at least ten to fourteen months longer than expected date and so it didn’t seem that big of a deal to me.

          I was invited to apply to work on with DCFS directly.  Oh, right.  I saw how their employees were moved from location to location at the drop of a hat.  If I wanted to work downtown Salt Lake, I would apply downtown Salt Lake.  If I wanted to work in Magna, I would apply to the outskirts of where I actually lived.  But I wasn’t going to start a job in Murray so that I could be relocated with less than a full day’s notice.  No thank you.  With the temp agency, I had the option of saying, “sorry, no.  Doesn’t work for me.”

          There were a few other assignments I had with Adia – mostly warehouse work.  I packed auto parts at NAAPA and bycicle safety kits with another company and binder kits with Franklin and NuSkin products with a packaging company. 

          A lot of breakage of machines.  A lot of wasted time.  I didn’t mind the warehouse assembly lines.  I preferred clerical work.  Minus the phones.

          I was called back to DCFS (through Adia) in less than a month after they let me go.  Reception work, answering phones.  Hated that.  I actually don’t like phones all that much.  I find them necessary at times.  But overall I find them very bothersome.

Didn’t do that for long.  They had me as a multi-tasker.  I was given a pager so that I could prioritize who was important and who could wait.  What a trip.  I was a temp with my own show to run.  I was there for another year, I think.  And then they had to let me go again.

          Funny stories about DCFS:  I was writing a letter that needed the approval of the administrator.  He totally misses the point of the letter and harps all over the letterhead (as if I really had anything to do with that) though it was understandable.  

 All the letters that I had sent out, in all that time, had been on the same letterhead.  Two other mayors had been in office since the one listed on the letterhead.  I found amusement in it.

          There was another time I had left DCFS of my own free will.  The state came up with a brilliant plan – state owned buildings would be less costly than privately owned buildings (what a grand concept, huh?) and therefore all state employees would be relocated to state buildings.  Not me.  I still worked for Adia.  Didn’t care for the new location.

          Within a week, the employees were back to the “privately owned” as the state owned building had to be condemned.  Our tax dollars hard at work.  It makes one be proud to be a Utahan.

         

          When I was called to work with DCFS again it was a building located right next door to Adia.  I was there for about three weeks when Adia merged with another temp agency providing them with the new name Adecco. 

As a “secretary” I was making the most money I had ever made in my entire life, and I wasn’t doing a darn thing to earn it.  When I arrived, the girl I worked with had me searching through clip art to create a flyer for an upcoming pizza party.  Seriously? 

I was literally scrounging for work.  Sending out emails.  Nobody was utilizing my skills.  I resorted back to the building I had come from.  Does anybody have any work over there?  They did.  They would send it to me, and I would send it back.  Come on.   I would have just rather just remained in the first building where I had started.

I enjoyed getting to know the agents who actually worked at Adecco and were the ones finding workers to send to locations.  They seemed professional and on the ball.  That was then.

When I tried to rejoin the force just last year, I wondered what it is that is keeping them in business.  Those finding jobs do NOT communicate with one another – certainly not with me.  It was such a hassle just finding the place too.  I think my experiences with Adecco are so in the past.

Overall I did enjoy the temp experience (with last year’s exception) because I did have the option of picking and choosing.  But I wasn’t always thrilled with the commute for some assignments.

Finding My Place at Patrick Dry Goods

          I took the bus downtown to 2^nd south and walked over to 2^nd west from there.

          Patrick Dry Goods had three floors.  On the first floor one could pick out fabric and towels or order them by catalogue.  The second floor carried notions and the third floor carried some baby clothes and socks – mostly through catalogue – but did keep certain brands within the warehouse.

          The elevator used in the building seemed ancient compared to the building itself. It reminded me of the broken (and noisy) elevator in Thoroughly Modern Millie.except the gate pulled down instead of horizonal center.  And there was no dancing.

Mostly items were purchased from name brands and then sold to Ma and Pa stores who couldn’t afford to purchase directly from the name brands as they were unable to meet the minimum amount required.  Patrick’s was like the middle man between the two.

I was hired as a secretary.  My job entailed photographing items, creating catalogue pages, and assisting with the orders.  Secretary was my title, but the job description just sounds so different from what I think of as secretarial.

I liked my boss – though I often wondered how he came to be in that position.  He appeared to have no spine – wasn’t good at making decisions – or perhaps he really did value the opinions of those around him.  I think he included us so that we would make the decisions and he wouldn’t have to.

The first floor and vice president couldn’t seem to keep a secretary – or perhaps he never had one.  Quite opposite from my boss.  He was a control freak.  He had the final say on everything.  Including manipulating my boss – who would let him.

The forms we filled out had three parts.  The white copy to go to the customer, the yellow copy to be filed under the manufacturer ordered from, the pink copy to be filed under the customer whose order we would fill and the blue copy was filed numerically.

I thought it was a very good system.  If for some reason we couldn’t find it under the manufacturer, we could refer to the numerical order or the client.  But that was our department.  I didn’t think our vice president was near as organized – didn’t care for his system at all.  And I told him so.

I actually wouldn’t have said anything at all, except he would rotate me and the secretary from the second floor to do his secretarial work as he was without.  Well, maybe he was without because of his dumb filing system – which I may have accepted except I had my own floor to compare it to.

Everything got filed under the name of the manufacturer.  Everything.  A customer had called to find out where the ordered product was and when to expect it.  He had the receipt number, but did not have the name of the manufacturer – and so the vice president asked me to go through each document filed under the manufacturer until I could find it.

That is when I explained to him how much easier it would have been just to separate all the copies in the first place.  If he had done it like we do upstairs, he could refer to the blue copy or the pink copy in the other file – but it always was his way or no way. 

At my suggestion to separate the copies, he flew off the handle and said if I didn’t like his filing system that I didn’t have to do secretarial work for him anymore.  I didn’t like it and so I returned back upstairs.

Of course, the rest of the week I wondered if I would get fired for speaking my mind – the secretary from the 2^nd floor said she was impressed and wish she would have had the nerve to speak her mind like I did.  Whatever.  I did not do any more secretarial for the vice president.  I stayed on the third floor and sometimes would assist with overflow stock on the forth.

It wasn’t a bad job.  I ended up leaving to work in strip mall mailbox location.  Patrick’s remained strong for another year or so after I quit.  I think Wal-Mart contributed to their downfall. Don’t know what is located there now.  Last time I saw it, the building was vacant.

Insurance Company File Clerk

          After high school I got a job at my dad’s work (an insurance company)  as a file clerk.  It was back in the days where not everyone had a personalized computer.  And the computer that my dad worked on (he was a computer programmer) was one of those ancient wall to wall machines that look along the lines of a horrible sci-fi.

          My job was to pull microfiche, file microfiche, scan documents to be cut and inserted into microfiche, and to cut and insert.  Mostly I pulled or filed.  I rarely ever cut and insert.  I actually may have done it only once.

          We were located in an ancient building which used to be a lodge for the lions (probably at the very moment they were founded) The company outgrew that building and moved to a much nicer location only eight blocks away.  (The first building we were is now some kind of night club or dance hall – or at least last time I checked)

           

          I liked our second location a lot better.  I think we all did.  It was definitely a lot roomier. And I could take walks outside during my breaks without constantly looking over my shoulder as the first location seemed to be in a seedy part of town.

          I left the insurance company to go on my mission. 

          After I returned I did not go back to the insurance company my dad was with.  I continued to do temp jobs (in addition to Snelgroves STILL) and had some assignments that led me back to the world of sorting and filing microfiche.  Unfortunately the girl they picked to be the supervisor had no concept of numerical order nor did she know how to alphabetize. 

It was a very unprofessional atmosphere with a turnover of employees between the ages of 10 and 25 (although very few of them actually seemed mature enough to be 25 – and okay, perhaps 10 is an exaggeration.  Though I actually know more sophisticated 10 years olds than some of the co-workers I had.)

          I worked three assignments at the same company.  I will NEVER go back to it – though I really did enjoy the work itself.  But if I had wanted to hear all the muck and garbage that came out of the employees that were around me, I would have just stayed home and watched Jerry Springer

          My dad was forced to take a medical retirement.  But the insurance company that he’d been with treated him well.  For many years after his death, my mom continued to receive turkey cards and updates.  I thought that was impressive.

          They have since moved their location at least one other time.  Last I heard their most recent location was at the triad center.  And I’m guessing they have done away with the fiche and have a more reliable filing system.

          I have enjoyed office work the most of any job or assignment that I’ve had.  I would think that modern technology has made it even easier.  It’s impractical for me to work full time while Jenna is still in school.  But when I have searched for part time, I have applied for office position (minus reception work or anything that is phone related)