Thanks for the comments on my posts. I always try not to be too dark because I have a slightly dark humour. Once I read up on humour and dark humour is a way of dealing with life’s adversities. There is a saying in Portuguese, “Rir para não chorar” – Laugh so you won’t cry. And what is it that Proverbs says, “Laughter is the best medicine”? And there is that laughter therapy where you sit in groups and guffaw. Very strange, but still, if it helps, I’m for it. Speaking of humour, I’m trying to watch funny stuff on Youtube, just for laughs. I watched Absolutely Fabulously episodes and Eddie’s ‘sweetie, darling’ lines always make me chuckle. And I watch a Brazilian comedy show too called Casseta & Planeta. They have a sketch which reveals where Bin Laden is, in Rio, in one of the favelas, married to an indignant wife who is always thumping him over the head with a rolling pin. “Stop that silly terrorist stuff.” Thump.

Well back to mum…Right now, I am deciding whether to continue with mum’s vascular massages or not. If I do decide to continue, I will try to find someone to come to the house and do them as taking mum out in the car is too difficult. As well, the clinic has a high narrow bed which mum finds terrifying. We’re wondering if we can do the massages at home. If you carefully rub her feet upwards as she is lying down, her feet unswell, so if we do this 3 times a day surely that will help? Though at first I thought the massages were doing no good as her feet continued to swell, I now have a different opinion due to the amount of urine. In other words, mum is peeing a lot! We’re using 3 times as many diapers as we were before so it would seem as if the lymph system is working better and sending back the liquid. So now I think the massage is important. The question is how to organize the massaging. And speaking of diapers, I have to go this Saturday and buy them by the bulk. Usually I go every 3 months, this time, it’s a month since I bought the 2 huge packages. She’s using 8 diapers in 24 hours. This is a record!!

Last night, while sleeping, Mum scraped the inside of her leg and today it’s all black and blue with a blood blister. She scraped it on her own foot. Her skin is so tender now that it’s the hardest thing to do to keep her from hurting herself. The aids got very distressed when they saw this. They feel like they’ve done something horribly wrong when the fact is now it’s getting harder and harder to keep Mum’s skin intact. We put Dersane oil on all the time and Venalot creme to help the circulation.

This next week I am going to her geriatrician. I think I won’t take Mum, just use the appointment to ask questions about how to care of Mum – the massages, the skin, the constipation etc. On August 20th we go to the dentist to have mum’s tooth pulled. It’s the tooth that she broke a year ago almost and that the dentist wanted to fix. The geriatrician said not to because of Mum’s Parkinson’s. The position in the dentist chair for any length of time could cause her to aspirate saliva. The geriatrician wrote a letter explaining this to the dentist so I’ll be taking it to him.

I start classes on Monday. Back to the salt mines, as my dad used to say. Hope my students and I like each other!

Mum did another massage today because of her lymph glands that don’t work. Her feet/ankles are still very swollen. I don’t know if these massages are worth it as they cost money and hurt a lot. What to do? I suppose go back to the doctor for him to see the state of her ankles and decide. I’m not going to quit without the doctor’s word because if mum gets erisypela, I’ll get blamed for quitting too soon.

Right now mum’s yelling really loudly, grabbing the aid by the throat and acting crazy. I go and talk to her, but it doesn’t help much and then she grabs me by the throat. We go through this every other day more or less. At other times she’s quite calm. Dementia is a terrible thing!

I have to take for a dentist appointment, which I dread, because the dentist seems to be afraid of her. I think he’s afraid she might faint or something in the chair. And then if mum has one of her crises, well, it’ll be really fun!! Hope it all goes smoothly!

How is summer going for everyone? We’re coming out of the cool dry season (our winter) into the hot dry season which precedes the rains. It’s still cool in the evenings though with lots of wind. It’s kite season and the boys are all outside flying their kites and having kite battles where they cut each other’s strings then chase the floating kite, yelling “tora, tora” (torar = to cut). You have to be really careful when you drive, not that I’m driving yet, because they run out into the street without looking for traffic, with their heads turned upwards following the kite. So far, this year, not one has fallen into our yard though there is one stuck on our TV antenna. When it wrapped itself around the antenna, it was brightly coloured, now it’s bleached white but still flaps away in the wind. I suppose it’ll gradually disintegrate.

At noon, I was eating lunch and mum was groaning loudly, hitting her stomach. I decided to finish eating because if I had to rush to the doctor, I needed a full stomach to think straight. So whilst I was eating I figured we’d give mum medicine for gas and buscopan for cramps and see what happened. Well, she calmed down and went to the bathroom once more. It was still not enough so I’ve had all the fibre meds upped – duphalac and tamarine – plus prunes etc. If she doesn’t go more, she’ll have to have another enema.

She’s doing a lot of urine again. The physiotherapist says that this is what happens when the massage start working.

Mum complained to me today about the massages, not very clearly, but she got the message across that it hurts. She kept squeezing my arm and jabbering away and said, ‘She’s a stinker’, I took that to mean the physiotherapist was mean for hurting her. The helper who takes her says she groans the whole time her ankles are being worked on. The massage is not light and the therapist uses Nivea creme and Venalot-creme.  So I now think the massages are working judging by the amount of urine since yesterday.

So life goes on…Tomorrow I check into the hospital at 10 a.m. for the hand operation.

Right now the firecrackers are already beginning to go off in preparation for the game between Brazil and Holland.

We’re battling away trying to keep mum out of the hospital. I think we’re beginning to lose the battle. It’s depressing!! Last night, mum groaned all night long. It didn’t seem to be pain, so we think it was the neurological groan she has. It’s very distressing and hard to sleep with her groaning. You try to sleep because it apparently isn’t because of pain, but it’s almost impossible to do.

Mum has had 6 sessions of vascular massage to try and get her ankles to unswell. I can’t see much result, but the physiotherapist says she has to keep on doing it to try and avoid more episodes of erysipelas. She’s also not doing much urine anymore, at least not as much as we’d like, even though she is drinking a lot. This, according to the physiotherapist, is also due to the swelling of her ankles. The lymph circulation is kaput. Mum has been going and coming via taxis because I’ve been working. Now that she has to continue with the sessions, I’ll still have to use taxis because I won’t be able to drive because of the operation.

I’m so very tired of seeing my mum slowly fall apart! Like Emily says, we aren’t even eating right, we gulp our food because mum having difficulty eating, choking, refusing to swallow is a distressful sight! You get so you can’t stand it anymore!

Today is my birthday and I’m having a typical caregiver moment, that is, ‘I’m tired’, ‘what’s the point of all this’, ‘I’m losing my life, it’s slipping by, I’m losing opportunities’ and ‘Is this what awaits me in the future?’ I guess ‘we’re born to trouble as the sparks fly upward’.

My operation on my hand has been set for July 7th. Here’s hoping all will go well!

Today we finally got to see mum’s angiologist. He took one look at mum’s swollen ankles and promptly started mumbling about thrombosis, but then he took out his machine and listened to her veins and said no, she doesn’t have thrombosis, her circulation is still quite good. So it looks like she did have erysipela as Emily (my daughter) and I suspected. He wants her to do 10 sessions of lymph gland message to drain her swollen ankles. He referred us to a physiotherapist and I am now trying to get in contact with her to see if she does housecalls. I surely hope so! She’ll be off the health plan, but I figure she is worth it as she is a physiotherapist specifically for vascular problems.

Dona Vilma, our helper who had to be operated on for aneurisms, came by on Friday. She’s doing very well, has a cut on the front part of her head which has had the stitches taken out already. She can’t lift any weight for 60 days so she won’t be coming back soon. She still wants to come back though. Magda seems quite cheerful about keeping on in Dona Vilma’s place. She and her mother, Dona Edna, are the least complaining of any of the helpers so far and always cheerful. Knock on wood.

I am probably going to be operated on July 5th or 7th depending on how I can work out things with the medical plan. I’m already doing the pre-op tests – blood tests, cardiogram etc. I can’t wait to not feel anymore pain and be able to be normal again!!

Tomorrow p.m. is Brazil’s first game in the World Cup so nothing else will be going on. I’m going to take pictures if we have a street party like we had 4 years ago. Our street closed with the traffic and people stopped their pick-ups with sound boxes and with the girls (‘piriguetes’ as Emily calls them) on top of the trucks dancing. If this happens again I’m going to be reporter for a day and post some pics. I do hope Emily doesn’t have to work!!

Mum started talking again! Why, we don’t know, but she’s back speaking! It’s a relief!

She seems to be having another episode of erysipela. We’re giving her antibiotics, liquid, and her leg is no longer hot and just a pink colour, not bright red. We’re setting up an appointment at the angiologist for next week. Mum’s ankles are always swollen so I think part of the recurring erysipela is due to very bad circulation. Also her skin is paper thin and comes off. She had socks on because of the cold and rubbed one foot against the other and off came her skin, bleeding all over the place. Really horrible! She’s taking Cubitan again to help heal up. Her geriatrician said having paper-thin skin is one of the consequence of extreme old age.  There is no longer any fat under the skin.

My helpers are cheerful and friendly and right now want to find a Belladonna plant and make an infusion and bathe mum’s legs. It’ s a local remedy. I don’t know if should let them or not.

Mum has been groaning a lot, and I asked the doctor about it. She said that it is a behavioral symptom of Parkinson Dementia. It goes along with the hand movements that mum already has. She folds and folds the hem of her dresses or any cloth that is around.

The doctor said not to keep asking her what is the matter when she starts groaning, but just to try to gently distract her by showing her a kitten or whatever she likes. She says that Mum is losing speech and it’s a sign of this type of dementia. Her neurons are being burnt out. She will reach the place of not speaking anymore.

The doctor also explained that Parkinsonian Dementia gets worse in steps so that all of a sudden the patient becomes worse whereas in Alzheimer it’s a slow decline. This is true as Mum began groaning on May 9th. She hadn’t done that before.

It’s all very sad especially when I remember that Mum was re-reading the classics of world literature. In 2006 she was reading War and Peace and planning on reading Dostoevsky.

To tell the truth, I’m a bit down today. Even though I could see all this happening with Mum, to hear it explained, had some kind of psychological effect and has made me sad. As well, my hand hurts from carpal tunnel (I am going to try to have the operation in July), and my daughter had her purse grabbed yesterday by a motorcyclist whizzing past. Now we have to get all the documents re-done, ID, driver’s license, etc. etc. as well buy a new cell phone, new MP3 etc.

It never rains, but it pours.

Today I’m just rambling…I was looking at mum today and she is much weaker than a year ago. Even more confused. Sometimes she seems to have lost her capacity to talk, she just says sounds, that seem to be like syllables, but make no sense. She can’t walk anymore. She’s drowsy most of the day. Still, we get her to eat and drink. We don’t let her sleep and sleep as it means she doesn’t get the liquids she needs. So I stir the helpers up and tell them to wake her up and get her going. When I come home I always asked what she’s drunk, how did she eat and so on. She still likes her desserts and never refuses one.

My daughter said to me yesterday or the day before, “It’s sad watching grandma fade away” and it is indeed! And that’s what she’s doing – fading away.  She still occasionally gets irritated with people helping her and she likes to go to the square where there are trees, benches and people, and sit there and watch what is going on. I don’t let myself think too much about what mum was like a number of years ago and how she is now. It’s such a contrast and saddens me that anyone should have to go through this.

And the days go by, with us caring for her, making her desserts, watching how often she goes to the bathroom, getting happy when she finally goes, making sure no bedsores are appearing, watching her fluid intake etc. etc. It’s what we can do for her now.

I’ve been making a lot of gelatin desserts also to get her to have more liquids. I made a cocanut gelatin, very easy. A small bottle of cocanut milk (250 ml), the same size bottle of water, a can of condensed milk, and a package of flavorless gelatin. Beat it all together and let it become firm. Mum likes this dessert and eats it down. She doesn’t like plain gelatin. It has to be fixed up somehow.

She is choking a lot so I’ve set up an appointment with a phonoaudiologist to diagnose how the Parkinson is affecting her muscles in the mouth and throat. We try to do exercises with her to strengthen the tongue and so on, but she’s so confused, they are hard to do and we end up giving up. I’m also trying to find the product Thicken-Up to add to the liquids she drinks.  I don’t know if she’ll like it though – thick juice????

She is also very drowsy and naps all the time. Once in a while she gets riled up about something, usually imaginary, and talks away, gesticulating, and we don’t ever know what the problem is as her speech makes little sense.

The aids are okay but a bit critical of each other. Each one claims to be the best one. Oh dear!