Dana, you've got a lot of good health!

My mom's mom had Alzheimer's for over a decade. It sucked. My grandma's mom had it too, most likely, before they had a name for it. My sibs and I are definitely on the lookout for signs in my mom. Thankfully my mom is a huge reader and gets some exercise; she's also very worried, so she's actively trying to keep her brain healthy.

sj, hope you feel better soon.

Yeah, there's a real grieving process here for Tim and his brothers, because Jack is slowly losing what made him the dad they knew and loved and looked up to for more than 50 years. It's a really cruel disease.

Oh I'm so sorry! Please tell Tim and his brothers they are really in my thoughts. This is exactly what I lived through my my mother.

Every one in pain, I hope it eases soon.

Dementia is cruel.

I'm tired. Overnight staff's mother passed away in the night, so I went in at four thirty in the morning to let her go take care of things. The mother was just brought home from the hospital for hospice care last week... it's always sudden.

Andi - my favorite project manager's father just passed - similar, just moved to hospice care and then gone. He has been unwell for some time as we have had multiple conversations about him, but still, sudden. Much ~ma to everyone.

My mom was just tipping into the early phases of dementia when she passed. This woman used to run the renal care program for Kaiser Northern California, coordinating dialysis and transplant care. Then experienced kidney failure for herself and went through two transplants. After Kaiser, she was the director for a few adult day care centers, specializing in adults with dementia. It seems wrong to say I'm glad she died before the dementia really set in, but if it had to happen, I'm glad she missed dementia.

I heard back from the wheelchair company. They said to buy a new joystick from them, which is $375, but then I should send back the damaged one, and they'll refund the cost of the new one, minus about $30 for processing. I'm not sure why that works that way, but whatever. I'll do it, and hope that the refund gets in before my next credit card statement.

Dana, best of luck with the surgery and recovery.

Dementia can bite me. We cared for my dad, reduced by both Parkinson's and dementia, at home for eight years. He was terrified of "the poorhouse" and nothing could convince him that "the home" was any different. My mom was equally adamant that he not be cared for outside the home, so H and I took shifts. Mom was supposedly his caregiver during the day, but basically she talked to him and fed him lunch. H got up with him at 5AM every morning, bathed him, dressed him, got him in his chair, fed him breakfast, then stripped his bed and washed the sheets, his night clothes and the clothes from the day before. I got home from work, got him out of the chair and to the bed, stripped him, bathed him, got him settled in bed, and then went up to our apartment. The kids occasionally helped me lift him or shift him if I needed help. H worked second shift and was coming home when Dad was waking. H and I didn't see much of each other. For eight years.

Mom was worse than we realized--she was having vivid auditory hallucinations, being argumentative and eventually combative. But it wasn't until she fell, bent her walker, and we couldn't get her up between three of us that we had her hospitalized, and she went from the hospital to a rehab center. While she was there we did a whirlwind tour of local assisted living homes, and found one that was clean, bright, and well-run. She was moved without her input, and soon settled into the routine. She loved it. Everyone thought she was adorable, she had constant attention from the kind and attentive staff, and she was a shameless flirt. It probably was the best year of the last twenty of her life.

But she didn't know us when we walked in the room, and she didn't remember or try to remember her life before the present.

It is what it is, but dementia sucks dead hairy bears, and I will always hate and resent it.

Good lord. My mom just had the appointment with her cardiologist to schedule the surgery. The whole reason the aneurysm was found is that she needs a valve replaced, so she had a CT scan. The cardiologist told her initially that since she's asymptomatic for the valve, she didn't need to have the valve replaced immediately. But then they found the aortic aneurysm, and that needs to be repaired soon, so they're going to go ahead and replace the valve at the same time.

But to do both procedures, they're going to crack her open, which never stops freaking me out. It freaked me out when my dad had quadruple bypass years and years ago and they cracked him open, and it's freaking me out now. That is not fucking around, man.

It'll be the first week of June, then she stays in the hospital for 5-7 days, then 12 weeks of recuperation. She is going to be SO BORED. She never sits still. She'd better get a Netflix subscription or something.

Steph, I can't reassure you about the cracking open thing. I can't even watch phlebotomists poke around for veins. Best I can offer is "hell yeah, you're freaked, me too." All I can do is sit in the freaked corner with you.

Hil - how frustrating about the wheelchair! I am glad that you were able to enjoy your day despite that setback.

Teppy - thank goodness they found that aneurysm!