L2 - Little Lady, Living Center, and Lemons

Upon reading the title , one might suppose that the sourest of the three topics would be the lemons. But, no, read on.

If you read the blog a couple of days ago, you know that our Mother , who has been under our care for the last three years, has suddently experienced a rapid decline in her dementia. Since, all the professionals feel that we should be checking into professional care, we phoned our friend, Todd, who is the director of the Alzheimers unit at the Golden Living Center in Muncie. We chose Todd, because he was so helpful in caring for brother David, and we already knew Todd, and respected his abilities.

He agreed to give Mother an assessment, so we made an appointment with him this morning.
During the assessment, Mother was unable to answer any of his questions, and he stopped after five. She said she thought that she had been married, but couldn't remember her husband's name. She couldn't tell him her age. He handed her a pen, but she didn't know what it was called or what you did with it. He handed her scissors, and all she say was that they were pretty.
That's pretty much the way it is. Todd says that she is pretty far down on the assessment scale.
They have a nice room available. I know it is something that must be done, but I simply can't imagine leaving the little lady abandoned to what to her are strangers. Even though she has visited the center with us ever since Dave has been there, and she really thinks it is a nice place, it is going to be heartbreaking! Don has made the decision, I still can't.

But how about the lemons? We decided that this day just had to end on a happy note. So we drove to Madewell's and bought nice big lemon ice cream in waffle cones! It made us all feel better. When Don went to get the car and pick up Mother and I at the door, as usual she became agitated because he was out of sight. She kept asking where he was, did he forget us, and finally she said, "Do he know where she are?" Like I've said, nothing comes out quite right.

Then we came home and enjoyed a lovely evening on the porch. God bless the lower humidity!