Moving in....

Moving in with my mother has been very interesting. After explaining why I felt I should be here, she said that I had my family in Lexington, that she didn't need a baby sitter, that she would be fine, etc. Well, none of these excuses made me leave.

I used every excuse I could to get her to understand that she no longer could live alone.

Her walk is very unsteady and she now needed to use a cane to move about. She really resisted this until she realized it did help and she could get up and go more easily (hopefully without falling).

She would need to take her medicine every day, not just now and then. Also she could not just decide to stop taking any of them without her doctor's approval.

She couldn't live alone because she had been leaving stove burners on and had burned up pans and food. She could have caused either smoke damage or caught the house on fire.

She readily admitted that she needed help with paying her bills. I spent this morning balancing two of the three checkbooks. Both were way off.

She needed to eat more regularly and better. She has lost a lot of weight because she no longer really wants to eat. She said things just don't taste right and she forgets to eat. She eats better and more with someone here to cook and clean up.

There is more but I think you get the idea.

The first three days I was here, she slept around the clock except for meals and bathroom breaks. She is still recovering from a very hard fall outside (in the dark) (where she had no business being anyway) while trying to cover the outside faucets. She complained of a headache (probably a concussion), sore muscles, sore nose and mouth. Well, she had landed directly on her face without being able to get her arms up to break the fall. The fall happened soon after Christmas and she is just now feeling better. She woke yesterday and said her neck had popped and she felt much better. She's seemed to feel better ever since.

She is extremely forgetful. She repeats herself and asks the same questions repeatedly. She gets very frustrated because she can't remember the names of people she is trying to tell me about. This symptom is the scariest for me. It just doesn't seem like my mother.

We have a meeting with the lawyer on Monday to have her sign her will, power of attorney, and other papers. It will be good for me to have the power of attorney because then I can talk with the banks and begin to sign her checks to pay bills. Right now it makes her too nervous to even talk about finances and I just know none of the checkbooks are correct. I have a bill to pay and she couldn't even tell me which bank account to use to write the check .

Some days she seems and looks so frail. Other days she is steadier and wants to go out. I just never know which it will be.

I'll be here until MS's physical therapy is complete (at least six weeks).