My Mother Is Losing Her Memory And I Am Losing My Mind: Parenting The Aging Parent

My Mother is Losing Her Memory, and I Am Losing My Mind is a story of a mother?s journey through dementia told through the eyes of her caregiver daughter. Related with compassion and humor, it details the mother?s fight to keep her independence and the family?s decisions to keep her safe. Loss of control of her finances as well as her car is met with anger, and a fall which results in a broken hip and rehabilitation confirms that she cannot live alone. A concession to let her return to live in her own home with a caregiver results in disaster when the caretaker is discovered to have written checks to herself from the mother?s bank account. When moved to an assisted living facility near the daughter?s home, the daughter tries to see that her mother adjusts to her new home; however, the memory of the house she left behind as well as her strong resistance to decisions made by her daughter, sometimes make it difficult. Numerous falls, trips to the ER, the administering of mind numbing prescriptive drugs and loss of the use of her legs are cause for concern, but gradual loss of her short-term memory and hallucinatory experiences are a daily occurance that show a sad decline of a once vital person. When it seems her mother has finally adjusted to the assisted living facility the director tells the daughter that her mother can no longer stay because of her need for more assistance and care. She is only in her new home three weeks when she has a serious fall and head injury, which leads to her death. With improvements in healthcare, more people are living longer, and with it come the effects of age and the decline in brain function. This is a universal story that many can relate to.

• | Author: Kathleen Bjork
• | Publisher: Birch Tree Publications
• | Publication Date: May 25, 2018
• | Number of Pages: 208 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 0999036904
• | ISBN-13: 9780999036907